Photo credit - Nicolas Patault
Today, after releasing their album Gangbusters Melody Club (Le Plan Recordings), the Parisian trio Caravan Palace announced their 24-date North American tour supporting the album. Live, the band expands to a 6-piece performance force, with dates starting on March 14th in Mexico City, going through the West Coast, Texas, East Coast, and ending on April 17th in Miami, Florida. General on-sale tickets starts Friday, October 11th @ 10am EST here. Earlier, on October 9th @ 10am EST there’s the artist presale, on Thursday October 10, at 10am EST there will be Spotify and local presales.
The platinum-selling group, initially formed to score a vintage silent erotic film for French TV, now delivered a layered album; on the surface, it is a sample-centric, frisky disco tune about the joys of dancing, but dig deeper into its hypnotic mix of soul, swing, freaky funk, & French Touch, and you'll find a complex, yet inspiring, narrative about jealousy, self-acceptance, and confidence. The title Gangbusters Melody Club refers both to a radio broadcast that began in the 1930s and the outdated expression it inspired to imply that something is exciting – going gangbusters. “It’s funny and vintage, which sums us up,” says Charles. “Plus, we love the word Club in that context - it evokes a secret society.”
Throughout their career, Caravan Palace consistently defies musical conventions and genres, forging their unclassifiable, hybrid pop signature sound. Embraced by multiple communities (dancers, gymnasts, gamers, video animators...) who adopt their tracks and turn them into viral hits, the group has achieved enormous success, accumulating several billion streams across all platforms as well as an RIAA Platinum Certified Single with “Lone Digger". Their idiosyncratic soundscapes achieve the rare feat of being both unique and commercial.
Gangbusters Melody Club, their fifth album is a joyous jigsaw puzzle of an album and their most dancefloor-friendly to date. The band aimed to stay streamlined, yet the trio packed more influences than ever before into their elegant earworm songs. The jazz and swing for which they became famous over a decade ago is back with a bang, alongside their love of French House and electronica.
As ever, the album began in their separate studios, Arnaud de Bosredon and Charles Delaporte sharing snippets of music, before coming together to create instrumentals which, together with singer Colotis Zoe, inspire their mysterious, frequently wrong-footing lyrics. “Five albums in, you think making our songs should get easier, but it’s harder work,” says Arnaud. “I blame getting older. When you are a teenager, you can be moved by a specific harmony or melody because it’s the first time you hear it. Over time, sounds become less fresh. We want to make pop music that’s always different, but not let it become too complicated”. “So we set out to deconstruct everything,” adds Charles. “The result was we liberated ourselves.”
Their song “Wonderland” was one of the first songs to blow up on TikTok with over 5 billion views in the summer of 2018. Their animated videos inspired thousands of animators to launch collective memes on YouTube, and already their fans have gone wild for Gangbusters Melody Club. Lead single “MAD”, a Prohibition-era dive into jive, jazz, boisterous hip hop, and sleazy electronica shot through with a sense of humor, garnered two million TikTok views in its first 24 hours. Its disturbing, cartoon cockroach-led video has been one of the hits of the year on YouTube. “They are pretty nice cockroaches,” laughs Arnaud. “When the director first mentioned roaches, we weren’t sure. Like everybody, we don’t have good relations with them. But now we’ve seen the softer, sweeter side of a cockroach.”
The follow-up to 2019’s adored Chronologic is largely jazz, from Duke Ellington to The Four Freshmen, an American jazz vocal quartet from the ’50s, whom Caravan Palace recently discovered and who inspired the sublime, sensual, sweary “Spirits”. Another album highlight, “Fool”, is a heavenly soul-meets-future bass-meets-jazz track based around an obscure 1969 Ella Washington sample that propels the trio into entirely new territory. “The vocal is from a sad, high-pitched blues song called “Doing The Best I Can”. Although the track was never a hit, as soon as we heard Ella’s vocal we knew we wanted to use it somehow. We adore it.” says Charles.
A great starting point to discover their universe, Gangbusters Melody Club is also the culmination of a journey where the early fans and the more recent ones can come together. Always joyously evading classification, the music of Caravan Palace is universal and endearing. A reflection of a band whose originality remains its greatest strength.
Caravan Palace on tour:
Fri 3.14 - Mexico City, MEX @ Auditorio BB
Sat 3.15 - Guadalajara, MEX @ Guanamor Teatro Estudio
Wed 3.19 - Dallas, TX @ The Echo
Fri 3.21 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
Sat 3.22 - San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
Mon 3.24 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Novo
Tue 3.25 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fox Theatre
Thu 3.27 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
Fri 3.28 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox SODO
Sat 3.29 - Vancouver, BC @ Vogue
Mon 3.31 - Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
Tue 4.1 - Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom
Thu 4.3 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
Fri 4.4 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
Sat 4.5 - Detroit, MI @ St Andrew's Hall
Mon 4.7 - Toronto, ONT @ The Phoenix Concert Theatre
Tue 4.8 - Montreal, QUE @ L'Olympia
Thu 4.10 - Boston, MA @ Royale
Fri 4.11 - New York, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
Sat 4.12 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
Sun 4.13 - Washington DC @ 9:30 Club
Tue 4.15 - Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theater
Wed 4.16 - Orlando, FL @ House of Blues
Thu 4.17 - Miami, FL @ Revolution https://www.caravanpalace.com/
http://www.caravanpalace.com/tour
https://www.instagram.com/caravanpalace
https://www.tiktok.com/@caravanpalaceofficial
https://twitter.com/caravanpalace
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