Flightless Records have released a new compilation titled ‘Love Hurts’, featuring brand new recordings from artists across their roster.
The compilation’s theme was conceived in 2019, with the label challenging its contributing artists with the task of writing a “love song”. The result is 12 “swoon, croon, and heartbreak tunes” that, while united in theme, are sonically rather disparate.
Among the artists who feature on ‘Love Hurts’ are Traffik Island, who opens the record with a kaleidoscopic cut titled ‘Communication’, and CIVIC, who steer their typically frenetic punk energy into sincerely romantic territory on ‘Running Back’.
Singer-songwriter Leah Senior, meanwhile, contributes a sauntering piano-led song titled ‘Love Outlast My Heart’. There’s a gorgeous, harmony-filled cut called ‘Home’ courtesy of Stonefield, and Bitch Diesel share a haunting drone-punk burner with ‘Heart Wide Shut’.
Rounding out the record are songs from Beans, Cooper and Kenny-Smith, Mr. Teenage, The Slingers, Montero, Tim Presley’s White Fence and Maston. Listen to the compilation in full below – deluxe vinyl editions are set to arrive in May, which you can pre-order here.
According to Flightless, the project kicked off full steam ahead in December of 2019, with engineer Samuel Joseph flying in from Byron Bay to the label’s studio in Melbourne, recording the compilation’s first four tracks in four days, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic slowing things down shortly after.
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“Having kept this release close to our chest throughout that time, and now in our tenth year, it feels more fitting than ever to have this one out in the world,” the label said in a statement.
“An album that feels both old and new, inventive and interpretive, with a retrospect of the last ten years and what might be the next.”
‘Love Hurts’ marks Flightless’ first new release for the year. 2021 saw the label issue King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard‘s ‘L.W.’, CIVIC’s debut album ‘Future Forecast’ and records from Babe Rainbow, The Murlocs, Traffik Island and Pipe-Eye, the solo project of King Gizzard’s Cook Craig.