Leatherette

“Orlando quartet Leatherette are here to take you down, down, down into a seamy, swampy netherworld of broken promises, broken hopes, broken mirrors and broken guitar strings.


Leatherette’s new album, “Self Seduction” is a return - and a rebirth. See, “Self Seduction,” is year zero, a sonic tabula rasa for the quartet of Sam Crow, Dan Delanois, Sam Leatherwood and Christian Viguie.


The first hints came when once-cathartic and almost celebratory live shows became high drama and high tension, presaging new sounds and new obsessions. Four shadows twisted into tortured angles under a single red light. But then, these are the times we live in.


If you think you know what Leatherette are all about from the evidence of their 2019 debut album - recorded by Simon Palombi of Woolly Bushmen, or from songs appearing on campaigns for Thrasher, X Games and Uniqlo, things have changed. The world got darker, and so did they.


With “Self Seduction” they’ve found their voice, feral or louche as the mood hits them, captured pristine and yet raw by engineer Danny Clifton and producer John Rousseau (notorious for synth project Mother Juno). Laid down in the time-lost environs of Gainesville’s Pulp Arts Studios.


Leatherette’s “Self Seduction” is the timely and tormented soundtrack that we deserve. Leatherette knows there’s nothing left to lose, and they play on.”

Matthew Moyer
music editor
Orlando Weekly