New York duo Lowertown have announced their signing to Summer Shade and their highly anticipated new album Ugly Duckling Union, due out May 22nd. Lead single “I Like You Alot” is a rare love song from the pair, detailing the physical sensations of infatuation over a spry drumbeat and lo-fi, twangy guitars. The track “was written about the hope of a new crush, and the intoxicating feelings of admiring and fantasizing about someone from afar,” shared the band. “Loving someone without yet knowing them, and being filled with the idea of the potential time spent together. This thinking can become obsessive and compulsive, almost like a sickness taking over the body, but maybe not in a particularly bad way. It is also about the insecurity and the uncertainty about these feelings being reciprocated or un-reciprocated.”
The songwriting partnership of Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg, the last few years saw the prolific pair teetering on the brink. From constant touring and a separation from their label to creative frustrations and an unhealthy attachment to one another, their artistic partnership and, more importantly, their friendship were on shaky ground—especially since these experiences were coloured by the disorienting intensity of their late teens and early 20s. It became clear that the two had to revisit their roots.
Those roots trace back to Atlanta, Georgia: in the forests, the soon-to-be abandoned venues, the makeshift punk communities, to Weinberg’s family basement, but those roots also formed somewhere else entirely: the internet. The band grew up on Tumblr fan pages, Reddit forums, digital spaces that had not yet been corporatized. Places whose fandoms eventually leapt from the virtual to the physical, bringing people together to meet at concerts, coffee shops, and conventions to discuss their obsessions and connect over shared interests.
During the pandemic, they watched these places change, become commodified, and disappear; people no longer had these physical spaces to be solely amongst friends with shared interests where communities and fandoms could strengthen. Out of this vacuum, the Ugly Duckling Union was born.
Inspired by the conceptual creativity of bands like Gorillaz and the emphasis on the communal concert experience of Fugazi, Lowertown’s new album, fittingly titled Ugly Duckling Union, is the conceptual world of Dale the duckling protagonist and his companions as they attempt to band together to defeat LBH, a tyrannical media corporation set on separating and isolating in their pursuit of control.
Through the band’s online connection with fans, their Discord server with channels for their community to share their own art and talk to the band, and their Instagram and YouTube pages, where they have built a cult following, they have already begun to bridge the gap between the digital and physical. Lowertown shows are often giddily attended by those who have met through their web of online fandom. Ugly Duckling Union, accompanied by a conceptual story, a playable Minecraft world, a handbook, plush dolls, and drawn comics by Doctor Nowhere (Silas Orion), is creating the space to be obsessed together again.
Alongside today’s album announcement, the band have announced an extensive headline tour of North America, kicking off in late April and running through the end of June, culminating in a hometown show at New York’s Bowery Ballroom. Tickets are on sale Feb 13th at 10am local.
Tour Dates:
Tue-Apr-28 – Philadelphia, PA – The Loft
Wed-Apr-29 – Boston, MA – The Sinclair
Fri-May-01 – Burlington, VT – Radio Bean
Sat-May-02 – Montreal – Le Ministere
Mon-May-04 – Ottawa, CAN – 27 Club
Tue-May-05 – Toronto, CAN – Hard Luck Room
Thu-May-07 – Cleveland, OH – Mahall’s
Fri-May-08 – Indianapolis, IN – HiFi
Sat-May-09 – Chicago, IL – Subterranean
Sun-May-10 – Whitefish Bay, WI – The Argo
Tue-May-12 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th St. Entry
Wed-May-13 – Des Moines, IA – xBK
Thu-May-14 – Lawrence, KS – The White Schoolhouse
Sat-May-16 – Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
Mon-May-18 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
Tue-May-19 – Boise, ID – Shrine Social Club
Fri-May-22 – Seattle, WA – Baba Yaga
Sat-May-23 – Portland OR – Polaris Hall
Tue-May-26 – San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop
Fri-May-29 – Santa Ana, CA – Constellation Room
Sat-May-30 – Los Angeles, CA – The Roxy
Sun-May-31 – San Diego, CA – Quartyard
Mon-Jun-08 – Phoenix, AZ – Valley Bar
Thu-Jun-11 – San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger
Fri-Jun-12 – Austin, TX – 29th St Ballroom
Sat-Jun-13 – Dallas, TX – Club Dada
Mon-Jun-15 – Nashville, TN – The End
Wed-Jun-17 – Atlanta, GA – Masquerade – HELL
Fri-Jun-19 – Jacksonville, FL – Hard Love
Sat-Jun-20 – Orlando, FL – Conduit
Mon-Jun-22 – Miami, FL – Lincoln’s Beard
Tue-Jun-23 – Tampa, FL – The Orpheum
Thu-Jun-25 – Durham, NC – The Pinhook
Fri-Jun-26 – Washington, DC – Songbyrd
Sat-Jun-27 – New York City, NY – Bowery Ballroom
Thoughts Words Action 