Chappaqua Wrestling have announced their debut album. Plus Ultra will be released through EMI on 14th April. The band also share new single ‘Wide Asleep’.
As the band themselves say, “Talking is our generation’s saviour” and Plus Ultra is an album with much to get off its chest. Beginning with its title, “Ne Plus Ultra” is roughly translated as “Nothing Lies Beyond” – a phrase that used to be marked on old-world maps, often dissuading rookie explorers from bothering to sail out. The band repurpose this notion as a challenge from which to launch the album’s central point of focus: exploration. These are songs that plumb societal lows while also conjuring up a feeling of hope. Theirs is a glass-half-full mentality, understanding that to take on the hardest of challenges often requires the optimism that they can be overcome.
The band’s new single ‘Wide Asleep’ follows recent album teasers ‘Full Round Table’ and ‘Wayfinding’, both of which found a way to skewer inaction from the powers that be while scorching a path to positivity. Their anthems for togetherness and clarity of thought have brought them support from the likes of BBC Radio 1, 6 Music, Radio X, Soccer AM, FIFA 23 and more. ‘Wide Asleep’ puts social media in the firing line, as the band explains:
“Wide Asleep is a complaint to ourselves for being consumed by the echo chamber of social media. Our mobile phones are the portal which lead us to misread and miscommunicate stories and topics, often leaving us more confused than we were in the first place. Wading through muddled points of view, mis-targeted ads, senseless airtime of the Royal family, weddings of friends you’d rather forget, addictively numbing reels, leaving us blinded by a little hand-sized screen. It makes us detached and unmoved by anything, all whilst being asleep to the world around us. Hopefully, our preaching will teach us something ourselves as we try to focus on the present.”
Continuing about the album they say: “Plus Ultra documents the journey through our friendship, from school to where we now find ourselves commenting on what is around us. Roughly translating to ‘Nothing Lies Beyond’, a Latin naval term adopted by those exploring uncharted waters, we present a collection of our best works to date, each lyrically distinct but venturing into new territories that life presents; mass media, Tory austerity, mental health, homelessness, the deprived NHS and the release that music gives you from it all. Come with us to make sense of what lies beyond in this world through questions, power and statements that we stand by.”
Having completely sold out their first UK headline tour last October, Chappaqua Wrestling are also announcing their latest run of dates. Tickets are on sale here at 9:00 GMT on 10th February 2023.
