“All I Wanna Say” by Lontalius

Lontalius (Wellington, New Zealand’s Eddie Johnston) debut full-length will be released in early 2016. As one might expect from a friend of Ryan Hemsworth, Lontalius’s music is lo-fi and chilled out but he tours with a full band that brings a fresh element of shoegaze aesthetics into the mix and his young age impacts his song subjects of youth, confusion and sadness.

Johnston has been releasing music since the age of 13, but started to turn heads in the last year and a half with his gorgeous Casio covers of Top 40 songs from Nicki Minaj (“Pills N Potions”), Beyonce (a gently crooned “XO”), Ciara (“Body Party”), Drake, Bieber, Pharrell (a mopey “Happy”) and others. Approaching the end of his teenaged years, a now 18-year-old Eddie began to create and share his own original compositions. Initially heavy on lo-fi presentation and shoegaze style aesthetics, Eddie’s emotionally resonant songs steeped in youth, confusion and sadness have become cleaner, richly melodic, and lyrically focused, propelling him and his live band (Taylor Groves, Daniel McBride of Sheep, Dog & Wolf, and Miles Sutton of Tuff Wizard) to open for indie pop stars like Perfume Genius and How To Dress Well.

Last year’s “Light Shines Through Dust” again boosted Eddie’s profile, with massive online pickup and plays as well as charting at college radio. Friends and collaborators like Lorde, Ryan Hemsworth (who helped inspire the bike premise for the “All I Wanna Say” video), Tunje Ige and Spooky Black have helped as well.

Lontalius’ debut album will be released in 2016. Eddie recently spent time in Bristol, recording and mixing with legendary recording engineer and producer Ali Chant of Toybox Studios (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, M. Ward, KT Tunstall). Lontalius will also appear at CMJ this October in the states and will perform at Red Bull Music Academy in Paris in November.

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