December 7, 2023: Today, the Brooklyn-based eight-piece San Fermin released their dreamy new single “My Love is a Loneliness.” The third song to be pulled from their upcoming fifth studio album Arms (out February 16th via their burgeoning indie label Better Company Records), “My Love is a Loneliness” takes a bird’s eye view of heartbreak, finding solace in the cyclical nature of loss and redemption.
Watch the official visualizer for “My Love is a Loneliness”
About the song, Ellis Ludwig-Leone explains: “I liked the idea of someone’s particular brand of love being misanthropic, kind of a misfit. Always taking rather than giving, always leaving rather than showing up. And then the vicious cycle that accompanies that— if your love is selfish, your only companion ends up being loneliness, which becomes a kind of armor protecting you from ever getting too close. If you never let down the armor, you’re safe, but it ultimately leaves you cold.”
“My Love is a Loneliness” was praised by FLOOD Magazine and follows the release of “Arms” and “Didn’t Want You To,” which was embraced by Exclaim, Northern Transmissions, NPR Music’s New Music Friday, Stereogum and Far Out Magazine, who said, “they take a page out of the book of Waxahatchee and craft a killer folk-country-indie number. It’s delicate and volcanic at the same time, making it a real treat of a song.”
Arms marks a new direction for San Fermin, as they strip away much of the sonic ornamentation they’ve come to be known for in favor of a more raw, direct sound reflective of Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s candid, plainspoken lyrics. The album was written during one of the most difficult moments of Ludwig-Leone’s life, following the dissolution of two relationships. Over the course of the album’s nine stunning tracks, his lyrics move from anger and disappointment to clarity and acceptance in a steady progression reflective of the roller coaster journey that consumed him for the better part of a year.
Ten years ago, San Fermin released their critically heralded eponymous album and rocketed to a national audience with NPR inviting them to play a Tiny Desk Concert and calling the album “one of the year’s most surprising, ambitious, evocative and moving records,” while Pitchfork praising their “ambitious chamber pop debut.” Over the next decade the band released four albums and became known for their “knack for simultaneously expressing beauty and crisis” (The New Yorker). Arms is the greatest testament to the community the band has built over the last decade, and illustrates their ability to transform crisis into a communal catharsis.
San Fermin is Ellis Ludwig-Leone (bandleader, songwriter), Allen Tate (vocalist, producer), Claire Wellin (vocalist), Akira Ishiguro (guitar), John Brandon (trumpet), Stephen Chen (saxophone), Tyler McDiarmid (guitar), and Griffin Brown (drums).
The band will celebrate the release of Arms with a 2024 national headline tour that kicks off on March 21st at Treefort Music Fest in Boise, ID, followed by stops in New York, Chicago, Nashville, and Los Angeles among others. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit their website.
Arms tracklist:
1) Weird Environment
2) Didn’t Want You To
3) Can’t Unsee It
4) Arms
5) Makes Me Want You
6) My Love is a Loneliness
7) Useful Lies
8) Wasting on Me
9) You Owe Me
Tour Dates:
3/15: Utrecht, NDL – Birds of Paradise Festival
3/21-22: Boise, ID – Treefort Music Fest
3/23: Salt Lake City, UT – The State Room
3/24: Denver, CO – Globe Hall
3/26: St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
3/27: Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
3/28: Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon
3/30: Nashville, TN – The Blue Room
3/31: Columbus, OH – The Basement
4/2: Washington, DC – Atlantis
4/3: Philadelphia, PA – Underground Arts
4/4: Boston, MA – The Sinclair
4/5: New York, NY – Racket
4/30: San Diego, CA – Casbah
5/1: Los Angeles, CA – Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever
5/3: Pioneertown, CA – Pappy + Harriets
5/4: San Francisco, CA – Independent
5/7: Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
5/9: Vancouver, BC – Biltmore Cabaret
5/10: Seattle, WA – Madame Lou’s
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