NEWS : WED, MAY 11, 2016 at 8:00 AM

Shabazz Palaces Will Join Radiohead As Support For Their Los Angeles Shows This August!

[Photo by Beowulf Sheehan]


We’re thrilled to announce that Shabazz Palaces will join Radiohead as support on the group’s forthcoming Los Angeles shows. The performances will take place on Thursday, August 4th and Monday, August 8th at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

The Radiohead support slots are the latest additions to Shabazz Palaces’ summer festival schedule, which includes: June 4th in Spokane for Volume The Inlander’s Music Festival; June 18th at Vancouver’s Levitation Festival; August 13th at Eaux Claires Festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin; and Brooklyn’s Afropunk Festival August 27th. 

Additionally, Shabazz Palaces will join Flying Lotus, George Clinton + Parliament Funkadelic and Thundercat for three U.S. west coast shows: September 15th-16th in Oakland at Fox Theatre and September 17th at the Hollywood Bowl. (complete dates below.)

These summer tour dates are in support of Lese Majesty, which is available for purchase on CD / 2xLP / CD from Sub Pop MegamartiTunesAmazonBandcamp, and an independent retailer near you.

Treat your eyes and ears to a sampling of Shabazz Palaces mind melting videos and music in this YouTube Playlist.




What people are saying about Lese Majesty:
Lese Majesty is Shabazz Palaces getting interstellar, a set of intricate, enigmatic, yet meaningful suites complete with an (initially) impenetrable multidimensional blueprint/map connecting it all in the liner notes. Beneath the visuals, the album contends with a strain of Afrofuturism that puts its faith in finding unities in contradictions and clarity in riddles (“I’m having my cake and I’m eating 
cake,” “facts stated to enhance what is pre-born,” “we try to unreproduce six tension intervals”), reconciling structure and formlessness, forethought and spontaneity….meter-defying breaks and tactile, synthesized bass-church/musique concrète production that turns human language into primordial elements of cosmic influence. It’s humbling stuff that urges you to dance but knows full well that, to do so, you’ll need to relearn new and better steps [50 Best Albums Of 2014] - Pitchfork

“Unlike their previous, also brilliant full-length Black Up, Shabazz Palaces’ new “sonic move” Lese Majesty is not necessarily conducive to absorption in small doses. The record is a massive, dense monolith, divided into suites that only start to make sense after countless repeat listens. It’s a bridge from rap’s beginnings in the early ’70s into its future — structurally, thematically, lyrically, sonically, all of it — that sounds so many light years ahead of everything else in the genre that its nods to the past only reveal themselves after one invests real time immersed in what we called “the impossibly deep, singular astral landscape” that the group has created.” [Album of the Year]  - Gorilla Vs. Bear

“With their second album, Seattle hiphop duo Shabazz Palaces unshackled Afrofuturism from cliche in order to present a holistic almost familiar worldview that the future is already here, before demanding an honest response to that revelation. Hua Hsu said:  Abstraction is only useful insofar as it shakes our reliance and this is what makes Lese Majesty’s primal futurism such a bewildering experience. Palaceer raps with secularity and conviction as all that was once solid melts into air - rules and codes vanish, leaving nothing but ghosts while beats dissolve into pretty colors.” [#7 / Albums of the Year] - The Wire


Tour Dates
Jun. 04 - Spokane, WA - Volume: The Inlander’s Music Festival @ Terrain Stage 
Jun. 18 - Vancouver, BC - Levitation Festival @ Imperial Vancouver
Aug. 04 - Los Angeles, CA - Shrine Auditorium *
Aug. 08 - Los Angeles, CA - Shrine Auditorium *
Aug. 13 - Eau Claire, WI - Eaux Claires Music Festival
Aug. 27 - Brooklyn, NY - Afropunk Fest @ Brainfeeder Stage
Sep. 15 - Oakland, CA - Fox Theatre **
Sep. 16 - Oakland, CA - Fox Theatre **
Sep. 17 - Hollywood, CA - Hollywood Bowl ** 
* w / Radiohead
** w/ Flying Lotus, George Clinton + Parliament Funkadelic, Thundercat, The Gaslamp Killer



Posted by Rachel White