Operators Announce Release Date For New Album 'Radiant Dawn'

By: May. 03, 2019
Enter Your Email to Unlock This Article

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe.




Existing user? Just click login.

Operators Announce Release Date For New Album 'Radiant Dawn'

Operators, the synth-pop band have shared another new track, "I Feel Emotion", off their forthcoming sophomore LP Radiant Dawn, out May 17th on Last Gang. The band, featuring Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits), Devojka, and Sam Brown (Divine Fits, New Bomb Turks), teamed up with directors Caleb Bardgett and Johnny Dunn for the song's video, who explain that "its set in a world newly-devoid of human life, and these TV sets are the last artifacts of human emotion, playing loops from lost transmissions from some other space-time." Pre-order Radiant Dawn HERE.

Keyboardist Devojka further detailed the vision, "'I Feel Emotion' is a song for anyone who feels like they don't know how to be alive in the world today. The video we made for 'I Feel Emotion' is compound nostalgia. It was inspired by a video installation I saw at an exhibition at MOMA called 'Toward A Concrete Utopia, Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948-1980'. The installation was a stack of tv screens playing short loops taken from what looked to be old commercials and footage of people in various states of everydayness. As a first generation ex-Yugoslavian, I was surprised to find myself fascinated and moved; the intimacy of a woman ecstatically twirling with her purse flung on her shoulder in her smart and modern skirt completely arrested me. I come from a long line of pain, and I've been estranged from my family for some years now. Making the video was a way to connect to this heritage; something equally familiar and foreign to me. I combed through hours of footage from old Yugoslavian films looking for those intimate moments - the moments that happen between the BIG EVENTS in our lives."

The album's nine tracks meld raw analog hardware with Boeckner's distinct voice to create an immersive cinematic sound. Operators previously released album track"Faithless", a song Consequence of Sound called "darkly coruscating electropop cut with just a hint of '80s psychedelia adding to the warmth, as solid a return single as anyone could hope for." Interspersed between the tracks are instrumental intertitles that amplify the album's 1970s sci-fi dystopian feel. For fans of Boeckner's catalogue, Radiant Dawnfeels like the next logical step in the artist's two decade career, while maintaining a completely fresh energy.

Radiant Dawn was written and recorded throughout 2018 and early 2019 in Montreal and Vancouver Island. Arcade Fire's Tim Kingsbury played bass on the album's closing track, "Low Life." The album was co-produced by Wolf Parade's Arlen Thompson along with up and coming Montreal engineer Napster Vertigo. It was mastered by the Lodge's Emily Lazar (on the heels of her 2019 Grammy® award win).

LA Weekly, after hearing a preview of the record, made it the album of the week nearly a month before its release, saying, "The first hints of greatness came with the release ofEP1 in 2014, followed by the debut full-lengther, Blue Wave, two years later. But it's the majesty of the 14 songs that fill Radiant Dawn that show just how far this group has come."

Radiant Dawn Tracklist:

1. Days

2. I Feel Emotion

3. Faithless

4. (Public Void)

5. In Moderan

6. (Airlock)

7. Terminal Beach

8. (Object Sighting)

9. Despair

10. (Under Occupation)

11. Come And See

12. Strange

13. (The Radiant Dawn)

14. Low Life

Operators is a Montreal based project. The band released an EP (EP1) in 2014, and released their first LP (Blue Wave) in 2016, via Last Gang Records. While recording their sophomore LP, the members of the band kept busy with a series of other endeavors, including the promotional cycle around Wolf Parade's Cry Cry Cry LP, a series of performances in which Operators played material from the Handsome Furs catalog (which all sold out in less than six hours), and Boeckner's original song for the critically acclaimed 2018 film Mandy.

Operators also recently announced an extensive North American summer tour, kicking off May 28th at Chicago's Lincoln Hall and hitting venues across the US through July. You'll be able to catch their electric live set when they headline LA's Teragram Ballroom, NYC's Bowery Ballroom, and more. See all tour dates below and visit http://operatorsmusic.comfor tickets links and more information.

Operators on tour:

5/28 - Chicago, IL- Lincoln Hall

5/29 - Minneapolis, MN - Turf Club

5/31 - Winnipeg, MB - Good Will

6/1 - Saskatoon, SK - Capitol

6/3 - Edmonton, AB - Starlite

6/4 - Calgary, AB - Commonwealth

6/6 - Victoria, BC - Upstairs

6/7 - Vancouver, BC - Fortune

6/8 - Vancouver, BC - Fortune

6/9 - Seattle, WA - Neumos

6/10 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir

6/12 - San Francisco, CA - Independent

6/13 - Los Angeles CA - Teragram

6/14 - San Diego, CA - Casbah

6/15 - Phoenix, AZ - Valley Bar

6/17 - Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court

6/18 - Denver, CO - Lost Lake

6/19 - Albuquerque, NM - Launchpad

6/20 - Dallas, TX - Three Links

6/21 - Austin, TX - 3TEN ACL Live

6/22 - Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall

6/24 - Atlanta, GA - Earl

6/25 - Nashville, TN - High Watt

6/26 - Columbus, OH - Ace of Cups

7/10 - Allston, MA - Great Scott

7/11 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom

7/12 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's

7/13 - Washington, DC - U Street Music Hall

8/29 - Tromsø, NO - DRIV Festival

8/31 - Skopje, MK - Zradvo Mladi Festival

9/01 - Belgrade, RS - Elektropionir

9/03 - Budapest, HU - Durer Kert

9/04 - Zagreb, HR - Vintage Industrial Bar

9/05 - Vienna, AT - Fluc

9/06 - Prague, CZ - Meet Factory

9/07 - Berlin, DE - Torstrassenfestival

9/11 - Rijeka, HR - Klub Zivot

9/12 - Ljubijana, SL - KINO ŠIŠKA

9/15 - Colmar, FR - Le Grillen

9/17 - Luxembourg, LX - De Gudde Wellen

9/18 - Rotterdam, NL - Rotown

9/19 - London, UK - Sebright Arms

9/20 - Bucharest, RO - Control Club

9/21 - Cluj Napoca, RO - Form Café



Videos