Los Angeles dream pop / shoegaze five-piece Draag spent last month releasing a string of covers ahead of their new Covers EP, out tomorrow. Today, they premiere the EP’s sixth and final single below, and it’s a dazed, entrancing take on “CCLL” from Goon’s 2019 album Heaven is Humming.
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“A lot of gratitude for Goon, they gave us a platform for our music when no one else would,” the band tells American Songwriter over email. “We met Kenny [Becker] at The Smell in summer of 2014. He’s one of my favorite songwriters ever—his creations are euphoric and haunting but also tender. When ‘CCLL’ came on as I was listening to Heaven is Humming taking groceries out of the car, I almost dropped them all.”
Draag’s “CCLL” cover comes after covers of “Lansing” by Vinyl Williams, “Loro” by Pinback, “Clube Da Esquina N°2” by Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges, “Nothing Ever Happened” by Deerhunter, and “Discipline” by Throbbing Gristle. Covers follows Draag’s recent Clara Luz EP, which arrived in February, and their 2018 EP Nontoxic Process.
“Visually, the album is inspired by Catholic imagery around LA, purely for its beauty,” the band said of Clara Luz. “You can find the most creepy yet alluring religious paraphernalia in random swap meets, garage sales, thrift stores, someone’s front yard. We’re particularly drawn to the version of the Virgin Mary with the blue coat and circle of stars, which we later realized specifically represents blessing and miracles. [Frontman] Adrian [Acosta] was making health breakthroughs through the process of creating Clara Luz, meaning ‘clear light’ in Spanish. Other than that, our musical inspirations for this album include Frank Ocean, Boards of Canada, and natural drones from house appliances like heaters from the 70s.”
“We’ve been told our specialty is triggering bliss and tragic emotions at the same time,” the band said in the same interview. “We’ve also been told we can fit the bill on virtually any type of show—metal, dream pop, noise, ambient, wholesome rock, sludge, etc.”
Acosta formed the quintet—rounded out by Jessica Huang, Nick Kelley, Ray Montes, and Shane Graham—after revisiting a handful of early solo cuts.
“Adrian revived some songs he wrote when he was 9 years old on his karaoke tape deck in September 2013,” the band told Blanket Fort Adventures of their origin story. “He wanted to condense everything he loved about music into this project, so he recruited a bunch of audiophile toneheads, female vox, and a lot of synths and guitars. Our first EP Nontoxic Process was released in 2018, but we buried our first two mixtapes, made during a time that felt like a completely different band.”
Check out the latest incarnation of Draag below.
“CCLL” is out October 8.
