Los Angeles’ Winnetka Bowling League have announced that they will be releasing their highly-anticipated debut album, Sha La La, on May 31st via Local Weather/MDDN Records.
The album finds the trio — comprised of Matthew Koma, his brother Kris Mazzarisi, and Sam Beresford — tackling youth and nostalgia with the biting wit and infectious hooks they have quickly become known for.
Alongside the album announcement, Winnetka Bowling League have shared the incessantly catchy lead single “Handsome,” which Koma quips,“‘Handsome’ is a song about telling your friend to shut the fuck up about their new texting obsession and either go fishing or be fished.”
Listen to “Handsome” below and pre-order Sha La La here.
Of the forthcoming album, Koma shares, “Our friend Taylor from Dawes told us to make an album, so we did. We’ve only made EP’s up until now…I think the limited commitment of putting 4 or 5 songs out at a time let us experiment a bit and try on slightly different outfits before we showed up to the company Christmas party. I’ve typically hated everything we’ve made a few months after making it and I selfishly wanted this album to have a slightly longer shelf life, so we really, unapologetically, embraced who we are. There’s a bit of a stigma around power-pop and I think we’ve come to accept that’s just what we do and who we are – so fuck it, this album fully celebrates our love for the genre and desire to be in that company. Conceptually I kept coming back to how weird a thing youth is and why we’re constantly dissecting it and trying to reengineer the highlights both emotionally and physically. Being in your 30’s sometimes comes with this distorted memory of the past where everything in your 20’s was better, newer, more exciting, less jaded… but that’s not really the truth and I think this album revisits a lot of what makes those years feel so good but also reexamines why they’re equally as difficult, full of shit, and confusing. Also this is fully my experience as I see it at this hour and that will probably change over and over. But I hope for whoever listens, it provides some levels of comfort.”
Sha La La is a document of an artist rediscovering what Winnetka Bowling League loves about music: a back-to-basics and grounded release that finds Koma taking risks while being in conversation with his younger self. “With this record, it wound up being a lot of looking back and a lot of trying to understand the twenty-something version of myself: what he was feeling and why he was feeling that way,” says Koma. “Being in a much different place in life now, I think I finally have a little perspective to be able to see it for what it was.”
For Winnetka Bowling League, there’s power in this realization on Sha La La. Unequivocally, the years pass faster the older you get but there’s a galvanizing joy in remembering and reclaiming both the good and the grit of youth. “Your 30s are a weird time reckoning your 20s,” says Koma. “In these tunes, I hope that people feel like they’re revisiting versions of themselves when they hear it because that’s what it felt like to me writing it.”
Artwork:
Track-listing:
- Sha La La
- Noone’s Ever Kissed You
- We’re Broken Up (But Even More Together Now)
- Astrology & Context
- America in Your 20’s
- Handsome
- We’re Not Having Any Fun
- Breakfast For Dinner
- Jesus Saves
- Happy Adjacent
WINNETKA BOWLING LEAGUE TOUR DATES
4/4 – The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA*
4/5 – Strummer’s – Fresno, CA +
4/6 – The Hollywood Palladium – Los Angeles, CA *
HEADLINE TOUR
6/25 – Madame Lou’s – Seattle, WA
6/26 – Mississippi Studios – Portland, OR
6/28 – Cafe Du Nord – San Francisco, CA
6/29 – Troubadour – Los Angeles, CA
6/30 – Madame Lou’s – Seattle, WA
6/26 – Mississippi Studios – Portland, OR
6/28 – Cafe Du Nord – San Francisco, CA
6/29 – Troubadour – Los Angeles, CA
6/30 – Valley Bar – Phoenix, AZ
7/02 – Meow Wolf – Denver, CO
7/11 – Uptown Theater – Kansas City, MO
7/12 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL
7/13 – A&R Music Bar – Columbus, OH
7/15 – Exit/In – Nashville, TN
7/16 – Purgatory at The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
7/17 – Cat’s Cradle – Carrboro, NC
7/19 – Songbyrd Music House – Washington, DC
7/21 – Sonia – Cambridge, MA
7/23 – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY
* = support for Waterparks
+ = support for Loveless
