WL//WH Premiere: SOCIAL UNION Find a New Life While “Waiting For Red”

WL//WH Premiere SOCIAL UNION

Following the more than positive feedback earned by their 2022 four-track debut EP, “Fall Into Me”, Christchurch/Ōtautahi, New Zealand based Synth-pop / Dark Wave duo Vanilla Martin (vox, synth) and Luke Penrose (guitar), a.k.a. Social Union, tease the title track of the band’s forthcoming 2024 first studio album, “Waiting For Red,” once again via the German independent label Blackjack Illuminist Records., that WL//WH is very pleased to premiere.

A director I admire once said, ‘less than who you thought you were, or more than who you thought you could be; it’s your choice’…I have thought about that every day for the last 15 years. I don’t always get it right, but considering this quote has helped me make innumerable choices that have led me to leading the life I have. This song is a crossroad we came to as a couple, where there was no right or wrong, no good or bad… Very much a logic vs intuition/feelings moment for us. We needed to be brave, together.Vanilla

More 6-string-laden and rocking than usual, the vibrant, angular and chaotic “Waiting For Red” propels urgent heart-pounding drum beats through a merciless wandering surge of obsessive abrasive chugging guitar riffs, sparkling and convulsing edgy slivers, overlaid by intense, desolate synth sweeps, whilst urgent, breathless emotional vocals, fret at an unexpected fork in the road, to fall hope filled into faith.

I wrote the lyrics to this song when we’d just found out I was pregnant… Two years earlier than we’d planned. Luke and I both have strong A-type personalities and we’re planners… I had so many mixed feelings and we were both stuck in this awful grey, bitter-sweet, strange moment. We’d been given the opportunity to record with @saltbox_studios. It felt like I vomited and cried the lyrics out onto the page, and then it was done. Then, in March of this year our tamāhine was born.Vanilla

Social Union‘s debut LP, “Waiting For Red”, is scheduled to be released, on CD, Cassette & Digital, sometime in 2024 via Blackjack Illuminist Records.

Keep up with Social Union:

SOCIAL UNION: | Facebook| Bandcamp | Instagram |