New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Until the Ribbon Breaks continues to peel back the layers of his exciting new musical era with the richly atmospheric and moody new single "Red Skies" featuring Columbian rising star La Pardo, out today, via VERO Music.
Recorded at the hallowed Joshua Tree studio Escape, and in Bogotá, Columbia, the song was initially the direct result of the day's unexpected events. "An actual rattlesnake turned up to the studio, so we recorded it," UTRB mastermind Pete Lawrie Winfield recalls."It made the most raw and beautiful sound."
A grounds keeper named
Julio arrived to carefully return the snake to the wild. "He's originally from Guatemala, and he had so many interesting stories that I asked him to talk on the record. It was such a pure and exhilarating experience. There we were in the desert. The skies were red every night. The song would not exist had we not been in that desert."
From there, Winfield says "Red Skies' was set up to have a Spanish-language verse, so I set off on a journey to find a Latin American singer to join me on the track." That led him to him on a trek to Columbia, where a friend introduced him to La Pardo, a young woman in the early days of her musical career.
"In this current modern world, we could have done it all via Zoom and email, but something told me that I had to be in the same room as La Pardo," Winfield recalls, adding that he was "blown away by her charisma and her work ethic. It was a pure joy to watch her in action."
A talented vocalist and songwriter (having contributed to songs by artists including Ximena Sariñana and Nio García), La Pardo was equally inspired, crafting this elegant and vulnerable prose for the song: "I don't want to live and be scared of loneliness' / Of loving again, of wanting to cry / Although the red sky is burning / like a river of blood / I bleed for my love."
Winfield was so inspired by the experience of working with La Pardo that he decided to film an impromptu music video that will support the single release of "Red Skies." "The magic in the room was palpable and exhilarating, so we just kept creating," Winfield says.
Following a self-enforced multi-year hiatus and 6 years of sobriety under his belt, the Welsh artist has also confirmed a new body of work is on the horizon, set for release via VERO
Music (distributed by Venice Music).
"During the decade that I was making music, I hadn't realized the toll it took on me, emotionally and physically. I started questioning why I put myself through so much, and why I medicated myself so that I could deal with it. The addiction and Until the Ribbon breaks had become inextricably linked. So, I decided to retire me in that iteration, and see what happens from there."
Winfield shares on his recovery and decision to step back. "But there was a problem. I love making things of all kinds, especially music. At that time, performing was not an option. I was a raw nerve, and I could not consider performing without the perceived safety net of substances. I thought producing and writing for other artists was the answer."
It was during lock down, faced with extended periods of isolation and in the studio, that he began making music for himself again. "The beauty was that it started as an authentic process. It was how I first made music when I was 12 years old. No one was asking me to make music. No one was expecting me to make music. It was literally the naivety of pressing a button on a keyboard or a drum machine, hearing a sound, and thinking "Wow. You can do that."
Earlier this year, Until the Ribbon Breaks made his welcomed return to vast critical acclaim with "Everything Else but Rain" with the GRAMMY® nominated duo Lucius. The track was the first release taken from his forthcoming third album.
Until the Ribbon Breaks (also referred to as UTRB) refers to the custom of making mixtapes, played over and over "until the ribbon breaks." Winfield's first single, "Pressure," was released in 2013, accompanied by a homemade video that incorporated scenes from
David Lynch's 1997 classic Lost Highway.
A second track, "2525," was released several months later, after which Winfield earned global critical acclaim from the likes of NPR, KCRW, Pitchfork, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, FADER, COMPLEX and many more, and was asked to remix for artists such as The
Weeknd [Wicked Games],
Sam Smith [Nirvana], as well as
Lorde [Royals] and
London Grammar [Sights] who both invited UTRB to open for their respective North American tours.
More recently, he re-imagined tracks for FINNEAS [What They'll Say About Us] and Toots and the Maytals [Got To Be Tough], and produced the debut album from
Thunder Jackson. Until The Ribbon Breaks also collaborated with hip hop duo
Run The Jewels and appeared on their 2013 release "Job Well Done." The pair also featured on UTRB's 2014 release "Revolution Indifference."
Fast forward to 2023, and Until the Ribbon Breaks has reached a brilliant new watershed moment of creativity and emotional honesty. A new era and body of music will come and complete the musical trinity of his previous extraordinary collections A Lesson Unlearnt(2015) and Until the Ribbon Breaks (2018).
Winfield proudly describes this new chapter as a "full-circle moment of sorts. It's me making music with the same excitement that I felt as a kid. There were no expectations of a result. Just a desire to make something meaningful."
"Red Skies" with La Pardo is out everywhere now.
