UK rockers Circa Waves kicked off 2023 by releasing their hotly anticipated fifth album Never Going Under just two weeks into the year, recently following that LP up with a spinoff EP of acoustic takes cheekily titled Never Going Unplugged. With that experience transforming the record’s glossy new wave and stadium Britpop into gentle acoustic numbers, it’s no surprise that the band brought album tracks “Your Ghost” and “Do You Wanna Talk”—both of which appear on the EP—to their recent acoustic “Neighborhoods” session filmed while the band was in LA.
“We found ourselves in the Arts District in LA,” frontman Kieran Shudall shares. “An empty car park and a hungry cat for company. Jetlagged and slightly tipsy from warm margaritas we decided on a couple of new songs. ‘Do You Wanna Talk’ seemed apt with it being about drinking too much—a theme I try not to write about too much anymore, so as to not disappoint my mother. ‘Your Ghost’ was next, a slightly strange love song about being haunted by a partner. Feeling like you can’t escape their smell and their presence. It’s a kinda weird subject, but there you go. Love is weird, isn’t it?”
The band was in town for a gig at the city’s legendary Troubadour—a surreal experience for a young act well aware of who’d taken the stage before them. “You feel the history in the walls of that place—it soaks into your skin and breathes out of you during the show,” Shudall adds. “It’s a special venue and I think we played a pretty special show. We went to the Rainbow Lounge and raised a strong whiskey to all the rock ’n’ roll legends who have sat there arses in those small booths. It’s a funny old place, Los Angeles—a place where dreams are made and hearts are broken. We’ve certainly experienced both there. I wait with bated breath for our return—I just hope the Troubadour waits as well.”
Check out their Arts District performance below.
