Tom Falle’s Rhumba Club is a place for real misfits. Not necessarily the fist-pumping flag-waving types, but more likely those who really do find themselves alienated by popular culture. These are the folk who crave a space where conventional ‘coolness’, social media, and personal demons are left outside the club door, whilst queerness and beautiful weirdos hold fort within.

Tom’s story is fascinating. Growing up gay in conservative Jersey, he knows what it is to regulate and repress your inner queer.

His childhood solution was to create a private escapist world, where classic 70s and 80s pop plays on repeat, and your choice of outfit is determined by how you feel, rather than by what mummy, daddy, or the hipster next door thinks.

10 years later, after making his way through London indie bands (with varying degrees of success), he has codified and packaged this queer escape, creating a kind of audio-Eden for queers and geeks, culminating in debut album ‘Welcome To The Rhumba Club’.

Kicking off with brass fanfare and burgeoning into a euphoric haze of 80s synths, album opener ‘Primitive’ is very much an “I have arrived moment” explains Falle. It’s a love song in its purest sense, but at the same time a summary of what Rhumba Club is about - being your most honest or...’primitive’...self.

From condemning conversion therapy in recent single, ‘Conversion’, quipping about heteronormative structures on ‘Normativity’, to being queer in a small, socially conservative place on ‘The Country’, the album is loaded with powerful themes around sexuality and culture, all doused with a colourful whit and infectious pop sounds.

‘Love Apokalypto’ is the new album from Rhumba Club aka London based, Jersey born musician Tom Falle. The album is the follow up to 2021’s debut ‘Welcome To The Rhumba Club’, which saw Tom deemed one to watch by GQ and picked up support from BBC 6Music, Attitude, The Line of Best Fit, Wonderland, 1883 Magazine, Clash and many others. The album features the singles Perfect Queen, Love Apokalypto and Video Game.

Encouraged by the album’s Grammy nominated producer Mikko Gordon (The Smile, Gaz Coombes, Arcade Fire), Tom was able to evolve Rhumba Club’s sound, allowing ‘Love Apokalypto’ to venture into new lyrical terrain. The record is pulsating with themes of intimacy and heartbreak. Midnight King is an intoxicating dancefloor filler about the politics of one-night stands, electro-ballad Moonlight deals with awkward friends-with-benefits moments. The title track, bursting with bittersweet synths and understated vocals is all about sticking it out as a duo - Bonnie and Clyde-style - whilst the world around you burns.

Since its inception in 2019, Rhumba Club’s mission has been to provide a space where social norms and personal demons are left at the door, whilst queerness and beautiful weirdos hold fort within. ‘Love Apokalypto’ is a record that is as vulnerable as it is defiant, packed with heartache and joy.

“I like to think these tunes are subtle enough for other humans to send to each other when they can’t find the words or confidence to express how they feel directly, especially in the often-so-complex minefield of queer relationships” says Tom. “I guess it’s my own, unvarnished, lover’s handbook.”