LOS LEO set to release creative experiment LL-1000 on November 14 - Friendship-inspired single ‘I Miss You’ out now

Having set out on an ambitious yet creatively fulfilling journey on New Years Day, LOS LEO is just weeks away from the release of his brand new album LL-1000, out November 14. The Adelaide songwriter and producer’s forthcoming record is the result of his goal to write, record, and release an album all within a calendar year, and today he shares the first single ‘I Miss You’.

Stream ‘I Miss You’ now on DSPs (Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Apple Music) and pre-save LL-1000 HERE.

‘I Miss You’ is a sweet pop-driven ode inspired by the long distance friendships that were a significant part of LOS LEO’s creative process during lockdown. “During the height of COVID, when borders were closed and isolation became the new norm, I found a lifeline in music along with some of my closest friends that live across the world – a musician in Los Angeles, a biomedical engineer in Switzerland, a graphic designer and carpenter in Australia,” says LOS LEO.

The group formed a virtual band called Friendship Global, who would meet on Zoom and play a songwriting game where one person would start an idea, then pass it along to the next member, with each artist independently adding their own idea until a full song eventuated. “At the end, we’d all jump on a call, press play, and hear how our ideas had evolved into a song. It wasn’t even about making songs, it was about laughing, socialising and having fun in a strange time.”

The track’s backing vocals were recorded on Zoom audio, in order to emulate the digital compression heard during Friendship Global’s virtual meetings. “I decided to bring that same spirit back for ‘I Miss You’. The track grew out of that playful process of shaping a song by fellowship. At its core, ‘I Miss You’ is about distance and the people you wish were closer.”

LOS LEO’s ability to seamlessly transcend genre and traverse emotion is rooted in his open approach to creativity, allowing inspiration to strike whenever and wherever, guided by his surroundings as much as his own experiences. “One of my biggest strengths is being emotionally available for art and the moments,” he says. “The amount of times I’ve been moved by an artist singing in a pub to 10 people. I’ve always been moved by small, honest, authentic performances, the kind that feel bigger than the room they’re in or that specific moment in time. That’s the feeling I want to recreate in my music.”

LL-1000 is a pure and triumphant result of this creative ebb and flow. “This project started as a creative experiment,” reflects LOS LEO. “I wanted to see what would happen if I built an album completely from scratch within a single year. No recycled ideas, no safety net, just momentum. I didn’t know what it was going to be when I started, but after a while I realised there was a thread running through everything. identity, reinvention, and change. This album really revealed to me what it was going to be over the year.”

“It doesn’t feel like a collection of singles to me. It’s more like an impressionist painting, songs written so close together that they bleed into each other. I want people to listen to it all the way through and let it wash over them as one larger arrangement, not individual songs.”

With LL-1000 arriving on November 14, ‘I Miss You’ sets the pace for the final stint of a creative journey that has been 11 months in the making.

About LOS LEO

LOS LEO – “type of music you play on a boombox outside your lover’s window” widescreen alt-pop built from nostalgia, heart, and human connection.

Based in Adelaide, Australia, LOS LEO is the project of one stop songwriter and producer Tom Montesi, who merges pop craftsmanship with visual storytelling inspired by icons like Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and The Police. A self described art pop romantic, “One of my biggest strengths is being emotionally available for art and the moments,” he says. “The amount of times I’ve been moved by an artist singing in a pub to 10 people. I’ve always been moved by small, honest, authentic performances, the kind that feel bigger than the room they’re in or that specific moment in time. That’s the feeling I want to recreate in my music.”

After signing with Universal Music Group in 2016 following his breakout single Beautiful Mess, LOS LEO quickly built a reputation as a cross disciplinary artist. He’s collaborated across genres on more than 50 releases, performed alongside LANY, DMA’s, and The Veronicas, and contributed music to major television shows including Grey’s Anatomy, Doctor Doctor, and Teen Mom.

Now, with his upcoming album LL-1000, LOS LEO enters a new chapter, one defined by self direction, creative risk, and rediscovery. Conceived as a year long experiment to write, record, and release an album within a single calendar year, LL-1000 became “a creative experiment in honesty, not perfection.” The record explores themes of change, identity, reinvention, and expectation, woven through what Tom calls a “utopian-scholastic, medieval sound with a mix of vintage LOS LEO.”

Written and produced entirely within the same creative window, LL-1000 feels less like a traditional album and more like “an impressionist painting, a collection of songs captured in the same moment in time.” Each track bleeds into the next, reflecting a year of motion, growth, change and vulnerability.

For LOS LEO, LL-1000 isn’t about chasing a hit, it’s about chasing meaning, sonic identity and a character arch. A document of transformation, reflection, and creative freedom, it marks both an ending and a beginning of a chapter.