Cigarettes After Sex

Ambient pop collective Cigarettes After Sex grew out of an experimental sound project by songwriter Greg Gonzalez. The band’s hushed, dreamy music earned a devoted international fan base in the mid-2010s with a combination of elegantly crafted singles, EPs, and viral YouTube videos, which led up to their 2017 eponymous debut. A second album, Cry, appeared in 2019, building on their success. After a collaborative EP credited to Gonzalez and Daniele Luppi (Charm of Pleasure), Cigarettes After Sex re-emerged in 2022 with the single “Pistol,” with two more cuts, “Bubblegum” and “Stop Waiting,” arrived in 2023. The group was formed almost accidentally in 2008 while Gonzalez was living in El Paso, Texas. Then a student at University of Texas, he was experimenting with capturing the spacious sound of recording songs in a four-story stairwell at the university. These dreamy tunes would make up the first Cigarettes After Sex EP, I., which was released in 2012. After relocating to Brooklyn, Gonzalez continued work on the band, enlisting the help of a loose cast of collaborators including Phillip Tubbs, Randy Miller, Jacob Tomsky, Steve Herrada, Emily Davis, and Greg Leeah. Output from the collective appeared mostly in the form of singles, EPs, and immensely popular YouTube clips. One of their most notable tracks was a 2015 reworking of REO Speedwagon’s power ballad “Keep on Loving You.” Following a swell of attention online, Cigarettes After Sex began to work on a full-length debut. The self-titled effort arrived in 2017, almost a decade after the band’s inception. That year, the single “Apocalypse” was an indie hit in parts of Europe, landing on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart in the U.S. (number 16). One year later, they issued the single “Crush,” a track they’d recorded during the same sessions as their debut. In October 2019, the group returned with their sophomore full-length, Cry. With a push from the single “Heavenly,” the album charted across Europe, hitting number one in Portugal. Gonzalez then teamed up with composer Daniele Luppi for the EP Charm of Pleasure, released on Monitor Pop/Slowplay/Verve in September 2022. Its gentle, symphonic atmospheres featured instruments like harp and mallet percussion in addition to synths and strings. Two months later, Cigarettes After Sex returned with “Pistol,” their first new music in over two years. Two more stand-alone singles, “Bubblegum” and “Stop Waiting,” appeared the following year. In 2024, they returned with “Tejano Blue” — inspired Gonzalez’s years living in El Paso — which was the lead single from their album X’s. ~ Fred Thomas