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We had the pleasure of interviewing Blood Cultures over Zoom video!
Experimental psych indie act Blood Cultures lifts the veil on their anticipated eight-track project, LUNO, out now on Pack Records. Having long been an artist centered around anonymity, LUNO marks the birth of a new era for Blood Cultures, one that shines a light on their Pakistani-American heritage and provides a deeper, more personal understanding of their world. Exploring identity, change, and self-discovery, LUNO sets forth the revitalization of Blood Cultures as an artist and the messaging behind their music. LUNO’s tracks have steadily pieced together a new Blood Cultures’ universe inspired by this amplified importance of diversity in representation in art and entertainment. Each track carries its own distinct sonic qualities, from softly strumming guitars and shimmering synths heard in tracks like ‘Set It On Fire’, to jarring tumultuous rhythms heard in the experimental ‘Beneath The Moon & Me’, and the dark indie-electronic soundscapes of ‘Keeps Bringing Me Back’ and ‘When The Night Calls’. Accompanying visuals paired with each single thus far have further explored LUNO’s overarching themes of repression, the nature of control, duality of the self, identity, and rebirth.
Throughout the Blood Cultures universe is a series of images portraying Blood Cultures wearing a burka and suit side by side, a simultaneous defiance and juxtaposition of the gender and cultural norms that persist in both eastern and western cultures. In doing this, Blood Cultures hopes to harness the provocative nature of fashion in order to tell their own multi-cultural and non-binary story. These outfits and imagery take on topics of western toxic masculinity and eastern feminine oppression – both of which are topics prominent in Blood Cultures’ personal world.
Thematically, LUNO centralizes around the internal exploration of darkness and the growth that comes with self-acceptance. Its name references the mythology of the lunar cycle and the moon as a symbolization of shift and rebirth. Even the project’s eight-track count references this mythology, with each song correlating to a step in the archetypal journey through chaos and each exemplifying a different phase of the moon. The works of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell are among those that heavily influenced the storytelling behind LUNO – that the crux of every great story must be about change and if we as individuals want to truly experience growth we must let go of the person we were before.
Embracing identity and raising questions around the themes of heritage, gender, and the innate need to belong, Blood Cultures aims to spark conversations around these complex yet significant issues.
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