First spins of Under the Moon pulled me back to hearing Balthvs for the first time — that sensual, unhurried register you get in a jazz club, music that settles next to you without pushing. Balthvs later pushed deeper into exotic psych rhythms. But City of the Sun are going somewhere else with this one. Worth just listening to find out where.
Brooklyn-based but functionally borderless, City of the Sun started as John Pita (guitar) and Zach Para (drums), with Marco Bolfelli (guitar) and Matt Fasano (bass) rounding out the current lineup. Their debut, “To The Sun and All the Cities in Between,” came out in 2016; a self-titled followed in 2020, and “Segunda Alma” in 2022. Along the way they toured with Peter Bjorn and John and Thievery Corporation. “Under the Moon,” their new one, arrives April 24 on Nettwerk.
Producer is Phil Ek, whose credit list includes Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty, and Built to Spill. The record moves through a lot of weather: surf on “Angeles,” spaghetti-western drift on “Bajo la Luna,” a desert rock pulse on “Ciudad del Sol,” Mediterranean sway on “Hotel Alma.”
It’s instrumental music built like a film — scene by scene, with real places behind each one. Live performance videos for “Angeles” and “Twenty Twenty One” were shot on location in the Moab Desert, which tells you something about how the band thinks about where their stuff comes from.
Working with Ek changed the sound around the sound. “He captures not just the instruments, but the space around them. Something that’s full of depth and atmosphere,” the band say. “Phil helped bring a sense of spaciousness to our sound — something analog, timeless, and alive. What stands out is how — even though he works with so many artists — he enhances them without changing their identity, simply by shaping the space around the music.”
Pita traces the first notes of “Un Disparo al Corazón” back to a specific childhood memory in Ecuador. “When I was a kid, there were always old keyboards around my house. My brother and I would sit there, pressing random keys, just seeing what came out. Sometimes I’d land on these notes that felt mysterious — almost eerie. Like the sound of an empty house, or an abandoned building, if silence could echo.”
Years later, the first time he played the opening phrase on guitar, he recognized the feeling. “That song, especially, is deeply important to me. It carries the weight of loss and change. It’s the beginning of the story of Under the Moon.”
The international reach has an origin story no plan could have scripted. The band spent full summers busking in New York — Union Square a regular spot — while people from all over the world filmed them and carried the videos home. One of those tourists was from Greece and showed footage to her boyfriend, who happened to be a promoter booking international bands.
Around the same time, the band made a video somewhere else entirely — in the Panamanian jungle, hiking in with their gear and playing “Second Sun” on location. That clip ended up going viral, racking up millions of plays in Greece specifically, boosted by a popular tastemaker there. By the time City of the Sun landed in Athens in 2016, they were playing sold-out rooms with lines around the corner. “It was amazing, unpredictable, and magical,” Pita says.
A lot of Under the Moon is working through the years the world stopped and the years after. “Songs like ‘Twenty Twenty One,’ ‘Un Disparo al Corazón,’ and ‘Metamorphosis’ come from a place of change, loss, and grief, but also from the process of moving forward,” the band say.
Against that weight, the record also carries a long-highway quality — “open roads, long drives, desert grooves, and the kind of moments that stay with you. It’s about being out there, exploring, and letting the journey shape the sound.” “Angeles” and “Saw You in a Dream” sit inside that second mode — rolling, warm, in motion.
“Saw You in a Dream,” released as the final single ahead of the album, works the porous line between what’s imagined and what ends up real. “Everything that’s real was once in your imagination. It’s hard to tell whether it was fate or something created by our minds, or maybe it’s both,” the band said when they put it out. “This song is about using our imagination to create. Some things and people start in our minds and then become real. And similarly, people who were once with us stay in our dreams forever.”
“Vuela” pulls the record further out. A collaboration with Spanish singer-songwriter Gizmo Varillas, the track draws on Argentine folk legend Atahualpa Yupanqui and weaves Latin and African rhythms through a throwback pull. “The serendipity of this song is that we didn’t write it for vocals. It just happened — Gizmo created a beautiful melody,” Pita explains.
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Other stops on the record: “Cinderella Man” uses the story of boxer James J. Braddock as allegory for the musician’s struggle.
“London” folds heartbreak into surf-rock currents and new wave textures, tied to the city where the band first understood the scope of their international reach.
“Ella” and “Saw You in a Dream” push toward groove disco-funk — new territory for them.
“Metamorphosis” closes the record like a final shot in an old Western: departure, horizon, one world behind, another opening up.
“Under the Moon” is out April 24 on Nettwerk.
2026 tour dates:
Apr 5 – Washington, DC @ Pearl Street Warehouse
Apr 7 – Atlanta, GA @ Aisle 5
Apr 8 – Asheville, NC @ Asheville Music Hall
Apr 9 – Nashville, TN @ Cannery Hall
Apr 11 – Miami, FL @ ZeyZey Miami
May 7 – San José del Cabo, MX @ Viva El Gonzo Festival
May 17 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
May 18 – Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe
May 19 – Ferndale, MI @ The Magic Bag
May 20 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
May 21 – Montreal, QB @ Bar Le Ritz PDB
May 23 – Portland, ME @ Oxbow Blending and Bottling
May 25 – South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
May 27 – Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy
June 3 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
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