Imaginary People have today dropped their new single titled ‘All The Glitter’, from their upcoming album ‘Takes’, releasing February 5th. There is something wonderfully inconvenient about a song that makes you stop whatever you’re doing and actually feel something. Just when you thought you could get through another day of scrolling, multitasking, and pretending your attention span hasn’t been completely demolished, along comes Imaginary People with “All The Glitter.” The New York outfit takes a decidedly more reflective approach here, trading some of their familiar intensity for an atmospheric, emotionally rich sound that feels less interested in grabbing your attention and more interested in keeping it. And annoyingly enough, it works.
Built around a story contemplating mortality, memory, and the imagined possibilities of a life fully lived, ‘All The Glitter’ manages to find beauty in some rather heavy territory without becoming an exercise in musical misery. Frontman Dylan Von Wagner delivers a wonderfully warm, honeyed vocal performance that carries an understated elegance, while celestial synths and carefully layered instrumentation give the song an almost dreamlike quality. There are shades of classic sophistication and modern indie melancholy floating around in the arrangement, but Imaginary People never sound like they’re trying to impress anyone with their record collection. The emotion feels genuine, and that’s becoming an increasingly rare commodity.
What makes ‘All The Glitter’ particularly compelling is its restraint. Rather than hammering listeners over the head with its subject matter, the track allows its atmosphere and storytelling to do the heavy lifting. The result is lush, wistful, and quietly captivating, with an arrangement that gradually reveals more of its personality the longer you spend with it. Von Wagner’s songwriting has a vulnerable quality that makes the song feel personal without becoming self-indulgent. It’s the sort of track that sneaks up on you, which is considerably more impressive than the musical equivalent of waving a giant neon sign in someone’s face.
‘All The Glitter’ serves as a promising introduction to Imaginary People’s upcoming album, Takes, arriving February 5, 2027. If this single is any indication, the band is entering an intriguing new chapter, one that embraces vulnerability, atmosphere, and the messy business of being human. It’s thoughtful without being pretentious, beautiful without being sugary, and emotionally ambitious without collapsing under the weight of its own seriousness. In a musical landscape where everyone seems desperate to be the loudest person in the room, Imaginary People have discovered the rather radical concept of saying something meaningful. Turns out, that’s worth quite a bit more than all the glitter.
About ‘Takes’
‘Takes’ marks a departure in both sound and approach for Imaginary People, trading the band’s familiar intensity for celestial synths, melancholy folk reveries, and an intimate reckoning with loss and mortality. It is the band’s most vulnerable collection to date, balancing a mournful atmosphere with a search for connection, redemption, and shared catharsis.
The album’s origins date back to 2019, when Von Wagner attended a photography exhibit featuring images of an acquaintance’s wife, who had recently died of terminal cancer. Deeply moved by the photographs’ stark portrayal of loss, he returned home and began writing songs inspired by the experience.
“It just hit me very profoundly,” Von Wagner says. “I have no idea why. I don’t have any rhyme or reason for it. I remember seeing the exhibit, and then I went home and wrote a bunch of songs. And I didn’t want to touch them.”
After years of setting the material aside, Von Wagner returned to the songs in early 2025, following his mother’s cancer diagnosis. The fear and sorrow that had informed the original compositions resurfaced, prompting him to revisit those recordings and write new material in the same reflective vein.
“I recorded everything in one day, on acoustic,” Von Wagner says. “After that, everything was added afterwards. It was a little more of an art project record, where you didn’t know what was what.”
The band initially began tracking in an abandoned laundromat before relocating to Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn, where Michael Coleman (Bill Frisell, Cassandra Jenkins, Joshua Crumbly, SNEAL) engineered and mixed the recordings.
Though ‘Takes’ began with stripped-down acoustic demos, it is far from a solo record. Keyboardist Justin Repasky’s expansive palette of synths and keyboards brings a cosmic dimension to Von Wagner’s intimate laments, building layered arrangements that move beyond straightforward acoustic songwriting.
“As I’ve gotten better at songwriting, one thing I think I tapped into in the last couple of years in my practice is: what’s the human element of it?” Von Wagner reflects. “When you’re crafting songs, you’re just trying to be human and you’re trying to be grounded. I think that really helps the songwriting. Even dance music has a human element to it. So I think what this taught me is just about being in touch with the humanity of it.”
The album artwork was created by Spanish artist Mira Ruido, with whom the band has collaborated again.
‘Takes’ Tracklist
- All The Glitter
- Pieces Of You
- All Things Pass
- NYC
- Lagoon
- My Ocean
- Don’t Like Lightning
- She Is The One
- Call And Repeat
- In Dreams
- Landing The Show
About Imaginary People
Formed after the break-up of indie outfit Linfinity, Imaginary People has spent more than a decade crafting layered, emotionally charged post-punk. Frontman and songwriter Dylan Von Wagner has long used the band as an outlet for fears, anxieties and social observation, from 2015’s ‘Dead Letterbox’ and 2017’s ‘October Alice’ to 2025’s ‘Alibi’. The band has previously been featured in Clash Magazine, Dork and C Heads. Current line-up: Dylan Von Wagner (vocals, songwriting), Justin Repasky (keys and synths), Mark Roth (guitar), Oskar Haggdahl (drums), and Bryan Percivall (bass and synth).
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