[Cover photo credit to Alycia Kravitz]
La Neve, the Dance-Punk project of Rhode Island-based musician, labor organizer, and historian Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, is set to release their History Solved EP this Friday, April 15th, 2022. A special 200-copy limited edition vinyl pressing of the History Solved EP has also been announced with pre-orders starting on April 15th. It will be released as a set of two 7″ records on June 7th via Radical Empathy Records.
The EP’s final single, “Rough Music,” has also been released. The song’s title refers to the folk tradition of holding parades that would mock powerful people, such as bosses or political leaders, with abrasive sound.
The new EP combes themes of “power, labor, sex, and possibility” and leans into Punk, Dance, and House Music traditions. The project, produced by Marco Buccelli (Giovanni Truppi, Xenia Rubinos, Lady Lamb) and mastered by Heba Kadry (Animal Collective, Big Thief, Courtney Barnett), features Karna Ray on drums.
Outside of La Neve, DeFrancesco has been a long time songwriter and guitarist with Punk band Downtown Boys. DeFrancesco has also long worked as a labor organizer, most recently co-founding the organization Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) which, among other efforts, has led a worldwide effort to demand better pay from streaming companies. DeFrancesco’s writings on labor, history, and Rhode Island have appeared in Jacobin, Newport History, In These Times, Art Forum, Uprise RI, Providence Journal, and elsewhere.
