100 gecs today release their long awaited second album 10,000 gecs via Dog Show Records / Atlantic Records. 10,000 gecs was initially announced in 2021 and written, produced, and performed by the duo Laura Les and Dylan Brady in Los Angeles with help from renowned drummer Josh Freese. The album features previously released album singles ‘Hollywood Baby’, ‘mememe’, and ‘Doritos & Fritos’, which have already become fan favourites at the live shows. To celebrate the 10,000 gecs release day, the band is also sharing the Steve Smith directed-video for the album opener ‘Dumbest Girl Alive’, which hears Les kick in the album’s doors on the heels of an iconic THX sample while the video showcases Les, our only hope, using the same projection filming technique that was used to film Obi Wan’s hologram.
In a recent profile from The New York Times, the Missouri-raised duo discussed the 100 gecs journey from their origins to the final moments before releasing their major label debut. That album, 10,000 gecs, which is out everywhere today, was described as sonically existing on the “alternative edges of the turn-of-the-century ‘TRL’ empire…In just 10 songs across less than 30 minutes, the album recalls Korn and Sum 41, Primus and Cypress Hill, even incorporating the ignominious rap-rock calling card of D.J. scratches over distortion.” These latest explorations by the band aren’t lightly considered or ironic which Laura made clear – “It would be so condescending to be like, we are going to pull from terrible genres.” Bastions like Alternative Press and Kerrang! are taking it seriously, too, with both magazines recently revealing cover stories on the band this month. Meanwhile stars like Nine Inch Nails and My Chemical Romance both shared their stages with the gecs in 2022.
Speaking of the stage…following the album’s release, gecs will tour the US from April 4th until May 21st making stops in St. Louis, Chicago, Montreal, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles with support from Machine Girl. The band will also share a bill with Fever Ray for a special stop on the tour in Washington D.C. on May 1st. The dates are part of the 10,000 gecs tour, which included a sold-out North American leg in 2021, a successful European leg last year, and high profile appearances at festivals like Coachella, Primavera, Lollapalooza, and Reading & Leeds, as well as a five-star show at London’s Kentish Town Forum according to The Guardian. The group just completed their sold-out tour of Australia ahead of starting again in April. Tickets for the 10,000 gecs tour can be found here.
Following their breakout debut album, 1,000 gecs, the anticipation of their next body of work has been high and the band’s teases have been plentiful. They recently released a surprise EP, Snake Eyes. The EP features 3 unreleased tracks including ‘Torture Me’ featuring Skrillex and ‘Hey Big Man’ which has been a crowd favorite as the show opener on their tour. The new album includes previously released singles ‘mememe’ along with the 90’s Alt Rock-inspired ‘Doritos & Fritos’, which The FADER noted as “unlike any other Gecs track before it.”
For those yet initiated: The duo of Laura Les and Dylan Brady that would later become known as 100 gecs first met in their hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. They later reconnected as music pen pals and quietly released debut EP, 100 gecs, in 2016 which became a Soundcloud cult classic. Though it wasn’t until 2019 when 100 gecs released their debut full length album that they planted their flag on the proverbial pop culture moon.
1,000 gecs was heralded by The New Yorker as, “an impressively precise maximalist exercise with no rules” and “utterly unhinged in the best way possible” by GQ. The innovative project captivated the music literati with The New York Times calling it, “some of the savviest pop music of the year,” and Rolling Stone dubbing it “one of 2019’s most exciting debuts.” In just a few months following the release of 1,000 gecs, the band went from playing their first concert from inside the video game Minecraft to selling out shows across the country, proving that their rabid, rapidly multiplying fanbase doesn’t only exist in the far corners of the internet.
After their world tour was postponed in the summer of 2020, Brady and Les kept rolling with the release of 1,000 gecs and The Tree of Clues, a rework of the original album featuring collaborations from the likes of A. G. Cook, Fall Out Boy, Charli XCX, Rico Nasty, as well as crowd-sourced contributions by fans. The transformative release was described by The NME as a “brain-melting, genre-crushing vision of pop’s future.” Their subsequent international touring over the past two years has sent the unlikely wizard-cloaked pied pipers jumping from sold-out show to sold-out show, seemingly two steps ahead of the zeitgeist, not to mention having a blast while doing it. As they make their long awaited return with the release of 10,000 gecs the band looks to take their music and live show to all corners of the universe.
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