IMAGINARY PEOPLE Releases ‘All The Glitter’ – A Lush, Elegiac Single from Sci-Fi Folk Album ‘Takes’
Dante Ulanday - Senior News Editor 
IMAGINARY PEOPLE Announces ‘Takes’ – Sci-Fi Folk Album Confronts Loss and Mortality with Celestial Synths
New York Post-Punk Band Turns Vulnerability Into Cinematic, Atmospheric Pop
Album Out 5th February 2027 | Lead Single “All The Glitter” Out Now
+ Pre-Order ‘Takes’ Now
+ Stream “All The Glitter” on All Platforms
NEW YORK – New York City-based band Imaginary People announce their new album ‘Takes’, out 5th February 2027. The record follows the band’s acclaimed 2025 release ‘Alibi’ and finds frontman Dylan Von Wagner exploring a more vulnerable, atmospheric side of his songwriting. Lead single “All The Glitter” is out now on all streaming platforms, having debuted at Magnet Magazine.
Lead Single: “All The Glitter”
Written from the perspective of someone facing death, “All The Glitter” imagines a life lived extraordinarily well. Von Wagner explains: “All the songs on this album were recorded solo acoustic by myself, and we added everything else after. This one was one of the first I wrote after going to this photo exhibit, and the demo hung around for years. Looking at her in this one photo, I imagined her having endless daydreams about her life, so a fairytale seemed appropriate. There’s no telling the amplitude of certain death, but the gesture to imagine is all you have when the end comes.”
The track is lush and elegiac, with a honeyed croon pitched somewhere between Bryan Ferry and Jim James, set against celestial synth tones and a melancholy ache.
The Album: 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.
Critical Response
“Cinematic indie rock fused with brooding post-punk and a bit of drama, its moody tones a match for our current moment.” – Bandcamp
“Dylan Von Wagner trembles and yelps through impeccable Paul Banks-esque vocals, alternating between delightfully defiant attitude and anxious vulnerability. The result lands somewhere between art rock and post punk, delivering a burning call to action amidst the current cultural decay.” – Under The Radar
“The band’s fluid approach to guitar-driven creativity grapples with endless possibilities, utilizing the methodology of post-punk in a radically different setting.” – Clash Magazine
“Landing somewhere between ’80s stadium rock (The Alarm, War-era U2) and latter day saints such as the War on Drugs.” – PopMatters
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).
Album: ‘Takes’
Release Date: 5th February 2027
Lead Single: “All The Glitter” (out now)
Cover Art: Mira Ruido
Fans of: Interpol, Paul Banks, Moving Units, Future Islands, Bryan Ferry
Track Listing
- 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
