Futura Free gets ready for album release show
Kingston band Futura Free is set to hold an in-person release show at The Mansion on Oct. 9 for their newest album, Reducer.
Doors open at 8 p.m. and there will be an entrance fee of $10. Audience members can also expect musical performances from Monach and Willy Nilly.
The Journal spoke with Peter Luft, Futura Free’s lead singer and lyricist, about the album and its upcoming release show.
Along with Luft, the band features Kevin Feeley on guitar, Bobby Benevides on drums, and Gabriel Reeves on bass and vocals.
Following the release of Reducer in June, Luft says the band is excited to play for a live audience and expects a night of positive, fun vibes.
“There’s a lot of built-up anticipation and excitement,” Luft said. “[Now] being able to get back at it with live music after the pandemic, there’s going to be insane amounts of energy.”
With Reducer, Futura Free takes its catchy songs and experiments by adding bizarre sounds to their music. Luft described the album as “catchy punk indie rock that has been infected with a spooky computer virus.”
While their previous album featured happy, feel-good songs about love and fulfilment, Reducer takes the band’s sound in new directions. The new album reflects bleak themes of mental health, highlighting a world collapsing around us.
This dramatic theme shift was intentional. Luft said he loves when artists’ albums distinguish different eras of their careers.
“I wanted to almost give a tonal whiplash between [the albums]. Thematically, the first record is very happy, and [Reducer] is the complete opposite of that.”
Much of the inspiration for Futura Free’s retro, neon aesthetic is drawn from a combination of synth-wave and cyberpunk music from the 80s, also pulling on elements from 90s dream pop and shoegaze. They cited Brockhampton as a modern influence, too.
“There are quite a few rock bands or guitar bands that only draw influence from older classic rock,” Luft said. “[Aesthetically,] we’re trying to draw influence from other genres, like pop and hip hop and stuff like that.”
The band is proud of self-producing their music. It has allowed them to get creative and “weird” without facing high studio costs.
“We live in an age where you can record your own stuff and it can sound pretty freaking good,” Luft said. “We can get really creative with it and get really experimental.”
Luft encourages artists to experiment and make music that excites them, regardless of any criticism they may receive.
“That thing that people say, ‘you need a lot of money or a lot of connections to make the cool music that you want’ is completely false,” he said.
“That’s a myth. If you have a song you want to make. In this day and age, you can just go out and make it.”
