ELEVATE YOUR LOVE

HUGO RACE & THE TRUE SPIRIT

From the soon to be release album “The Spirit”

itunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/elevate-my-love-single/id983193674?Is=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBA3WyfaBvs

“Suffocatingly rich through its brooding, desolate atmospherics and Race’s gravel-throated whispers… Race and his True Spirit collective place a smouldering torch under the corner of psychedelic, bluesy ambience and allow it to morph into a cusp of experimental smoke and expanding, eerie beats. Concerned lyrically with the dawn of the new millennium, Race accentuates the ethereal feel with couplets as scathing and focussed as “you aint getting the real juice/just stupid lies and half-truths”, whilst rarely veering from the monotone murmurs that make this such a haunting and weighty listen. Essential listening.” Logo UK

Melbourne psychedelic rock and roots four piece, Hugo Race and The True Spirit are set to release their first single in seven long years - “Elevate My Love” - on April 18th and to announce the album “The Spirit” to follow in July with live performances.

Launching in Berlin in the 80’s, The True Spirit is a loose freewheeling fraternity of like-minded free spirits who share a love of psychedelic rock and roots music. Their irreverent experimentalism has fleshed out Hugo Race's music onstage and in studio for over twenty years. Releasing their first album “Rue Morgue Blues” as the wall fell in Berlin, so began two decades based in Europe and the production of 14 True Spirit albums.

Renowned for their “urban dreamscapes… elegant trip-hop… ambient noise psychedelia… raw cosmic blues… live garage rock… cinematic melancholia, new wave nostalgia, essential songwriting, post-rock minimalism…” – all these descriptions applied to Hugo’s work. “The Spirit” the album, presents a return to his roots in a psych-rock zone tagged by Melody Maker in the band’s early days as ‘industrial trance blues’.

Produced by Hugo over a period of three years in his hometown of Melbourne with the original line-up, Michelangelo Russo – electronics, Bryan Colechin – bass, Brett Poliness – drums and percussion, Nico Mansy – keys, The Spirit is fuelled by high-energy rhythmic drive and Race’s darkly humorous lyrics with the band wielding space and sonic suggestion as instruments in their own right.

“We built a studio in a surreal house out on the city’s edge to slowly develop the songs at our own speed with no pressure. We’d never had the luxury before of playing new songs live before recording them. When we felt the time was right, we taped a lot of the final album with Idge at his Soundpark studio, capturing our sound with ambient mics and vintage processors. But the vibe of that house and the all-night recording sessions with the background buzz of cicadas and the homemade instruments in the tool shed, it’s all still there. We wanted to create a definitive album for The True Spirit and took our sweet time about it. This record is it.”

The Spirit is a compelling statement by a legendary band at the height of their powers.

“Elevate My Love” has already been released in Germany on Glitterhouse Records and drops here in Australia today via MGM in Australia with “The Spirit” to follow, along with a second single “False Idols” (not included on the album). Hugo Race and The True Spirit will tour Australia in August-September then embark on an autumn European tour.