Lontalius Drop New Single “Tangerine”

New Zealand-based alt pop singer/songwriter Lontalius announces new album ‘Life On The Edge Of You’ for release on 9th June via Kartel Music Group. 

As a taste of things to come, Lontalius (AKA Eddie Johnston) has revealed new track ‘Tangerine’ today. He comments: “I wrote this in a particularly dark period of the COVID lockdowns – it was winter and I’d been living in a freezing, uninsulated flat. I was dreaming of just running away to somewhere warm and picturesque. There is a feeling that I often touch on – the feeling of not quite being comfortable or satisfied with what’s around me. The idea of escaping to some paradise far away is always present and alluring”.

“Tangerine” follows previous singles “I Want, I Want, I Want” and “Right There”, which have seen support from BBC Radio 1, Amazing Radio, Dummy Magazine & more.

“For me, listening to music, it’s always been something where I want to hear a song randomly one day and think, Oh, they’re talking about me. That feeling that someone’s written something specifically for you” says Eddie.

Writing songs that give listeners such feelings of being known and seen has been a gift Johnston has expressed since his 2016 debut “I’ll Forget 17” released on Partisan Records. His subsequent albums, 2019’s “All I Have” and 2020’s “Someone Will Be Here For You”, have followed in its acclaimed footsteps, attracting over 110 million streams and over 950K monthly listeners on Spotify. He’s also collaborated with Grammy Award winning producer Om’Mas Keith (Frank Ocean, Erykah Badu) and Jim Fairchild (Grandaddy, Modest Mouse).

Forthcoming album “Life on the Edge of You”, finds Johnston in his mid-20s and on the precipice of adulthood in all its nascent fits and spurts, moments of growth and regression, thoughtless impulses and newfound control. On his own again after moving back in with his parents in Wellington, New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic – not unlike many young adults his age – Johnston is taking stock of his life: the relationships that may be, the periods of adjustment, the person he is and the person he hopes to become.

Produced by Jeff Kleinman (Beyoncé, Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs), “Life on the Edge of You” finds Johnston elevating his intimate, confessional alt pop songwriting across a new musical landscape. Over lockdown, the pair sent pieces of songs back and forth, building tracks in a surprisingly fruitful collaboration melding alt pop with flavours of hip-hop and R&B. “I think we were just on the same vibes at the same time” Johnston says: “which was exciting, because making music has often just been sitting in my room with a guitar, writing pretty traditional songs. My whole career has been a history of working with internet producers and sending verses from the other side of the world, and it felt really good to be doing that again, but it forced me to write in a different way”. What emerged was a new sound, and a new set of melodies and confines within which to write, that imbue Johnston’s diary-like confessionals with a fresh sense of what he calls a “confidence that is not necessarily in such an introverted or fearful way”.