Gang Of Youth Release Their Highly Anticipated Third Studio Album 'angel in realtime.'

It’s the day we have been waiting for… Gang Of Youths have FINALLY released their highly anticipated third studio album angel in realtime.

Inspired by the loss of frontman Dave Le’aupepe’s father, it’s a record which channels its emotional intensity and existential questions into an exploratory sonic tapestry that touches upon everything from Britpop and post-punk to American minimalism and contemporary classical. It also pays tribute to Le’aupepe’s family heritage, with samples and original instrumentation from the Polynesian islands and the wider South Pacific.

The album features all the big moments that have soundtracked Gang of Youths’ rise, including ‘theangel of 8th ave.’, ‘unison’, ‘the man himself’, ‘tend the garden’ and ‘in the wake of your leave.’ The album’s previously unreleased tracks provide plenty more, with an experimental hybrid of contemporary American minimalism, and electronica on ‘you in everything’, the 2-step and big beat rhythms of ‘the kingdom is within you’, and the cathartic conclusion provided by the sweeping, multi-textured ‘goalof the century’.

Dave Le’aupepe has channelled every drop of emotion into Gang of Youths’ most personal album to date. For the band, which features multi-instrumentalists Jung Kim, Tom Hobden, Max Dunn and Donnie Borzestowski, the decision to rent an old warehouse space in Hackney, London and self-produce the record was absolutely vital.

The record also pays tribute to Le’aupepe’s family heritage, firstly with the band’s pre-pandemic trip to Aotearoa to record with Pasifika and Māori instrumentalists the Anuanua Drummers from the Cook Islands, Shane McClean and the Auckland Gospel Choir. These recordings, together with the extensive sampling of composer and explorer David Fanshawe’s late 1970s field recordings of indigenous Pasifika music give the record a distinctive sense of time and place. When you add to this the 42-piece string section Hobden and Le’aupepe travelled to Budapest to record, the album effectively spans 50 years of collective recording and as many as 7 countries.

Dave Le’aupepe says, “I hope the record stands as a monument to the man my father was and remains long after I’m gone myself. He deserved it.”

We can not wait to hear these songs live in August at the angel in realtime. tour!