DeVotchKa recently released their new full-length This Night Falls Forever, available via Concord Records. As part of the release, the band has shared a video for the nostalgic first single “Straight Shot”.

It all started following the end of DeVotchKa’s 2012 tour, when Urata was left feeling conflicted. On one hand, the band was as popular as ever, playing their critically-acclaimed songs to fans at sold-out shows around the globe, and he was enjoying a burgeoning career as a film score composer, with a GRAMMY nomination already under his belt for the film Little Miss Sunshine. However, on the night of DeVotchKa’s final show of the tour, onstage in an enormous arena in Mexico, Urata belted out the first few lines only to discover his microphone powered off-a simple mistake, but one that would later cause him to reflect deeply on his stake in life.

“You try not to make a big deal out of it, but you don’t recover from that for the rest of the show,” Urata says, now smiling at the memory. “It happened more than once on that tour. I was realizing how nearly anyone can sing, almost everybody has the ability, but if you want to perform for people, then you have to fight for it.”

After the tour the band-Urata (vocals, guitars, Theremin, trumpet, piano), Jeanie Schroder (acoustic bass, sousaphone), Shawn King (drums, percussion, trumpet), and Tom Hagerman (violin, viola, accordion, piano)-enjoyed a series of gigs at smaller venues. Urata spent those shows both reconnecting with his audience on a more intimate level and rediscovering his love for his craft. It was a necessary moment that inspired him to begin work on a new DeVotchKa album-a process that would take a lot longer than anyone anticipated, but that would prove essential. “I realized the motivation is simply how much I love singing,” Urata says, “and I just want to keep this conversation going with people who have connected with our band. It is a rare and powerful thing to connect with people like this, it is the thing that keeps us going.”

Utilizing that intimate dynamic, Urata turned his struggle into art. Through persistence, concerted effort, and patience, Urata found his path. “One thing I’ve learned from great writers is to force yourself to show up to work everyday, even if you feel you don’t have anything-apply yourself and it will come,” he says. “Writing music has always been the one thing in my life that’s subconsciously gnawed at me. I have to do it.”

In writing for This Night Falls Forever, Urata tapped directly into his past, connecting the dots between that audience-and-artist relationship and a period of intense self-discovery. As for the album’s title, Urata was inspired by yet another period of transition, albeit one that occurs each and every day: the passing of day into night. It’s a fitting motif for his process, a constant reminder that toil eventually makes way for transport. “I wanted to capture that moment of twilight falling, where there’s electricity in the air and you get that sense that everything is going to be OK.”

DeVotchKa
TOUR DATES:

September 19 – Vancouver, BC – Imperial Vancouver
September 20 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox
September 21 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
September 22 – Littleton, CO – On Tap with KBCO at Breckenridge Brewery
September 24 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
September 25 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst
September 27 – Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
September 28 – San Diego, CA – The Observatory North Park
September 29 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre
September 30 – Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
October 02 – Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
October 04 – Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre
October 05 – St. Louis, MO – Delmar Hall
October 06 – Kansas City, MO – The Truman
October 07 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
November 27 – December 01 – Europe