Three Reasons: Automatic Brings LP #3 to The First Unitarian Church (9/22)

This coming Saturday LA duo Automatic — comprised of Izzy Glaudini and Halle Saxon — kick off a month-and-a-half-long North American tour at Levitation 2026, where they’ll appear alongside PHILTHY phavorites Peter Hook & The Light, SINE, and Pearl & The Oysters.  And September 22nd they’ll play their biggest headlining show in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection yet when they perform in the legendary basement of The First Unitarian Church.  The tour is in support of Automatic’s third full-length, Is It Now?, which dropped last September courtesy of longtime home Stones Throw Records.  Here are Three Reasons why you should definitely get your tickets while you can…

1. THEIR THIRD LP IS THEIR BEST YET

Izzy and Halle describe the sounds of Is It Now?, their most danceable full-length yet, as “deviant pop music that cuts through the brainrot.”  And while the album may be a more polished take on their amalgam of the most playful brands of post-punk (see: new wave, synth-pop, dance-rock) than previous LPs, it doesn’t lose any of the sociopolitical potency of their earlier work; it just serves as a reminder that dancing and revolution aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, as so eloquently expressed by Izzy in a recent press release.

“The thing I think about the most on a day-to-day basis is: how do you have a sense of joy while the world seems to be collapsing, and you feel so powerless…  I feel like, as American citizens, we have a responsibility to pull the levers to stop the machine.  ‘Is It Now?’ is about trying to not feel like a victim in this environment.  It’s important to still feel a sense of joy, even amongst all the horrible shit going on in the world.”

2. THEY’RE GREAT, IT’S BEEN A WHILE, AND WE MISS THEM (OKAY, THAT’S TECHNICALLY THREE)

The last time Automatic headlined the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection (They opened The Met for The Marías in the summer of 2024.) was all the way back in October of 2022, when they put on a stellar show for a sold-out crowd at the hyper-intimate Dolphin Tavern.  While they were meant to double-headline The Foundry with their buddies (and ours) Sextile (Glaudini actually features on several of their tracks.), but a last-minute health emergency forced them to pull themselves from the bill ☹, so it’s been a while since we’ve seen a full-length show, much less one featuring the music of our phavorite album of theirs.

3. ACCESSORY IS ALSO PRETTY AMAZING

The first half of Automatic’s upcoming US dates (including their stop at The Church) will be opened by Accessory, the solo project of our buddy Jason Balla of Dehd.  While the roots of Accessory date back to 2018, dropping sporadic singles starting in 2020, it was only recently that Balla had enough of a break from Dehd’s nonstop touring to finally put out a full-length, Dust, which Balla self-released this April.  The album fits alarmingly well alongside Accessory’s Is It Now? and earned some lofty praise from FLOOD Magazine.

“Possessing a much lower and colder frequency in comparison to Dehd’s indie-surf style, Dust expands on the dadaist zeal of crafting synergy between the corrupted parts of our world and the beautiful, natural elements.  Metamorphic and metastatic, Balla infects his listeners with yearning reverie and crushing intimacy, resulting in a varnished polyptych of baroque-pop that takes an artful pause from the calamity of bleak news cycles, aching nervous systems, and polluted digital addictions.  Like shooting a flare into the dark December sky, Accessory ascends into higher sonic altitudes and forms ice crystals around Dust that glitter in the sunlight, regardless of the weather.”

*Get your tickets here.