Taleen Kali announces new LP & tour, shares video for the title track, “Flower Of Life,” via FLOOD

Hot off the heels of two EPs, Taleen Kali debuts the music video for “Flower of Life,”  the title track from her debut full-length album out March 3, 2023 on Dum Dum Records. Produced by Jeff Schroeder of The Smashing Pumpkins and Josiah Mazzaschi (Bizou, Light FM), the album is loaded with sheets of fuzz and swirling guitars, with vocals that amass the range of femme punk to shoegaze siren.

Kali explains the song’s origins and meaning:

“Flower of Life” was a spiritual concept I held onto for a long time before writing this song. The flower is a fractal, a cycle, ever blooming, ever decaying.

For our 1st music video, we wanted to honor this cycle by highlighting the cultural moments we experienced in the recent past as a way of celebrating our resilience while also looking ahead to the future. For our band right now, it means being able to perform again and tour to support our upcoming album. In the larger scheme of things, it means so much more.

It was important to us to not only highlight resistance but also celebration in the music video. The news clips in the video range from footage of LGBTQ pride marches to recent protests, which include the recent Roe vs. Wade demonstrations, Armenians in L.A. protesting the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, Black Lives Matter, and even the 2017 Women’s March.” 

Bio:
Hailing from her native Los Angeles, Taleen Kali (she / they) composes romantic punk songs wrapped in layers of shoegaze, psychedelia, and grunge, creating a cosmic sound that’s dreamy and defiant alike. Influenced by melodies and imagery from her Armenian heritage and her parents’ birthplaces of Lebanon and Ethiopia, Kali fuses her lineage with sonics of the modern countercultures she grew up embracing, exploring everything from punk to Brit-pop. With fiery live sets and swirling sonics, her band has quickly become a staple in the L.A. music underground.

When Taleen’s band TÜLIPS went out with a bang at their final headline show at The Regent Theater in 2016, Taleen went solo, sharing bills and touring the country with indie luminaries such as Ex Hex, Alice Bag, and Seth Bogart. Her 2018 debut EP Soul Songs, produced by Kristin Kontrol (Dum Dum Girls), mixed by Brad Laner (Medicine), and recorded at Hollywood’s legendary Sunset Sound Studios, found Taleen’s riot grrrl ethos maturing into a polished, multifaceted punk sound with noise pop and new wave influences. Upon its release, Kali received praise from outlets like BUST Magazine and Stereogum, who likened her sound to a contemporary Blondie, and Soul Songs was included in Pitchfork’s Guide to Summer Albums and LA Weekly’s Best Indie Punk Albums. A year later, the band followed up with an unplugged version of the EP and covers of “Baby Love” by The Supremes and “#1 Crush” by Garbage, and Kali set off in 2020 to record a 2-song pandemic project called Changing with her TÜLIPS-era producer Greg Katz (Cheekface, LA Font).

A multi-hyphenate to the core, Kali is also the founder of experimental label Dum Dum Records and what The L.A. Times calls “cult favorite” DUM DUM Zine. A sound healer who often leads group meditations, she briefly pivoted from punk psychedelia in late 2021 for the release of her soundbath album Songs For Meditation. Her poetry, essays, and visual art have appeared in digital and international publications including The Onion, SPIN, Razorcake, Los Angeleno, and The Bushwick Review.

Kali and her band are currently gearing up for the release of their first full-length album, Flower Of Life, which they recorded at The Cave Studios in the winter of 2022 with producers Jeff Schroeder (The Smashing Pumpkins) and Josiah Mazzaschi (Bizou, Light FM, Child Seat). The title track debuted as the album’s first single on KEXP, garnering praise from Buzzbands LA and Grimy Goods, with the second single to follow in September. The band is doing a full U.S. tour this year in support of Flower Of Life, out early 2023 on Dum Dum Records.