Ronnie Stone – “The Diamond”

In the mid-’10s, the New York multi-instrumentalist Ronnie Stone made a name for himself on the Brooklyn DIY scene, making bleary ’80s-style synthpop with his band the Lonely Riders. Ronnie Stone & The Lonely Riders haven’t released anything since their 2015 debut album Møtorcycle Yearbook. But Stone has now recorded a new album and signed on with the Chicago indie Feeltrip Records, and he’s just released his first single in eight years.

Ronnie Stone’s new song “The Diamond” is the sort of track that might’ve gotten played at the dankest, most forbidding ’80s dance clubs. The track takes inspiration from the parts of late-’80s industrial music that bordered on dance-pop, and it’s got Stone’s growl-purr vocals all over it. Here’s what Stone says about the track:

I wanted the lyrics to be more conceptual and more graphic novel-esque, to fit more in with the sound I was channeling. The song takes place in a retro-dystopian future inspired by Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. In a surreal and seedy narrative drawing influence from crime films like Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction, it details the thoughts of a woman on a mission to do whatever it takes to survive. She crosses a bridge, seduces a guard, steals some money, and slits the throat of anyone who gets in her way.

Check out director Rosa Luna’s video for “The Diamond” below.

Ronnie Stone’s new album is coming in 2024 on Feeltrip Records.