Service Merchandise: Vinyl LP

Pre-Order Item. Release Date Subject to Change.
Label: Merge
Release Date: 28th June

Previous Industries are Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave, and STILL RIFT, all from Chicago, all living in LA, all coming together like people from Yorkshire who move to London make friends with people from Yorkshire, likeminded folk flock together in new environments. Everything we've heard from this record has a real mellow LA soul but still with the learned city brashness of Chicago hip hop. This'll likely be one of the hip hop records of the year.

Previous Industries is three Chicagoans with a deep, shared history—Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave, and STILL RIFT—who currently reside in LA. In a city where transplants often say they find it hard to connect with new people, these guys found a way around that by delving into the past to rekindle old connections.

When that connection was made, they seemed to stay in the past, rapping about anything and everything but always bolstered by nostalgia and shared memories.

Service Merchandise, their debut LP as a unit, is named after a largely defunct retail chain, as are many of the songs on the album. Orbiting the dead mall as a spiritual concept, Previous Industries tackle nostalgia, heartbreak, joy, and disposability from three distinct points of view, weaving in and out of beats by Child Actor, Quelle Chris, and Smoke Bonito to create something new from a discarded past.

The record was mixed by Kenny Segal (Armand Hammer, billy woods) and mastered by GRAMMY-winning engineer Daddy Kev (Flying Lotus, Thundercat).