Leisure Releases New Track ‘Ride It Out’ + Announces Special Edition Album
Auckland’s soul-electronic collective Leisure announces the deluxe version of their fifth studio album, Welcome To The Mood – Special Edition, out May 29th, featuring four brand-new tracks. Today, the band shares the third and final preview of the expanded album, Ride It Out.
Additionally, the band will bring their headline tour to Mexico and South America this May, kicking things off in Mexico City, and will include stops in Colombia, Chile, and Argentina. See all dates below and get tickets here.
On their new single, Ride It Out, they share, “the track reframes connection through resilience, capturing the push and pull of a relationship as it moves through its tougher moments. Beneath the laid-back groove is a message of patience and commitment. Staying present, holding on, and trusting that the highs are still on the other side. It’s about weathering the dips, not overreacting to the lows, and choosing to ride things out until the light comes back.”
LESIURE TOUR DATES:
May 7 – Mexico City, Mexico @ Pabellón Oeste
May 10 – Bogotá, Colombia @ Bonfire
May 15 – Santiago, Chile @ Club Chocolate
May 17 – Buenos Aires, Argentina @ C Art Media
In a world preoccupied with instant gratification and overnight success, Leisure have been taking the scenic route. The six members – and mates – came together in 2015 on a spontaneous trip up New Zealand’s rugged west coast. At that stage, they’d independently spent years churning through the music machine’s tight jaws.
Individually, the six are award-winning songwriters, producers, and creatives. Together, they resolved to carve out a new musical paradigm: cut the crap, enjoy the ride, and above all, keep it Leisure. Welcome To The Mood follows the acclaimed 2023 album Leisurevision, which received praise from BBC, Rolling Stone, KCRW, and more. 850+ million streams later, festivals like Lollapalooza, M3F, and the upcoming ACL date, and sold-out headline dates throughout NZ, Australia, the UK, Europe, and the US, they’re doing something right.
On the record, the genre-defying sextet refines their soulful, slow-burning ethos into a radiant new chapter – one rooted in togetherness, creative freedom, and the lived experience of a band evolving with authentic purpose. Embracing a more organic, live-recording approach, the group explains, “Off the back of touring the last album, we had played more shows than ever and wanted to bring more of the live element into the process, so we didn’t use drum breaks and loops as much as previous records and tracked live.”
They continued expanding their sound by bringing in specialist musicians – string sections, brass, pianos, and backing vocalists – pushing the sonic possibilities beyond their individual skill sets. Yet at its core, the album remains deeply personal. Written in remote hideaways, the songs carry the tranquility of escape while capturing a newfound confidence in emotional vulnerability.
Thematically, Welcome To The Mood is a rich sonic auditory tapestry woven with threads of authenticity, humanity, and creative celebration. Lyrically, the album explores universal experiences – love, loss, connection, hope, and purpose – drawn from the everyday yet rendered in Leisure’s distinct palette of lush tones and laid-back groove. Tracks are anchored in realness but elevated by a sonic landscape that feels simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic, mirroring the ethos of Frank Lloyd Wright, whose Taliesin West provided literal and symbolic inspiration during the album’s visual journey. By choosing Taliesin West as a backdrop, Leisure pays homage to Wright’s architectural genius and further establishes their vision that art, whether through architecture or sound, plays a vital role in enriching everyday life. The band adds, “It’s incredible how even in 2025 the spaces Frank Lloyd Wright built in 1937 still feel futuristic and nostalgic at the same time, this is a goal for our music as well. His inspiration to build spaces for creativity and connection is also something we share.
