Is Tropical with Michele Ducci and Lou Jenkins

IS TROPICAL have been making things difficult for themselves since 2009, emerging from a South London squat to sign with French label Kitsuné and play every corner of the earth. Their early shows—strobe-lit, masked, and chaotic—set the tone for a career defined by relentless evolution. Tagged as pop, electronic, punk, and even “doss-pop” in a sloppy journalistic turn, their sound has never stood still.

Determined to take their music everywhere, IS TROPICAL laid synths and stories across Ghana, Mongolia, Russia, Venezuela, Peru, China, and Iceland. They shared stages with LCD Soundsystem, Sonic Youth, and Hole, headlined in Mexico, toured North America, and were covered by Indonesian teenagers, mobbed in Ulaanbaatar, held at gunpoint in Moscow, and blessed by a Ghanaian minor warlord—all within their first seven years.

After three albums, the band—Dominic Apa, Gary Barber, Kirstie Fleck, and Simon Milner—took time to step back, establish their lives, and explore new projects. They regrouped for their fourth album, Cola Spirit, only to have their 2020 tour crushed by global shutdowns. Scattered across cities and ventures, IS TROPICAL hit pause once more.

But now, as the world reopens, IS TROPICAL are back—picking up where they left off and pushing even further.

Source: New River Studios website