BALTHVS take the title of “Pale Blue Dot” from Carl Sagan, who used the phrase for the Earth as Voyager 1 photographed it in 1990: a single point of light six billion kilometres from the lens. The Bogotá trio are declared Sagan fans, and they turn his warning into one blunt question: “Why destroy the one place that we call home, while there is nowhere else to go anyway?”

The single announces MANIFEST, the band’s sixth album, out on Mixto Records on 7 October. Guitarist Balthazar Aguirre leads the trio with drummer Santiago Lizcano and bassist Johanna Mercuriana, who returns for this album after stepping away from touring to raise a child. The three regrouped in the Colombian countryside and wrote the record in the studio, where Transmutations, released in March, had reworked their live sets.

“Pale Blue Dot” opens the album’s second side, a slow-burn that runs close to five minutes. BALTHVS cut MANIFEST on the rigs they use on stage, running analogue direct systems from Chile’s DSM Humboldt alongside their Fender instruments, with Bogotá producer Christian Cifuentes at the board. Across the record the trio push their psychedelic funk towards drum and bass, a harder rock attack and Ethio-jazz.

Stream “Pale Blue Dot” HERE and pre-order MANIFEST following THIS LINK