Album: St. Lucia - Utopia

St. Lucia - Utopia

V2 Records

Led by husband-and-wife duo South Africa-born, Jean-Philip Grobler and Germany-born Patti Beranek, synth-pop aficionados St. Lucia arrives with their new single “Touch” alongside its 80s film-esque music video directed by Nicole Lipp. Now, four years after releasing 2018’s LP Hyperion, the band returns with their long-awaited fourth studio album. Utopia will be released on October 7th via Nettwerk/V2 Records.

 Utopia’s lead single “Touch” glides out of the gate on buoyant keys and a head-nodding bass line as the refrain reaches for ecstatic yacht rock. As if sticking his head out of the window of a DeLorean, Jean-Philip croons in a glorious high register, “Oh, I need your touch.” The track is complemented with mirthful, 80s pop culture-ingrained visuals featuring LGBTQ+ dancer/actor Liv Mai along with Canyon Carballosa, an inspiring advocate for both the LGBTQ+ and autistic communities.

“To me, ‘Touch’ feels like all my favorite yacht rock tracks distilled to their essence and sent through the St. Lucia filter,” says Jean-Philip Grobler. “I’ve always felt that a song like this would suit us because we’re so associated with sunshine, it just took a few years to arrive. Thematically, the song is about how even when you’ve broken up with someone you were in a relationship with, you can still desire them, which is a strange but very human predicament to be in. It also speaks to our deep need for human contact after we were so deprived of it for the last few years. So go ahead, tell someone you need their touch.”
Equal parts colorful disco, 70s funk, and 80s pop, the Utopia LP is a luminous palette of synths, pulsating with vibrant sonics that has come to characterize their genre-defying career. Inspired by everyone from David Bowie, The Weeknd, Daft Punk, and Parcels, St. Lucia enlisted the mixing talents of trusted collaborator Chris Zane [Passion Pit, The Walkmen] to help steer the sonically sparkling ship to greater heights.

 On the group’s forthcoming LP, Jean-Philip expresses, “We at St. Lucia HQ are beyond excited (giddy, in fact) to reveal the next stage of our new musical era: ‘Utopia,’ the full album. Yes, yes, it’s true that we have been stringing you along a little bit, but in our opinion there’s nothing wrong with a little tease, and it might in fact lead to a more satisfying conclusion. ‘Utopia I’ makes up the first half on the album, like a side A, and our upcoming new release, ‘Utopia II,’ makes up the second half of the album, like a side B (remember from the heady days of vinyl?). The journey continues our search for the meaning of ‘Utopia’ through all the joy, sadness, and irony of our modern existence. Is ‘Utopia’ in the extremes, or is it in the tug-of-war between the extremes? Join us over the next few months for more clarity.”