NEW ZEALAND COLLECTIVE LEISURE SHARE NEW ALBUM ‘WELCOME TO THE MOOD’ OUT SEPTEMBER 12TH
October 1, 2025 BY Bailey Vigliaturo
Auckland’s soul-electronic collective LEISURE share their fifth studio album, Welcome To The Mood. On the record, the genre-defying sextet refines their soulful, slow-burning ethos into a radiant new chapter — one rooted in togetherness, creative freedom, and the lived experience of a band evolving with authentic purpose. Embracing a more organic, live-recording approach, the group explains, “Off the back of touring the last album, we had played more shows than ever and wanted to bring more of the live element into the process, so we didn’t use drum breaks and loops as much as previous records and tracked live.”
They continued expanding their sound by bringing in specialist musicians — string sections, brass, pianos, and backing vocalists — pushing the sonic possibilities beyond their individual skill sets. Yet at its core, the album remains deeply personal. Written in remote hideaways, the songs carry the tranquility of escape while capturing a newfound confidence in emotional vulnerability.
LISTEN + SHARE
Thematically, Welcome To The Mood is a rich sonic auditory tapestry woven with threads of authenticity, humanity, and creative celebration. Lyrically, the album explores universal experiences — love, loss, connection, hope, and purpose — drawn from the everyday yet rendered in LEISURE’s distinct palette of lush tones and laid-back groove. Tracks are anchored in realness but elevated by a sonic landscape that feels simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic, mirroring the ethos of Frank Lloyd Wright, whose Taliesin West provided literal and symbolic inspiration during the album’s visual journey. By choosing Taliesin West as a backdrop, LEISURE pays homage to Wright’s architectural genius and further establishes their vision that art, whether through architecture or sound, plays a vital role in enriching everyday life. The band adds, “It’s incredible how even in 2025 the spaces Frank Lloyd Wright built in 1937 still feel futuristic and nostalgic at the same time, this is a goal for our music as well. His inspiration to build spaces for creativity and connection is also something we share.”
Following the album release, the band will hit the road in Europe and North America for a fall tour that launches in October with a performance at the Austin City Limits Festival. It includes stops in New York (Terminal 5), Toronto (The Concert Hall), Chicago (Vic Theater), Los Angeles (The Novo), Vancouver (Commodore), London (Roadhouse), Paris (Bataclan), Berlin (Huxley’s), and more. A full list of dates can be found below. Tickets are on-sale now.
In a world preoccupied with instant gratification and overnight success, LEISURE have been taking the scenic route. The six members – and mates – came together in 2015 on a spontaneous trip up New Zealand’s rugged west coast. At that stage, they’d independently spent years churning through the music machine’s tight jaws. Individually, the five are award-winning songwriters, producers, and creatives. Together, they resolved to carve out a new musical paradigm: cut the crap, enjoy the ride, and above all, keep it LEISURE. Welcome To The Mood follows the acclaimed 2023 album Leisurevision, which received praise from BBC, Rolling Stone, KCRW, and more. 850+ million streams later, festivals like Lollapalooza, M3F, and the upcoming ACL date, and sold-out headline dates throughout NZ, Australia, the UK, Europe, and the US, they’re doing something right.
LEISURE FALL TOUR DATES:
General on-sale June 13th
10/10 Austin, TX Scoot Inn (ACL Fest Nights)
10/10 – 12 Austin, TX Austin City Limits
10/13 Nashville, TN Basement East
10/14 Atlanta, GA Variety
10/16 New York, NY Terminal 5
10/17 Washington, DC 930 Club (late)
10/20 Boston, MA Royale
10/22 Montreal, QC Beanfield Theatre
10/23 Toronto, ON The Concert Hall
10/24 Cleveland, OH Globe Iron
10/25 Chicago, IL Vic Theatre
10/27 Denver, CO Ogden
10/29 Boise, ID Treefort Music Hall
10/30 Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom
10/31 Seattle, WA Showbox Sodo
11/01 Vancouver, BC Commodore
11/02 Vancouver, BC Commodore
11/05 San Francisco, CA Fox Theater
11/07 Los Angeles, CA The Novo
11/08 San Diego, CA The Sound
11/09 Tucson, AZ La Rosa
11/27 London, UK Roundhouse
11/28 Bristol, UK Thekla
11/29 Manchester, UK Academy 2
12/01 Brussels, Belgium Ancienne Belgique Box
12/02 Paris, France Bataclan
12/03 Utrecht, Netherlands TivoliVredenburg
12/04 Berlin, Germany Astra
12/06 Prague, CR Meet Factory
12/07 Warsaw, Poland Proxima
12/09 Vienna, Austria SimmCity
12/10 Zurich, Switzerland Dynamo
12/11 Cologne, Germany Stollwerck
12/13 Barcelona, Spain Sala Apolo 2
12/14 Madrid, Spain Sala Mon
