Artist Presale: May 12 @ 10:00 AM ET
RAPSEASON Presale: May 12 @ 10:00 AM ET
On Sale: May 13 @ 10:00 AM ET

April + VISTA is the musical project of the Virginia-raised singer/composer April George and the Maryland-raised composer/producer Matthew Thompson. In a decade-plus of activity, the duo garnered international acclaim with an oeuvre both deeply invested in excavating the impacts of human existence and unbound by the trappings of simple classification. They’re also dedicated to failure, and all its sweet rewards. There’s “genreless” as brand exercise, and there’s April + VISTA: the amalgamation of soulful, poppy, and grungy into beautiful, messy noise. Forever shapeshifting, a living testament to the ingenuity and endurance required to trailblaze.

While both Hampton University graduates, George and Thompson first connected in Summer 2014 in Washington, D.C. They quickly struck a friendship, agreed to become a duo, and spent the next few years self-releasing their early works and building their reputation in the D.C. underground. Their first major break came with 2018’s You Are Here, earning them a COLORS session for “FOMO,” praise from the likes of BBC Radio 1Xtra and The FADER, and supporting runs with Little Dragon and Mura Masa. 2019 found April + VISTA direct supporting Little Simz on her North American and European tours for the Mercury Prize-nominated album GREY Area.

Once the 2020 pandemic lockdowns halted travel and touring, April + VISTA channeled their external and internal frustrations into 2021’s Pit of My Dreams: a snapshot of the ripples of burnout, pushing their experimentation to its roughest and darkest edges. The following year brought a companion series called Reinterpretations, featuring remixes from the likes of TEK.LUN and Suzi Analogue. 2023 brought April + VISTA one of their biggest crossover moments to date: Slipping Into Color - a collaborative EP with Little Dragon, made on a trip to Gothenburg, Sweden - came out on the legendary Ninja Tune label. Little Dragon’s 2023 North American and European tours soon followed, with April + VISTA as direct support as originally intended for 2020.

Traditional Noise, the April + VISTA debut album, will be released in 2026 on Third & Hayden. It’s the duo’s exploration of the formative music of their youth, twisting deeply familiar sounds into strange new territory and guiding their listeners into the comforts of a sweet unknown. In an effort to upend the notion of popular music, April + VISTA focused on unlocking the feelings and noises of their nostalgia to address this life’s persisting anxieties. The album plays like frayed memories, drawing from people and places of note to preserve what’s useful and release what no longer serves. Is tradition a refuge or a cage? Does the past condemn the spirit to repetition of its traumas? What is healing? Why leave music behind to begin with?

To bear such spiritual weight, the duo relied on their comfort zones, recording and playing the majority of the record themselves in a home studio or a friend’s warehouse. April learned viola, wrote string sections, and arranged a choir of friends for the first time. VISTA focused more on the textures of guitars and live drums, calling on longtime collaborators like producer Tony Kill and drummer Bradley “Foots” McDonald. Featuring a stereo mix by Pat Dicenso, and Immersive mixing by Christopher Willits and Ryan Kleeman, the music of Traditional Noise remains as slippery as its creators: it’s rock, soul, electronic, R&B, all it wants to be. Having the range is April + VISTA’s primary mode; their songs are calls to the beyond, operating as an archive of past selves and survival guides for pressing times and uncertain futures.

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