St. Lucia Shares New Single “Take Me Away” off ‘Utopia’ LP Out Oct. 7th || North American Tour Begins Oct. 6th 

St. Lucia, a synth-pop band led by husband-and-wife duo South Africa-born, Jean-Philip Grobler and Germany-born Patti Beranek, return with their new single, “Take Me Away.” After four years, St. Lucia will be releasing their fourth studio album, Utopia, on October 7th through Nettwerk.

“Take Me Away” bops along on claps and a falsetto hum with uncontainable energy and a twist of trip-hop production. Its core message depicting how to deal with depression and mental health is enhanced by a colorful fusion of synth-pop, yacht rock, and electronica. With an emphasis on productivity and pop purity, the track was inspired by the chill-out music scenes from the late 90s and early 2000s, influenced by artists such as Bent, Zero 7, and a few Café Del Mar compilation records.

“I’ve struggled with depression and mental health throughout my life, but I’ve found that the best way out of that cycle is through speaking my mind and talking to someone about it,” says frontman Jean-Philip Grobler. “When you’re in a depressed place, it’s easy to feel ashamed and feel like, somehow, you’re a bad person or not good enough because you feel that way. The worst thing, I’ve found, is to keep that thought cycle bottled up inside yourself because that way it festers and goes into a feedback loop of negativity. But when I talk to people about it and allow those feelings to air, I realize that everyone deals with those things and that it’s totally normal– the feelings have a purpose, they’re not there for nothing. So that’s where the lyric ‘When you’re walking alone, tell me all of your secrets’ comes in. When someone is walking, alone or depressed, it is important to help them speak their minds. It’s part of why therapy is so valuable.”

“Take Me Away” arrives on the heels of the August single “Hey Now.” Driven by elegant arrangements and warm synths, the emotionally charged “Hey Now” transmits an uplifting reminder in the resounding chorus, “Hey now, well it only takes a second fall, but it only takes a minute to start over again.” In July, St. Lucia had shared their lead single “Touch” off their forthcoming Utopia LP.“Touch”glides out of the gate on buoyant keys and a head-nodding bass line as the refrain reaches for ecstatic yacht rock. The track was complemented with a mirthful, 80s pop culture style music video directed by Nicole Lipp that features LGBTQ+ dancer/actor, Liv Mai, along with Canyon Carballosa, an inspiring advocate and member for both the LGBTQ+ and autism communities.

Equal parts colorful disco, 70s funk, and 80s pop, the Utopia LP is a luminous palette of synths, pulsating with vibrant sonics that have come to characterize their genre-defying career. Inspired by everyone from David Bowie, The Weeknd, Daft Punk, and Parcels, St. Lucia enlisted the mixing talents of trusted collaborator Chris Zane [Passion Pit, The Walkmen] to help steer the sonically sparkling ship to greater heights.

Discussing the group’s forthcoming LP that will be released next month, Jean-Philip expresses, “We at St. Lucia HQ are beyond excited (giddy, in fact) to reveal the next stage of our new musical era: ‘Utopia,’ the full album. Yes, yes, it’s true that we have been stringing you along a little bit, but in our opinion there’s nothing wrong with a little tease, and it might in fact lead to a more satisfying conclusion. ‘Utopia I’ makes up the first half on the album, like a side A, and our upcoming new release, ‘Utopia II,’ makes up the second half of the album, like a side B (remember from the heady days of vinyl?). The journey continues our search for the meaning of ‘Utopia’ through all the joy, sadness, and irony of our modern existence. Is ‘Utopia’ in the extremes, or is it in the tug-of-war between the extremes? Join us over the next few months for more clarity.”

Renowned for their energetic live shows, St. Lucia will embark on a six-week tour starting on October 6th, which will mark their first full headline run in four years. Supporting on select dates will be Dutch musician and YouTube star, Blanks, synth-rocker, Caroline Kingsbury, and electronic musician, Bayonne. See below for the full set of dates. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit stlucianewyork.com/live.

“Take Me Away” is available on DSPs here: https://stlucia.ffm.to/takemeaway

“Take Me Away” visualizer is available here: https://youtu.be/yg_H7s1ZqEw

Tour Dates:

10/6 – Charlottesville, VA @ Jefferson Theatre *

10/7 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club *

10/8 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts *  

10/9 – New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall *  

10/11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Café & Music Hall *

10/13 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club ^

10/14 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall ^

10/15 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew’s Hall ^

10/16 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues ^ 

10/18 – Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater ^

10/19 – Kansas City, MO @ The Truman ^

10/21 – Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre ^

10/24 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox ^

10/25 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom ^

10/26 – Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre ^

10/28 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades ^

10/29 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall ^

10/30 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Theatre ^

11/1 – Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory #

11/2 – San Diego, CA @ Belly Up #

11/4 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom #

11/5 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf #

11/7 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s #

11/8 – Dallas, TX @ The Studio at The Factory #

11/9 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live #

11/11 – Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre

11/12 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl

11/13 – Raleigh, NC @ Lincoln Theatre

11/15 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel (SOLD OUT)

11/16 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel

* with Caroline Kingsbury

^ with Blanks

# with Bayonne

About St. Lucia:

Led by South Africa-born Jean-Philip Grobler and Germany-born Patti Beranek, St. Lucia has stayed faithful to what they’re best at: putting on incredible live shows everywhere from Coachella to Kansas City, producing shimmery synth-driven pop grooves, and having a good time doing what they love. St. Lucia has always stirred good vibes. It started with their debut album, When The Night, which entered the Billboard Top 200 and hit #6 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Album chart. The follow-up album, Matter, yielded the hit “Dancing On Glass,” while the band collaborated with Jack Antonoff, RAC and others. Two years later, Hyperion represented a creative and critical high watermark with praise from Billboard, who hailed the album as “buoyant,” and PopMatters who raved, “it feels revelatory.”

Throughout 2020, they wrote and recorded what would become Utopia in Patti’s hometown of Konstanz, Germany and Upstate New York. Following the birth of their youngest son Charlie, Jean-Philip’s self-imposed social media exile, and a return to “normalcy” in the world at large, they shared six tracks as Utopia I in April 2022. “Rocket On My Feet” eclipsed 1 million total streams as the project earned critical praise from Riff Magazine, Under The Radar, and more. Variance hailed it as “a wealth of electropop goodness in the middle of a world on fire.”

In its entirety, the forthcoming LP only expands this vision, hinging on the parity at the heart of the band’s signature style. Synths pulsate like strobe lights as euphoria rains down from a skyscraping singalong. The guitar strings shake and shudder akin to bodies on the dance floor bathed in fluorescence. Freedom courses through every physical and emotional movement as you depart this dimension only to land on St. Lucia’s Utopia. The group’s fourth full-length album unlocks this plane via eloquent and elegant electro-pop projected in cinematic proportions like your favorite fantasy fever dream on the big screen. As the unadulterated and unfiltered vision of Jean-Philip Grobler and Patti Beranek, these 13 tracks engage escape in its purest form.