New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Today, LA electro-shoegaze quintet Draag drops a new cathartic single & video, debuted on PAPER, "Demonbird" ahead of the band's debut album Dark Fire Heresy out April 28. Following the previous video for "Mitsuwa,"
Jessica Huang continues to unpack and heal religious trauma, embodying what it might feel like to be a powerful man central to the inner circle of a patriarchal religious group, finally finding a voice for the women who were silenced. This looming imagery of the "Demonbird" is portrayed on a stunning wall of LED panels from LIMINAL space, who have created immersive 3D live visuals for Flying Lotus,
Primus and many more.
It was through therapy and processing her upbringing in a religious cult that Huang along with members of Draag were able to create the sonic world, story and visual elements of Dark Fire Heresy. Some songs act as vessels of healing and forgiveness and others became a revenge fantasy. Full of lush guitar, Nintendo-era synths and warped tape samples in reverse, the album holds space for what you wish you could have said, done or knew, while acknowledging a bittersweet nostalgia.
What began as a solo project turned into much more when LA musician Adrian Acosta, trained as a mariachi singer by his established norteño musician father, recruited other members from disparate upbringings in the worlds of underground punk, no wave, experimental jazz, and classical music training, from Craigslist and the local DIY music scene -
Jessica Huang, Ray Montes, Nick Kelley & Eric Fabbro.
From revived songs Acosta recorded on his karaoke tape deck when he was 10 years old, Draag released two critically acclaimed EPs,
Clara Luz (co-produced by Jon Nuñez of Torche) and Nontoxic Process ahead of this debut LP. Draag began to gain a reputation for their sonically immersive live shows in Los Angeles largely by word of mouth, transforming any range of DIY to high production stage into a wall of sound described as a storm in slow motion. They have opened for Wednesday, Reggie Watts, They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Film School, Milly, Mint Field and Vinyl Williams.
"'Demonbird' was a major breakthrough in my personal journey unpacking spiritual abuse in my past. Becoming the Demonbird character in the video was a way for me to find some sort of justice for the women who were silenced and discarded in the purity culture of my particular religious upbringing...It's a relief that it doesn't have the same power over me anymore." -
Jessica Huang
"Enticing slate of experimental shoegaze" - Los Angeles Times
"Stunning harmonies, unflinching guitar riffs" - PAPER
"Murky grunge-gaze compositions and gut-twisting songwriting" - Top40-Charts.com
"Immediately ingratiates itself even as it unmoors your senses" - Stereogum
"Beautiful blissed-out guitar jams" - Consequence
"They sound out of a different era—maybe even a different planet" - Paste
"A crushing shoegaze venture interwoven with eerily warped tape samples" - FLOOD
Draag will begin a US tour with Cryogeyser on April 8, before the band's album release show at The Echo on June 17 - full tour dates below.
2023 US Tour Dates:
April 8: Joshua Tree, CA @ TBD*
April 9: Phoenix, AZ @
Rebel Lounge*
April 12: Fort Collins, CO @ The Coast*
April 15: Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle*
April 18: Toronto, ON @ The Drake*
April 19: Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz*
April 22: Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere (Zone One)*
April 23: Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy*
April 24: Washington, D.C. @ Pie Shop*
April 25: Durham, NC @ The Pinhook*
June 17: Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo (Album Release Show)
*with Cryogeyser.
