Cigarettes After Sex plays Vancouver in September as part of “X’s” tour

by Mike Usinger on February 28th, 2024 at 10:15 AM

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Those whose grandest life ambitions include making a pilgrimage to the Bang Bang Bar in Twin Peaks, Washington will be thrilled at the news Cigarettes After Sex is headed to Vancouver. The El Paso–spawned dream-pop project founded and lead by singer-guitarist Greg Gonzalez will play Rogers Arena on September 27.

Tickets go on sale on March 8 at 10am.

Cigarettes After Sex’s upcoming full-length X’s finds the group’s founder and sole constant member doing a deep dive on a four-year relationship that proved nothing if not complex.

“The record feels brutal,” Gonzalez states of X’s. “I could sit and talk about this loss to someone, but that wouldn’t scratch the surface. I have to really write about it, sing about it, have the music, and then I can start to analyze and learn from it. Or just relive it—in a good way. I don’t have that Eternal Sunshine thing of wanting to forget.”

X’s will hit streaming services and brick-and-mortar record stores on July 12. Those who can’t wait for this fall’s show can endeavour to catch the band at Madison Square Garden, Bonnaroo, and Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena in the coming months. And, if the stars align, the Bang Bang Bar.

In the meantime here’s Cigarettes After Sex’s new single “Tejano Blue”, where reference points include Selena Gomez and Gonzalez’s childhood in Texas.

“I grew up in El Paso, and Tejano music is huge there,” Gonzalez says of the single. “You could go to a lot of the bars in the city and hear artists like Selena, Los Ángeles Azules, and La Mafia playing over the speakers. It was in the atmosphere around me back then, but I always rejected it and gravitated towards anything else I was attracted to, really.”

His statement continues: “Years later, when I was living in New York City, I finally started listening to Selena’s ‘Como La Flor’ at the same time that I was also listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins. I had the idea then to try to combine both of their sounds somehow, which felt a bit strange, but also felt like it was coming from a genuine place of rediscovering and finally connecting with the music that I heard around me in my youth.”