Lael Neale - As Killers Do Lael Neale

In the wake of three critically acclaimed records on Sub Pop, Lael Neale announces As Killers Do, the inaugural self-release under her new imprint Consensual Sound.

The first single Slip Away is out now, along with a homemade stop motion video featuring Neale’s black and white paintings appearing and disappearing line by line. Slip Away, a throbbing garage rock meditation on the cosmic justice of impermanence, features producer and accompanist Guy Blakeslee’s psychedelic guitar, and Lael’s signature Omnichord with its built in drum machine.

Recorded in the kitchen of a bungalow in Echo Park, Los Angeles with a Tascam cassette 8 track machine, As Killers Do is Neale’s fourth collaboration with Guy Blakeslee and stays true to the duo’s commitment to minimalism and the raw immediacy and hand-made intimacy of home recording. The ten songs on the record offer up a variety of sonic worlds, from echoes of LA’s Paisley Underground and 60’s girl group sha-la-las, to metaphysical proto-punk, lo-fi outsider folk and Surrealist psych-pop. A brilliant lyricist, Neale has a unique ability to uncover the extraordinary within the mundane. As Killers Do showcases her ever evolving crystalline vocal mastery and razor sharp insights into the human condition.

By exploring her struggles on the inner plane against the backdrop of the accelerating chaos and imbalance of our digital society, she alchemizes a transformation from obsessive overthinking and often debilitating anxiety to a hopeful, grounded and mystical perspective.

Lael has still never owned a “smart-phone” and has remained wary of social media. Her DIY ethos of home recorded music and self-directed Handycam videos is now expanding with the launch of her new label Consensual Sound, which takes its name from her Substack. Her primitive original paintings, which she’s been selling at the merch table in lieu of carrying heavier items, appear on the record cover and in crude stop motion form in the accompanying music videos. It all adds up to a personal artistic world built around handmade imperfections, intended to foster direct personal connections and offer experiences instead of mass produced products.

Ultra limited import LP on black vinyl in hand-silkscreened kraft board sleeve. Indies exclusive.

"She's managed to infuse a very done old female singer-songwriter, emotive approach with fresh abandon. She abandons a lot of the traditional instrumentation and doesn't often bother with a beat and just kind of lets the whole feeling of the thing go into a place that suddenly doesn't sound like it's of the industry." - Iggy Pop

"The Omnichord Queen… an artist who’s becoming special” – MOJO

“Otherworldly with shades of Vashti Bunyan and Julia Holter” – Uncut

“A swirl of art-rock majesty” – The Guardian