Until the Ribbon Breaks has shared moody new single/video “Red Skies” featuring Columbian rising star La Pardo, out today, via VERO Music.
Recorded at the hallowed Joshua Tree studio Escape, and in Bogotá, Columbia, the song was initially the direct result of the day’s unexpected events. “An actual rattlesnake turned up to the studio, so we recorded it,” UTRB’s Pete Lawrie Winfield recalls.“It made the most raw and beautiful sound.”

A grounds keeper named Julio arrived to carefully return the snake to the wild. “He’s originally from Guatemala, and he had so many interesting stories that I asked him to talk on the record. It was such a pure and exhilarating experience. There we were in the desert. The skies were red every night. The song would not exist had we not been in that desert.”

From there, Winfield says “Red Skies’ was set up to have a Spanish-language verse, so I set off on a journey to find a Latin American singer to join me on the track.” That led him to him on a trek to Columbia, where a friend introduced him to La Pardo, a young woman in the early days of her musical career. “In this current modern world, we could have done it all via Zoom and email, but something told me that I had to be in the same room as La Pardo,” Winfield recalls, adding that he was “blown away by her charisma and her work ethic. It was a pure joy to watch her in action.”

The vocalist and songwriter (having contributed to songs by artists including Ximena Sariñana and Nio García), La Pardo was equally inspired, crafting this elegant and vulnerable prose for the song: “I don’t want to live and be scared of loneliness’ / Of loving again, of wanting to cry / Although the red sky is burning / like a river of blood / I bleed for my love.”

Winfield was so inspired by the experience of working with La Pardo that he decided to film an impromptu music video that will support the single release of “Red Skies.” “The magic in the room was palpable and exhilarating, so we just kept creating,” Winfield says.

Following a self-enforced multi-year hiatus and 6 years of sobriety under his belt, the Welsh artist has also confirmed a new body of work is on the horizon, set for release via VERO Music (distributed by Venice Music). “During the decade that I was making music, I hadn’t realized the toll it took on me, emotionally and physically. I started questioning why I put myself through so much, and why I medicated myself so that I could deal with it. The addiction and Until the Ribbon breaks had become inextricably linked. So, I decided to retire me in that iteration, and see what happens from there.” Winfield shares on his recovery and decision to step back. “But there was a problem. I love making things of all kinds, especially music. At that time, performing was not an option. I was a raw nerve, and I could not consider performing without the perceived safety net of substances. I thought producing and writing for other artists was the answer.”

It was during lock down, faced with extended periods of isolation and in the studio, that he began making music for himself again. “The beauty was that it started as an authentic process. It was how I first made music when I was 12 years old. No one was asking me to make music. No one was expecting me to make music. It was literally the naivety of pressing a button on a keyboard or a drum machine, hearing a sound, and thinking “Wow. You can do that.”

Until the Ribbon Breaks has collaborated with The Weeknd [Wicked Games], Sam Smith [Nirvana], as well as Lorde [Royals] and London Grammar [Sights] who both invited UTRB to open for their respective North American tours. More recently, he re-imagined tracks for FINNEAS [What They’ll Say About Us] and Toots and the Maytals [Got To Be Tough], and produced the debut album from Thunder Jackson. Until The Ribbon Breaks also collaborated with hip hop duo Run The Jewels and appeared on their 2013 release “Job Well Done.” The pair also featured on UTRB’s 2014 release “Revolution Indifference.”

order “Red Skies” by Until The Ribbon Breaks HERE