- Alone (Not Lonely) Litvar 3:31
Litvar’s origin story sprung from the childhood friendship of Rex and Violet, who began to play and write music together since their high school days. Ever since then, they’ve been working together as songwriters in various bands and projects, but the turning point for the duo came when they met Joe at a local Connecticut show in 2019. The chemistry was instant and Joe immediately asked to be their drummer and soon enough they were all playing shows together in the local music scene.
When the covid-19 pandemic arrived in early 2020, roommates Joe and Rex did what many musicians in isolation did at the time and started producing a new collection of songs that would turn out to be Litvar’s debut album. They released debut single ‘Hi I’m Andy’ in May 2020, and quickly amassed over 100,000 streams and built a loyal online following.
The full debut album, The Greatest Movie of All Time, followed in September 2020, which caught the eye of LA-based indie label Mother West who signed them later that year in October. The label released the album on vinyl, CD and cassette, which was followed by a radio campaign that saw the record reaching #193 on the NACC charts.
In early 2021, Litvar was ready to prepare new music and live shows, so Rex and Joe recruited Violet into the band as a third songwriter and bassist. Throughout 2021, the trio toured extensively across the United States and in 2022 they performed several shows in Austin, TX for SXSW.
Another landmark moment for Litvar was this summer (2022) with the release of the stand alone hit single ‘No One Tastes Like You’ produced by Wolfgang Zimmerman (Band of Horses) and with a gritty DIY-style music video. Ever tireless, the band followed this single with even more live shows.
Currently, the band are gearing up for the release of their second album and first proper studio record, Eloquently Aimless. This upcoming record will be produced by Charles Newman (The Magnetic Fields, The Bones of J.R. Jones) and in February of 2022, Litvar drove cross country to the late Elliot Smith’s New Monkey Studio in Los Angeles to track the record with Newman. Many of these new songs were created while touring on the road, including the first to be revealed – ‘You Should Find A New Boyfriend’.
Small town indie-rock is having its heyday once again as listeners move their ears away from the big city stereotypes in search of music and experiences they find more relatable. One band with a growing audience of sincere fans are Litvar, the American indie-rockers Rex Thurstan (he/they), Violet Falkowski (she/they) and Joe Lemieux (he/they) from Willimantic, Connecticut, who are in some ways defined by their experiences growing up in such an unassuming place, but it’s also their battle against the status quo that comes through with such power in their genre-blending sound.
Following the 2022 release of ‘You Should Find A New Boyfriend’, the band is back with another charismatic blend of indie-pop and alt-rock in brand new single ‘Alone (Not Lonely)’. This sarcastic love song is peppered with self-aware lyrics, like ”I’ll be the sun, you’ll be the moon, that way we’ll rarely see each other”. It’s about enduring chronic pessimism, trying to be sad, but in a cool way.
Here, Litvar share some backstory into how they made this new track:
“We first started working on Alone (Not Lonely) in February of 2021, beginning with just a chopped guitar loop that became the backbone of the song. It ended up becoming one of our favorite songs to play live, so when it came time to record our second album it was at the top of the list. Recorded at New Monkey Studio (former studio of Elliot Smith), we tracked the bass, acoustic guitar, and drums live together, to try to give the recording the same feel that we put into our live performance.”
Singles ‘Alone (Not Lonely)’ and ‘You Should Find A New Boyfriend’ will feature on Litvar’s sophomore album, Eloquently Aimless, due for release in September 2023.
LINKS:
https://instagram.com/wearelitvar
https://facebook.com/litvar
https://www.tiktok.com/@litvar