Hurray For The Riff Raff Shares ‘Jupiter’s Dance’ From New Album
Hurray For The Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra) today unveil the latest single from their forthcoming debut album for Nonesuch Records, Life On Earth, out 18 February 2022. Life On Earth is available to preorder now here; preorders from the Nonesuch Store and the Hurray for the Riff Raff Store include a limited-edition signed print.
Segarra says Jupiter’s Dance is: “A song in the shape of a guardian angel. Protection prayer for us all as we live in uncertain and violent times. Manifesting blessings into reality. Posing the question that perhaps the future could be joyous as well as terrifying?”
The video for Jupiter’s Dance, directed by Segarra, is a collection of historical footage of the Bomba and Plena traditions in Puerto Rico, clips Segarra shot on a hand-held camcorder during lockdown, recording studio footage captured by Joshua Shoemaker, and visuals of outer space from NASA. It may be seen here.
Life On Earth is a departure for the Bronx-born, New Orleans-based Segarra. Its eleven new “nature punk” tracks on the theme of survival are music for a world in flux – songs about thriving, not just surviving, while disaster is happening. For her eighth full-length album, Segarra (they/she) drew inspiration from The Clash, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Bad Bunny, and the author of Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown. Recorded during the pandemic, Life on Earth was produced by Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Bon Iver, Kevin Morby).
Alynda Segarra was born and raised in the Bronx, which they left at age seventeen, running away from everything and everyone they knew, hopping freight trains or hitchhiking across the country in the company of a band of street urchins. Segarra moved to New Orleans in 2007 and formed two bands: Dead Man’s Street Orchestra and Hurray For Rhe Riff Raff. In 2015, Segarra decamped to Nashville, then to New York, to make 2016’s critically praised The Navigator, an ambitious and fully realised concept album that was her quest to reclaim her Puerto Rican identity. Segarra’s previous records as Hurray For The Riff Raff are Crossing The Rubicon (EP, 2007), It Don’t Mean I Don’t Love You (2008), Young Blood Blues (2010), Hurray For The Riff Raff (2011), Look Out Mama (2012), My Dearest Darkest Neighbor (2013), and Small Town Heroes (2014).