In 2022, Le Youth was behind an album that we ultimately crowned one of our indisputable favorites of the year. And in 2023, he now has the long-form answer to Reminders. Back in mid July, the This Never Happened veteran revealed that he would be converting his crowd-focused live show concept into a 12-track sophomore album of the same name. Just shy of three months later, Le Youth has officially delivered About Us as his LP follow-up via Lane 8’s label.
The album title is meant to be taken literally. Le Youth explained alongside its initial unveiling that About Us was crafted with a laundry list of reasons behind it that were mainly centered around the idea of it just simply being for everyone , adding that it spanned a “spectrum of emotions.” And Le Youth gave a sense of that on About Us‘ sequence of emotion-packed previews, which included “Like You Did,” the highly coveted “Spring 2023 Mixtape” ID and track of the year hopeful alongside Lane 8 and Jyll “I Will Leave A Light On,” “Talking Like That” with EMME, and and lastly, “I Don’t Mind” with Kairos Grove.
And on About Us‘ complete delivery date, eight tracks join the four previously released singles. As Le Youth had already shown across that previously dispersed batch of music—as well as in a handful of other releases since Reminders—his brand of crisp melodic house had become even more polished throughout this last year. That notion grows hundredfold on About Us from the very millisecond “Back Around” with Fractures opens the tracklist door. And it’s followed by “Us In The Weeds” with Jodie Knight as well as a trio of cuts that many may recognize from Lane 8’s “Fall 2023 Mixtape”—”Refracted,” “Morning Light,” and “I’ll Catch You”—”Healing” with Hayes Kramer, “You And I” with Bailey, and ultimately “Restore” with MØØNE. As he fittingly self-described it, About Us is undoubtedly his most “authentic and raw” music to date, providing 12 distinctive slices of sublime, goosebump-inducing melodic house. About Us results in a LP that has the rare absence of a single run-of-the-mill moment in its near-hour duration, reaffirming Le Youth’s placement as one of the best in the melodic house business and securing that his name is guaranteed to appear amongst Dancing Astronaut‘s top album of the year for a second calendar in a row. Although he says he struggled to find the right words to pair with the album release post on his Instagram, Le Youth shared some insight into why About Us was created, explaining,
“I was thinking about how to write this and I didn’t know what to do. So I started just listing the reasons I made the album. And here they are
I made this album for me and for us, for your headphones and for your car, for your flight in the window seat to see your best friend. I made it for our late nights when the world is asleep and I made it for Brianna and Bodhi. I made it for your break up. I even made it for my exes. I made it for my parents. I made it for my friends. I made it for the rooftop party. I made it for the club and I made it for the afters. So many reasons, but mainly I made it for us. Hope you like.”
Stream another top-to-bottom masterpiece from Le Youth below.
Featured image: Le Youth/Instagram
