White Denim Tickets

It’s always been hard to keep pace with James Petralli’s group, ever since they first exploded out of Austin, Texas in ’08 with hyper-kinetic post-punk bangers like ‘Shake Shake Shake’ and ‘I Start To Run’. There was delicious romance in the original trio’s MO, as they hatched intrepid sounds together in a 1940s Spartan trailer parked up in woodland outside the city. James duly raced on through shifting line-ups and kaleidoscopic shades of soul, jazz and Southern rock, always with a feel of in-the-moment authenticity.

As for so many musicians, the pandemic forced Petralli into a radical rethink in both life and creative process. Going into White Denim’s twelfth long-player, he relocated his family to Los Angeles, and, barred from the usual workouts “on the floor” under COVID, he plunged deep into the science of assembling tracks digitally, with contributions from players he’d sometimes never even meet.

The results on 2024 album '12' are intricate, hi-tech and forward-facing, yet also somehow still of a piece with the questing ambition, rootsy swing and uplifting way with melody we’ve come to adore about Petralli’s music.