Weaving an entirely unique sonic tapestry, TR/ST (producer/singer/artist Robert Alfons) has been captivating audiences with his dynamic vocals, emotive lyrics, and late night sensuality for over a decade now. This Friday sees the release of his new album Performance. Recorded in Los Angeles, the tracks seethe with dread, lust, reckoning, and abandon, backlit by the light pollution of a thousand dead end city streets. Alfons co-produced the collection with versatile composer and producer Nightfeelings, achieving a thick, smoky balance of eerie synths, fog machine low end, and bruised, crooning voice.
Just ahead of its release, TR/ST debuts an arresting visual for the album’s title track directed by Bryan M. Ferguson. Watch below.
Album title Performance alludes to a friend’s offhand remark about Alfons’ intrinsically performative nature. The music moves between beauty and bitterness, anthem and anguish, the sound of melancholia gone massive. Track after track, Alfons wields pop dynamics and brooding production wizardry like a weapon, spiraling through a roll call of hits. Throughout, there’s a sense of emotional turmoil elevated to strange heights, stained by guilt and ghosts and the memory of those wronged and those still unforgiven.
As a world unto itself, Performance is persuasive, immersive, and intoxicating, at the threshold of stirring and disturbing. Alfons’ voice is the anchor in the storm, singing a collage of impressions and confessions with a smeared, stream of consciousness logic. He’s both observer and instigator, performer and playwright, liberated by the stage and the night.
This month, TR/ST kicks off his international tour starting with EU and UK before crossing North America including dates at Novo in Los Angeles, Metro in Chicago, NYC’s Brooklyn Steel and more. See below for a full list of dates. Purchase tickets here.
Pre-Save / Pre-Order Performance
Performance Tracklist:
1 – Soon
2 – Regret
3 – All at Once
4 – The Shore
5 – Boys Of LA
6 – Clowned
7 – Dark Day
8 – Performance
9 – Warp
TR/ST Tour Dates:
Sep 30: Prague, CZ – MeetFactory
Oct 2: Krakow, PL – Kamienna
Oct 3: Warsaw, PL – Progresja
Oct 5: Bern, Switzerland – Gaskessel Bern
Oct 6: Munich, DE – Rote Sonne
Oct 7: Cologne, DE – Gebaude 9
Oct 10: Antwerp, BE – TRIX
Oct 11: Amsterdam, NL – Melkweg
Oct 12: Paris, FR – L’Olympia
Oct 15: Berlin, DE – Festsaal Kreuzberg
Oct 17: Stockholm, SE – Slaktkyrkan
Oct 18: Oslo, NO – Parkteatret
Oct 19: Copenhagen, DK – Loppen
Oct 22: Brighton, UK – Dust
Oct 23: London, England – Evolutionary Arts Hackney (EartH)
Oct 31: Washington, DC – The Atlantis
Nov 1: Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel
Nov 2: Boston, MA – The Sinclair
Nov 3: Philadelphia, PA – Underground Arts
Nov 6: Montreal, QC – SAT
Nov 7: Toronto, ON – Phoenix
Nov 8: Chicago, IL – Metro
Nov 10: Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line
Nov 12: Denver, CO – Summit
Nov 13: Salt Lake City, UT – Metro
Nov 15: Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
Nov 16: Vancouver, BC – Rickshaw
Nov 17: Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
Nov 20: San Francisco, CA – Regency Ballroom
Nov 21: Santa Ana, CA – The Observatory
Nov 22: Los Angeles, CA – Novo
Nov 23: San Diego, CA – Modernwav