SOLACE

Editors’ Notes Australian electronic trio RÜFÜS DU SOL imbues each of their albums with a sense of place: Their melodic dance-pop debut, Atlas, was written in sunny Sydney, and their deep, club-minded follow-up, Bloom, was produced in Berlin. In 2016, the band uprooted for Venice Beach to record album number three, expecting to find a laidback hub for hippies, artists, and surfers. Instead, they were swept up in the music industry grind—touring, starting a label, collaborating in writing sessions, and finding themselves desperate for sleep.

Solace, their most introspective record yet, finds them dancing on the edge of sanity. “There’s a real sense of chaos on this record,” keyboardist Jon George told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe. “Darker, more chaotic feels…like being lost in the abyss a little bit.” There was also a consciousness-expanding trip to Joshua Tree that inspired "Lost in My Mind,” a spacious, meditative cut about embracing the unknown. “We went for a few little wanders [out in the desert] and it’s scary, man,” George said. "But that's what the song is about… You lose your friends and you’ve got to just be like, ‘You know what, I’m sweet.’”