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Music

The Apocalypse Is Mellow on Shlohmo’s New Track, "The End"

The LA producer's long-awaited new album, also called 'The End,' is out on March 22
Shlohmo
Photo courtesy of the artist

Elusive Los Angeles producer Shlohmo has kept a relatively quiet public profile in the four years since his last LP, Dark Red , an album that found the producer maturing his sound into a fuller and darker offering than the head-nodding beats of his early days in the LA beat scene. With his new sound, Shlohmo, real name Henry Laufer, toured the world with an eclectic full band and found new fans in other worlds—it wasn’t uncommon to see fans whose ears were more tuned to rock and industrial joining the club kids he more typically attracted.

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Now, Shlohmo is back with news of a long-awaited LP titled The End, out March 22 via Friend of Friends and his own WeDidIt Collective. The new 13-track album will reveal Laufer’s new sonic vision of aesthetic decay by pairing lost sounds from the likes of toy drum machines and the Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators with original recordings sampled from tape and years-old sessions. The subject matter is fittingly dour too—The End draws on the long history of apocalyptic cults who welcome the end of days.

The album cover for Shlohmo's 'The End.'

In the four years since Dark Red, Shlohmo has remained a prolific collaborator, racking up tracks with subversive legends like Joji, Corbin, and Yung Lean as well as mainstream mainstays like Post Malone, Chance The Rapper, and Banks.

In addition, Laufer has taken his unique and moody compositions to the big screen. He made a his first ever feature-film score Pippa Bianca's new youth-centric film for A24, Share. The film and it’s original soundtrack debuted to critical acclaim at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and marks another huge achievement in Laufer’s already robust career.

I was able to track down Shlohmo as he prepares for The End, and learned that the end of days may not be as scary as the world might have you think.

Noisey: How are you Henry? What are you doing right now.
Shlohmo: Staring into the fire.

Describe what "The End" means to you.
Smoking on the couch as the meteor hits.

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Do you feel like The End is coming sooner than we think?
March 22, 2019

Will society crumble at The End? How will we, as a species and society survive?
I’m not sure the universe would miss us.

If we could put some memories in a capsule for aliens to find after The End, what would you put in there?
Microplastics and a cigarette.

How will you survive The End? Or will it be something you will enjoy?
I’m not at liberty to say.

What is your soundtrack to The End?
Silence.

Hear “The End” off Shlohmo’s new LP The End out March 22 via Friend of Friends / WeDidIt.