Brandon De La Cruz Announces New Album – Blue Irises In Hologram
8 August 2025
'New Signs' and 'How Many Names For Yellow?' are the first singles from Kirikiriroa-based folk musician Brandon De La Cruz's forthcoming album Blue Irises in Hologram, which will be released on 17 October 2025.
Initial recording for 'New Signs' took place at the artist's shared studio at Never Project Space in Kirikiriroa from May-September 2022. The track's arrangement evolved through experimentation with samples taken from Mississippi Records releases, a label De La Cruz worked for while previously living in Portland, Oregon. Jim Fulton (Sylvia's Toaster) plays bass on the song.
'New Signs' was written eight years ago as an experiment while the artist took part in Matt Meighan's Songwriting as Truth-Telling workshop in Portland, OR.
Describing his approach, De La Cruz said, 'While I write I'm usually hyper-focused on fitting words to a story or feeling. With 'New Signs' I bypassed that inclination and reached out for sounds that felt right.'
'How Many Names For Yellow?' was recorded at a borrowed house overlooking the Waikato River in Kirikiriroa from May–June 2024. Contributors to the track's instrumentation and arrangement include Jim Fulton (Sylvia's Toaster), Brooke Singer (French for Rabbits), Nick Walsh (Big Sigh) and Rachel Hope Peary (Big Sigh).
For this song, De La Cruz took inspiration from one of Van Gogh's letters, which includes the line 'It is impossible to say how many different green-greys there are for example – the variations are infinite.'
'New Signs' and 'How Many Names For Yellow?' were mixed by De Stevens and Brandon De La Cruz in Aotearoa and mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk in Portland, Oregon.
Brandon De La Cruz is a folk artist whose lyricism is uniquely shaped by his interest in mythology, ceremony and RH Blyth's translations of Japanese haiku. He grew up in the suburbs of Southern California's Inland Empire and has lived and performed regularly in Portland, OR, Berkeley, CA and Aotearoa. De La Cruz's work has been featured on RNZ's Bookmarks, as well as Flying Out's Live Sessions. He has supported such renowned performers as Simon Joyner and Tom Brosseau. Prior records were inspired by the works of Rilke, Joan Didion and Ovid, while his most recent LP, Two Kilos of Blue, drew from local and personal images, and was showcased through performances at Camp A Low Hum, Auckland Art Gallery Toi O Tāmaki and Futuna Chapel in Wellington.
In 2025, De La Cruz was offered a fellowship by the Iowa Writers Workshop, where he'll spend the next two years preparing his first manuscript of poetry for publication.
Tracklist:
War Machine
New Signs
The Wildcat I Can't Calm Keeps Me From My Home
Memory, No Friend To Me
What A Friend We Have In Jesus
Every Little Boy In Auckland
How Many Names For Yellow?
Blue Irises
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