Local Tourist – Other Ways Of Living

The indie band Local Tourist live up to their name. In 2018, U.S.-based songwriter Erin Umstead visited New Zealand on a working holiday visa. While traveling around the country, she found herself in Christchurch at a gig by the jangle-pop band Salad Boys. Umstead eventually struck up a friendship and creative partnership with that group’s leader, Joe Sampson, as well as another local musician, drummer Rory Dalley. Together, the trio started playing shows and writing songs under the name Local Tourist.

Other Ways of Living, the band’s debut album, came together under far less idyllic circumstances. The band members were limited by time—Umstead’s stay in New Zealand had an expiration date due to her visa—and tracked the bulk of the album in just a few days. Consider it a testament to the band’s chemistry and focus that these limits didn’t hamper Other Ways of Living‘s execution; the music is languid and deliberate, and doesn’t sound rushed or haphazard.

A delicate urgency threads its way through “Alive,” an indie rock song that resembles the more stripped-back moments on Hole’s Live Through This, while the guitar textures on the lithe “Colors” are moody and desolate. (Bandcamp Daily)

Vinyl, LP, Translucent White Limited edition of 250

Tracklist:
A1 Colors
A2 Hemispheres
A3 You Are Alone
A4 How You Left It
B5 Undone
B6 I Am Water
B7 Alive
B8 Dark