On March 1, rising indie project RIP Dunes released its debut self-titled LP, alongside a music video for the latest single “Cruel Nature.” This new project from Matthew Iwanusa, frontman for Brooklyn-based alt-rock quartet Caveman, follows the release of singles “In Real Life,” “Is It Real?” and “Don’t Tell Me It’s Over,” which trickled in through 2023 to gradually impart an impression of the artist’s new sound. The record was officially announced in January alongside the lead track “I Dare.”
Written following the onset of the pandemic, RIP Dunes was recorded across New York and Connecticut before culminating at Williamsburg, N.Y.’s Strange Weather. Mixed and produced by Daniel J Schlett and Daniel Fox, the album features additional guitar from Dan Lead on “Is It Real?” and Matt Sweeney on “In Real Life” and “Don’t Tell Me It’s Over” with Sweeney picking up bass for “Part Of Me.” Finally, drummer Kassa Overall offered his own electric beats on “I Dare…” furthering the album’s nuanced, layered approach to a spacious indie sound.
Hanging on the anticipatory and unpredictable nature of the future, the debut LP exudes a balmy existentialism that attains a sort-of peace in the reliability of uncertainty. The album’s future-gazing lyrical tendencies find a perfect complement in its dense yet ambient textures, as Iwanusa stacks dreamy vocals clippings and hazily distorted guitars to amass a longing, yet comforting, faraway sound. Citing Echo and the Bunnymen, The Church and The Cure as core inspirations for their “dark elements,” the artist tastefully scatters notes of new-wave and post-punk throughout the cozy, acoustically inclined record.
In tandem with the LP release, RIP Dunes is performing a run of shows for The New Colossus Fest on March 6, 8, and 9 at Berlin and the Mercury Lounge in New York. Later this month, the artist is slated to play at the Treefort Music Festival in Boise, Idaho on March 24.
RIP Dunes is out now. For more information, visit ripdunes.com. Watch the nostalgic, low-poly, Vice City-esque animated music video for “I Dare” below.
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