Indie pop group Mosquitos have announced the upcoming release of their new album, Mexican Dust. The fourth full-length record for the band, Mexican Dust will be released via Six Degrees Records on August 18th. The album reflects the diverse and eclectic musical range of the trio, encompassing a unique blend of Brazilian influences, American pop smarts and witty, oddball arrangements.

The group has also shared a new track, ‘This Town’, a synthesizer-infused psalm for the excitement of big-city life that serves as the opening track on Mexican Dust. Singer Juju Stulbach remarks on how naturally the song emerged: "I felt I had something. The song came out whole in one take. It came out so rounded and complete that we did not dare add or change any of the words or melody."

A recurring theme on Mexican Dust is the search for a home, one that Stulbach as lyricist addresses head-on in ‘This Town’, a sudden yearning for her frenetic New York City streets. Stulbach further explores this sense of detachment and longing in ‘Estrangeira’ and the wryly humorous ‘Island in the Bathtub’.

Mosquitos – singer Juju Stulbach, singer and multi-instrumentalist Chris Root, keyboardist-programmer Jon Marshall Smith – are musical nomads whose songs occupy a mythical place somewhere between Brooklyn and Brazil. After scoring a hit with their bossa-nova inspired song ‘Boombox’ in 2003, the group went on to release two more albums before going on hiatus. An out-of-the-blue offer for Mosquitos to contribute a song to an indie rock tribute album for the 30th anniversary of Fraggle Rock got Root and Smith talking again.

The group ultimately reconvened in New York City to record Mexican Dust with producer/arranger Michael Leonhart, a longtime sideman with Steely Dan who has recorded with artists ranging from A Tribe Called Quest to Yoko Ono. “I find Juju and Chris to be incredibly earnest friends and artists, always searching for new ways of pushing their own boundaries and self-expression," remarks Leonhart. "They are naturally gifted songwriters who together with Jon have created this unique micro-universe of tropicalia-punk-folk."

Mexican Dust tracklist:

1. This Town

2. Far Like Stars

3. Estrangeira

4. Counting The Days

5. Azulando

6. Lights Pass By

7. Island In the Bathtub

8. So Lonely

9. Quantum Romanticum

10. Mexican Dust

11. Someone You Love

12. Into The Drain

13. Todo Fogo 

14. Sometimes She’s Blue

PictureHouse have announced details of a compilation of some of the band’s favourite tracks spanning the period around their first two albums. Having freed themselves from one record label in 1995 and eventually signing with a major label for their first two albums, the band became live favourites around Europe supporting the likes of Meatloaf, The Corrs, Mel C, Runrig, Bon Jovi, The Saw Doctors, countless festivals and their own legendary tours saw the band collect hordes of followers. Their policy of playing anywhere to anyone meant they played in front of a million people in 1998 whilst both Shine Box and Karmarama went top 10 in Ireland with ‘Sunburst’ being the most played song on Irish radio as well as being used on a national TV advertising campaign.

Entitled How Can I Explain How This Came To Be? – the first line from their first single, which was also the first track of their first album, Shine Box, the album will be available on vinyl (with accompanying CD) and on digital platforms. "It would have been easy to only include the big singles as some sort of best of compilation, but we wanted to focus purely on the time around our first two albums and some of the songs that today people still come up to us and tell us were the soundtracks to their lives at that time" said PictureHouse front man Dave Browne.

Featuring the smash hit ‘Sunburst’ which has been remastered and re-released to coincide with the album, the record also features live favourites ‘Fear of Flying’, ‘You and I’, ‘Raining Stones’, ‘Jade’, ‘Somebody Somewhere’ as well as previously unheard tracks ‘Not Built To Last’, ‘Roll Over’ and next single, ‘Cup of Life’. The band are celebrating the 21 years since Shine Box this year with celebrations culminating with a show in Dublin’s National Concert Hall on September 13.