photos by Mauricio Castro
American/Dutch jazz fusion trio LAST SCENE ALIVE arrives with their debut album, World Class Pep Talk, today unveiling the record’s cover art, track listing, and releasing its lead single/video, “Mad News Travels Fast.”
A hard-hitting hurricane of saxophone, synths, and rhythm, the transatlantic trio LAST SCENE ALIVE sees Amsterdam-based saxophonist Graham Robertson (Odd Circus) and Washington, DC-based synth player Zack Be (ex-Pretty Bitter, XK Scenario) and drummer Sean Sidley (Jack Waugh, The Economy, Dissenters) collaborating on the band’s debut album, World Class Pep Talk. The band occupies a space where the bizarre meets the accessible: math rock anthems, jazz fusion breakbeats, expansive progressive rock passages, punk rock energy, and synth rock club bangers seamlessly coalescing under one umbrella.
LAST SCENE ALIVE’s powerful, singular sound on World Class Pep Talk guarantees a unique experience to listeners from a wide array of genres, injecting a tongue-in-cheek cynicism into the music almost entirely without lyrics.
The album was recorded and mixed by band members Graham Robertson and Zack Be, mastered by Be, and completed with cover art by Ange Omer Rheaume. Garrett Gleason provides guitar to “Better To Be Alone Than In Bad Company” and Taisha Estrada adds vocals to “Summit Not The Chasm.”
At a crucial time for the trending “alternative jazz” movement, this trio emerges poised to plant a flag. When you’ve exhausted the alternatives, you go to the LAST SCENE ALIVE.
The lead single for the album arrives with a video for “Mad News Travels Fast,” directed by Dimitri Max of Baffe Films.
Saxophonist Graham Robertson offers some words on the first single: “Like absolute lunatics we booked our first show three weeks away without any material written. The urgency lit a fire under us, and the first thing I wrote when I picked up the bari was the opening riff to ‘Mad News Travels Fast.’ It killed at the show, but in the studio our drummer Sean unleashed this wild breakbeat thing that kicked it into another gear. Once that drum and bass engine sat under it, the track suddenly transformed into the real white-knuckle ride we imagined.”
The video for the first single from LAST SCENE ALIVE’s World Class Pep Talk, “Mad News Travels Fast,” is playing on the band’s YouTube channel RIGHT HERE, and the song is streaming everywhere.
The band will self-release World Class Pep Talk digitally on March 6th. Place preorders at Bandcamp HERE and find digital presaves HERE.
Additional singles/videos will be issued ahead of the album’s release.
World Class Pep Talk Track Listing:
1. I Cannot Tell A Lie
2. Better To Be Alone Than In Bad Company
3. Rights And Wrongs
4. Mad News Travels Fast
5. Summit Not The Chasm
6. Leave Nothing For Tomorrow
7. Honor Lies In Honest Toil
8. All The Wolves Are Watching
9. Any Man Worth His Salt
LAST SCENE ALIVE:
Graham Robertson – saxophones, effects
Zack Be – keyboards, effect
Sean Sidley – drums
http://lastscenealive.com
https://lastscenealive.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/lastscenealive
https://www.youtube.com/@LastSceneAlive