New York trio Sunflower Bean — vocalist and bassist Julia Cumming (she/her), guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen (he/him), and drummer Olive Faber (she/her) — will release their new EP, SHAKE, on September 27th. The band’s first fully self-produced and recorded project, SHAKE features some of Sunflower Bean’s heaviest, most immediate, and loudest music to date. Influenced by the doom-laden, heavy metal sound of Black Sabbath the EP is an embrace of rock tropes and excess, and recalls the sonic of the band’s earliest work, Show Me Your Seven Secrets and Human Ceremony.
“SHAKE was inspired by our first years as a DIY band, the spirit that birthed us and gave us the chance to have this enduring journey together,” Sunflower Bean explain of the EP. “We wrote, recorded, engineered, and produced these songs so nothing was filtered through anyone else’s idea of us. We always felt like rock and roll was a feeling, not a sound. But sometimes there is no subverting it or explaining it. We’re now offering it exactly as it occurred to us.”
SHAKE is Sunflower Bean raw and unfiltered, in the band’s most natural state. To further that theme, the band will release a 14-minute performance based video to showcase each track via an interpretation of the natural elements: earth, wind, water, fire, and metal. To achieve this, Sunflower Bean worked with Isaac Roberts, a young, rising director from Toronto. The band shares the first chapter ‘earth’ today with the video for title track and lead single “Shake” – watch the video below.
Sunflower Bean will also celebrate SHAKE with four US club show underplays in NYC, LA, Chicago and Austin where they will showcase both the EP and further new music. All dates and tickets on their website.
