News

L.A. Salami shares new single, “England Is Unwell” and announces Autumn tour dates .. Taken from The City Of Bootmakers, out now on Sunday Best

September 26, 2018

Diane Sagner

 

L.A. SALAMI

Shares new AA single, “England Is Unwell” / “You’re Better Off Alone”

Taken from The City Of Bootmakers, out now on Sunday Best

Announces Autumn tour inc. London’s 100 Club on 14th November
Plus UK and European live dates

It’s hard to pin down a genre with L.A. Salami’s music: “Folk” is the closest descriptor handy, but that doesn’t account for how thematically far-reaching it is, nor does it account for the notes of grimy aggression. Instead, Salami is best defined by his desire to take huge swings: to make messes, dip down side roads and grapple, eyes wide open, with the biggest picture possible. – NPR

Time, death, life, living, hope: these are the big themes from which L.A. Salami has crafted his astonishing second album, The City Of BootmakersLookman Adekunle Salami is a man in his mid-twenties with a restless spirit and boundless creativity. He makes charming indie-folk, songs that turn intimate tales into epic anthems and big issues into campfire laments.

Today he shares new single, “England Is Unwell” (a double A side with “You’re Better Off Alone”), with the accompanying visuals placing the song’s story in “a cardboard world where all the strings are shown”, video director Elliott Arndt explains:

In L.A.’s song, you find this ruthless tale of 21st-Century migrants escaping their war-torn homes only to find broken British dreams – but it’s all dressed up in a jolly orchestral folk arrangement and it’s totally intrepid yet extremely frail. And that’s what got me thinking about this idea and this aesthetic. It was a very ambitious one from the start cause we didn’t have the money to do any of it but somehow we still did it. When LA introduced me to (Art Director) Flaminia everything started seeming a bit more possible. She stayed awake for three consecutive days leading up to the shoot, just cutting, sticking, painting, and freezing her toes off. We owe it all to her.” Watch it below…

Live Dates:
18th October – Broadcast, Glasgow, UK (Solo)
19th October – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, UK (Solo)

1st November – Lanificio, Rome, IT
2nd November – Home Rock Bar, Treviso, IT
3rd November – Garage Sound, Bari, IT
9th November – Chapel, Leeds, UK (Solo)
10th November – Night and Day Cafe, Manchester, UK
11th November – The Cookie, Leicester, UK (Solo)
14th November – 100 Club, London, UK

22nd November – Portobello Rock Club, Caen, FR
23rd November – Le Pop Up Du Label, Paris, FR
24th November – Explore The North, Leeuwarden, NL
26th November – Pension Schmidt, Munster, DE
27th November – Kulturladen, Konstanz, DE
28th November – Karlstorbahnhof, Heidelberg, DE
2nd December – Mousonturm, Frankfurt, DE
3rd December – Musikbunker, Aachen, DE


About The City Of Bootmakers:

L.A. Salami’s second album, The City Of Bootmakers, is a record impossibly of its time. It is L.A. Salami’s state of the nation address. “The current generation seem a bit lost, but it’s still a positive record,” says Salami.

The album is the realisation of concepts that have been brewing in Salami’s melting pot mind for a few years. The bootmakers reference comes from the adage “bootmakers be kings,” which Salami has always seen to mean that, despite anyone’s power, they’re nothing without their boots, meaning the people round them, their city or inspiration. The city side of things, meanwhile, represents a mythological place that harbours what the world is going through.

Salami has been writing songs since his early teens, way before he could play an instrument, and this feels like a culmination of his songwriting craft. As a child, his time was split between London and Broadstairs in Kent, an upbringing that’s reflected in The City Of Bootmakers’ two-pronged approach, an album that manages to sound like it’s being hollered out of the abyss one minute, and looking reflectively at it from afar the next.

The record begins with the ramshackle sway of Sunrise (intro), which contains a reference to a previously released track The Scene, here delivered amidst the clatter in poetry form. “It’s representative of that carnival sound,” says Salami. The West Coast-style jangle of Generation L(ost) sets the narrative tone for the album. “This generation feels like we’re looking for where it went,” says Salami. “There’s political problems, social problems and inter-personal problems.” From here, the album follows a seamless thread, mapped out by a curious mind who kept writing songs that effortlessly fitted in to his masterplan. The gentle groove of Who’s Cursing Us Now continues the theme, whilst Terrorism! (The Isis Crisis) makes an absurdly catchy chorus out of its title. “It’s one of the major issues today and on everyone’s mind, so I wrote a song about it,” Salami says.

Originally, Salami intended the track to be a Sleaford Mods-style rant but added a playful edge by delivering its satirical message in the form of bouncy indie-rock. “The song is saying, ‘look, they’re using a book that is the basis of a religion, it’s just crazy people who don’t give a shit about other people using it as an excuse to do terrible things.’” The bar-room blues folk of Brick Lane was meant by Salami as “an obvious pisstake.” “There’s a problem with gentrification but at the same time the beginning of gentrification is generally good, as it’s the people who can’t afford the best of things, who tend be artists. Then they make the area attractive and it heightens the value… it’s a dragon eating its own tail.” Salami sings the song from the perspective of what he describes as a “less than self-aware hipster.”

It’s a record of questions and answers: the expansive acoustic-rock of I’ll Tell You Whydovetails with the sparse England Is Unwell (“my little musical number”), whilst the Van Morrison-style thump of A Man, A Man Without Warning signals the record’s “more cerebral” section. “It’s dealing with existential problems, time and death and what you’re supposed to do in the world,” says Salami. These are songs celebrating our biggest fears, looking them in the eye and tackling them head-on.

Every time L.A. Salami thinks he’s found an answer to any of the questions swirling around his head, he writes a song about it. That’s how he finds a way forward. The City Of Bootmakers is a peek inside the mind of a fascinating artist just getting started.

Single Artwork:

Album Buy Link:
https://smarturl.it/CityOfBootmakers

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