Support from PERSONA (Sheffield) Post Punk minimalists.
Extra Life
Extra Life was started in New York by Charlie Looker, who has previously worked with acts like Dirty Projectors and Zs – he took the compositional complexity he had used in those bands and fused it with his love for chamber music, goth, folk, math rock and melisma-style vocal arrangements. These disparate and eclectic elements fused successfully and their first album ‘Secular Works’ was released in 2008.
A glowing endorsement by Tyondai Braxton (then still in Battles) helped get them enough attention to tour Europe, including a slot at Primavera, and the band consolidated this momentum by releasing two more albums and numerous EPs plus a rigorous touring schedule in the US and Europe before calling it a day in 2012. Looker then founded the darker, more metallic Psalm Zero and indulged in solo recordings and collaborations in various genres and styles throughout the 2010s.
Now, ten years later, they have reformed with a new line up (which includes Toby Driver of the seminal Kayo Dot). Now based in Los Angeles, they have released what they have described as the true successor to that debut album, the on-the-nose titled ‘Secular Works Vol.2’. An elegant, exuberant mix of all that made Extra Life so breathtaking before but with a sense of true maturity and lived knowledge that emboldens this album with a confidence that even their past albums didn’t reach.
https://extralife.bandcamp.com/
PERSONA
Post Punk minimalist duo, confronting the everyday head on.
Inhabiting a space somewhere between the The Slits and Young Marble Giants.
https://personapersona.bandcamp.com/album/persona-ep
