It was a quiet revolution. But one so deep and with such a profoundly lasting effect. Ten years ago, a little band from Connecticut, put out a sprawling yet unassuming double album. With a lo-fi production that reflected the sparseness of the means available to the two musicians, Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga. It could well have ended up just another lost debut by a bedroom band, the likes of which populate the internet every day, for better or worse.

But it wasn’t the path that Have A Nice Life’s release Deathconsciousness took. The 13 songs (split over two discs – The Plow The Broke The Plains and The Future) began to connect with people all over the map – geographically and figuratively speaking. Throughout almost an hour and a half, the musical landscapes covered passed by like tripped out scenery on a slow motion train – post-punk, shoegaze, doom, drone, noise, synthwave. It was hallucinatory, it was euphorically sad, it was catchy, it was a lot of things.

The ripples of Deathconsciousness continued to spread as the band stayed mostly behind closed doors. With only one other record – the equally incredible The Unnatural World (2014) – and only a handful of live shows to their name, both the band and their hallowed, magical debut became almost the stuff of legend.

You can hear strands of its humble magnificence through many of the bands that have played Roadburn in the last decade; traces of the Deathconsciousness DNA are already scattered around Tilburg. And now it’s time to make a few surreal dreams come true as Have A Nice Life will play their first European show at Roadburn 2019.

As much as you can describe such a rare beast as “regular”, Have A Nice Life will perform one regular set at Roadburn, as well as one which focuses on Deathconsciousness being played in full. Tim Macuga explains the impetus behind the live shows:

“For one, we are motivated to play out a bit more due to the steadiness and creativity of our live band collaborators. Rich, Myke, and Ian have had an intuitive understanding of both what makes our traditional bedroom recordings work and how to adapt, tweak, and intensify them in the flesh.”

Join us as we celebrate the big gloom of Have A Nice Life, brought into focus at Roadburn 2019.

— José Carlos Santos