This Thursday Los Angeles duo crushed – comprised of Bre Morell and Shaun Durkan – kick off a four-date North American tour, which will find them headlining our very own Ortlieb’s Lounge this Saturday, March 30th (March 28th will have them at TV Eye in Brooklyn and the final two dates will have them in Toronto and Montreal, respectively.) The short jaunt follows the recent rerelease of crushed’s 2023 debut EP, extra life (courtesy of Ghostly International), which had Alternative Press saying that the band’s, “destined to give dream pop a fresh new face,” and prompted NPR to call them, “A Portishead for a nostalgia-pilled generation.”
The sound of extra life embodies many of the most poignant (and often subversive) brands of ‘90s pop, including alt-rock, Britpop, trip-hop, and electronica (Bre and Shaun’s respective Spotify playlists include the likes of Elastica, Janet Jackson, Luscious Jackson, Oasis, Stone Temple Pilots, Suede, and The Verve… at least they’re our favorites.) In addition to crushed, Morell fronts dream poppers Temple of Angels (who played Foto Club last August) and Durkan does production work. In the early 2010s Bre used to regularly spin Durkan’s former shoegaze band Weekend on a late-night college radio show, and in 2020 Durkan found himself adding a Temple of Angels song to an on-air playlist of his own late-night community radio show, prompting her to reach out and make the connection official.
extra life’s reissue, which dropped March 15th, features a remix of “milksugar” by DJ Python and a reimagining of “waterlily,” which was remixed by Real Lies. The rerelease was accompanied by the band’s music video (their very first) for “waterlily,” which was directed by Erynn Patrick Lamont (a longtime friend of Bre’s) and pays homage to some of the duo’s own favorite music videos. “For our first music video we really hoped to capture the essence of our favorite 90’s pop videos that have inspired this project from the start. ‘waterlily’ is a very sentimental song to us, and Erynn Lamont and her team did a beautiful job of bringing it to life,” they said of video upon release. Check it out and get your tickets to see one of crushed’s very earliest shows this Saturday at Ortlieb’s.
*Get your tickets here.
