IN LIFE, an indie rock duo from Oakland, California, is a collaboration between Nick Noro (vocals) and Omar Moon (guitar, production). Noro, a beat boy and scat vocalist, also performs in Oakland bands Survival and Adjudicator, while Moon, an indie rock guitarist and music producer, composes scores for independent films and played in Los Angeles rock band Fiction Nation.
The duo’s influences include Curve, Arthur Russell, SPC ECO, Cocteau Twins, Nothing, and Deerhunter. In their time outside of music, Moon runs a small carpentry business, and Noro is a full-time urban gardener, planting seeds of hope across the Bay Area in places of decay.
Showcasing a fastidious collage of musical elements from punk, shoegaze, and trap, the duo’s strengths synthesized by their debut single, “Hole in the Ground.” The song bleeds lush guitars, throbbing synth, and effusive vocals. Its accompanying video makes creative use of absurd ‘smoke and mirrors’ visual effects.
The band says, “’Hole in the Ground’ is probably our favorite song to play live, because it has one of those beats that gets people moving. It’s also one of the first songs we wrote together, so we just had to put it on our debut album.”
Its accompanying music video makes use of digital archives of vintage animations and other assorted free footage. Pre-save the single here.
This September 8, IN LIFE follows their self-titled EP with their debut full-length album, Strawberry Blonde (pre-order it here). Sonically, the album rolls in elements of shoegaze, indie rock, and psychedelia for an energetic yet dreamy sound. Its booming drums, twangy guitar riffs, haunting synths, and rich vocal harmonies converge to form a sound that somehow feels both strangely familiar and refreshingly new. Thematically, the album covers themes like death, addiction, lust, and alienation, and is inspired by life in Oakland.
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