The Brooklyn-based quartet Zula have been playing around the local DIY circuit for ages now, and this Friday they’ll release a new LP titled Grasshopper. What impresses me most about a band like Zula is their unwillingness to abide by any particular genre conventions. Their points of inspiration come from so many different musical styles and places, that their sound really does imitate the place it was born of. Henry and Nate Terepka told us a bit about the thought process that wrought Grasshopper:

We find ourselves writing about suspended states, hoping to create in each song some kind of hypnotic ritual that can reframe or illuminate the passage of time. We’re passionate music lovers who embrace our influences but strive for a less literal, more sublimated take on the NYC art-rock and post-punk traditions that influence us. We speak from a comfortable and uneasy middle, enjoying the pleasures of our world while filled with anxiety about inequality, decline, and the illusion of stability. We hope we can build connections to our world, where we feel lucky to have been born into privilege that comes from the hardships of others. Grasshopper lives in that ambivalent, contradictory space – grateful and ecstatic, yet anxious and full of a bittersweet sense of loss for the suffering of our loved ones, neighbors, and planet.

There’s a lot to parse on this album; listen below.

Grasshopper is out 8/26 via Inflated. Pre-order it here.

CREDIT: Alicia Walter