The band’s debut single ‘Pouring Rain’ gained more than a million streams on Spotify, under their own management. Their subtle rework (upon request of Studio Brussel) of alt-J’s ‘Matilda’ gained popularity faster than expected and was released as a successful second single.
Their rise in popularity didn’t go unnoticed and last summer Portland proudly teamed up with [PIAS]. The first result of this partnership was ‘Lucky Clover’, an emotional, dreamy and subtle piece of harmonic prose, whose greatest strength is the harmonies and interaction between front duo Jente Pironet and Sarah Pepels. The single got picked up on radio in Flanders, club shows sold out quickly and an invitation to play this year’s Rock Werchter and Pukkelpop festivals followed.
Gearing up to release their debut full length album after the summer, Portland now proudly presents their new single ‘Expectations’. An epic and cathartic love song using lush strings, chimes, timpani, electronics and electric guitars to counter Jente and Sarah’s remarkable voices. “‘Expectations’ is about high hopes, deep disappointments and very abstract interactions between attractions, rejections, doubts and certainties,” Jente explains. It’s a bold move and a step up from their previous output, still retaining the same otherworldly, dreamlike quality.
The press release describes the video for the latest cut lifted from Whispering Sons as ‘apocalyptic’ – so of course if got our attention. And the the ‘Best Belgian Band’ don’t disappoint: the bleak visuals are the perfect accompaniment to the tense goth-hued drama, Fenne Kuppens’ voice conveys a blend of fear and loathing against a backdrop of sinewy, tripwire guitars and a meaty backbone of drums and growling bass.
‘The end-of-days feeling of the track is illustrated in the remarkable video. No demonic four horseman, no bloodthirsty robots or aliens to exterminate humanity, but a serene and peaceful kind of doom… We see youngsters assemble at the tree of life in a desolate desert-like setting. Their trancelike gaze aimed high at the sky that’s about to fall… Death from above… Parting ways together… determined, undaunted, unconcerned… “I’ve been afraid too long, I’ve been afraid too long…”’
The band are also at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton this year.
Hull Doom merchants, The Parasitic Twins have released a live video to accompany their latest single; a lo-fi heavy cover of the 90s classic ‘Spaceman’ by Babylon Zoo, which was released on April 5th. All proceeds of the sale are going to The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). The single is taken from a split EP with York-based hardcore punks, The Carnival Rejects (released via Bandcamp on May 31st in association with Man Demolish Records).
Watch the video here:
Of the decision to record the cover, drummer Dom Smith comments: "Man, we love Babylon Zoo. This is a classic track that was way ahead of its time, and we just wanted to mess with it, and we’ll probably stress a lot of people out, but use it as a way to bring attention to an incredible cause in CALM."
Of CALM’s importance on a national scale, Dom adds: "Male mental health is becoming more spotlighted every day, and myself and Max [guitars and vocals] want to offer any support we can to spread the word."
Those interested in donating to CALM can do so here.
The Parasitic Twins will also head out to Europe and across the UK for a run of shows this April with grindcore mates, Boycott The Baptist and Clunge Destroyer:
Continuing to stoke the anticipation revolving around their mighty return to the studio and stage, legendary duo Earth have shared another snapshot of their forthcoming LP Full Upon Her Burning Lips. Coupled with a stark black-and-white visualiser, the five-and-a-half minute dirge ‘The Colour Of Poison’ is packed with Earth’s thematically meditative, sonically immense hallmarks and marks a return to heavier territories.
Immerse yourself in ‘The Colour of Poison’ here:
Their ninth studio album, Full Upon Her Burning Lips, is due out May 24th on Sargent House.
Sub Pop has signed Trupa Trupa from Gdańsk, Poland for a worldwide deal, and will release new music from the group in 2019. While we await details of that release, the band have delivered an official video for ‘Dream About’, a new song that features a honeyed falsetto that totters over a menacing bassline, and the frisson between them so hypnotic it renders the title phrase as an existential mantra, a lifeline.
Director Benjamin Finger had this to say of the ‘Dream About’ visual: “The video was shot on Super 8, a format I am strongly connected to, and I think it fits the music of Trupa Trupa. There is something poetic about the music, and I think it matches the images in a good way. The “Dream About” video is also about seeing the world through the eyes of the child. The video features footage shot on location in Vancouver, Paris and Buenos Aires.”
Watch the video here:
Trupa Trupa will tour the world in 2019, beginning with appearances at SXSW in Austin, Texas (March 14th-16th), and Slovakia and Poland (April 25th-27th). Additional shows will be announced soon.
Mar. 14 – Austin, TX – SXSW / Hotel Vegas / LEVITATION SXSW presented by CREEM Magazine (12:20 am) Mar. 15 – Austin, TX – SXSW / Austin Convention Center / Flatstock Stage (3:30 pm) Mar. 16 – Austin, TX – SXSW / Venue TBC Apr. 25 - Gdańsk, PL – Ziemia Apr. 26 – Poznań, PL – Spring Break Festival Apr. 27 – Bratislava, SK – Sharpe Festival
Reunited NYC noise-rock royalty Live Skull have revealed new song "Up Against the Wall" – the song was written and recorded under the alias New Old Skull, as part of the "BC35" project honouring the legacy of producer Martin Bisi and his Brooklyn studio, BC Studio.
Stream the song here:
‘Up Against the Wall’ appears on BC35: Volume Two, the second instalment in the "BC35" series, due out April 19th on Bronson Recordings. In addition to New Old Skull (Live Skull), the album contains live performances of songs (some written, some improvised) by current and former members of Sonic Youth, Swans, Cop Shoot Cop, Blind Idiot God, Alice Donut, Lubricated Goat, and more.
Of the first "BC35" album, released last year, Pitchfork wrote: “The credits read like a who’s who of New York’s experimental underground… It’s a sonic embodiment of risk-taking, rule-breaking, and antithesis that celebrates the endurance of a man and a space tied directly to New York’s noise, art-rock, punk, free jazz, hip-hop, and alternative movements…”
With the release of "BC35: Volume Two" coming up, celebrating BC Studio and the ethic it represents, the future of the studio where Bisi has operated since the early 1980’s is unknown. A new rezoning proposal seeks to reshape the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, incentivizing residential development and tall buildings. Meanwhile, a grassroots push to landmark certain historic buildings, including the former factory where BC Studio is located, is in motion.
Bisi gave this statement to BrooklynVegan: “The looming rezoning feels like floodgates are about to burst. The City estimates 18,000 new residents, 8,200 new units. Their premise goes beyond the need for affordable housing, it’s based on the expectation of tens of thousands of jobs coming to NYC, and those people needing housing. It’s a vision similar to when the City wooed Amazon. Gentrification begets more gentrification. So the net shift will be grossly unaffordable. In carving out space for the arts in Gowanus, the rezoning encourages my building to expand, potentially up to 17 stories, to accommodate about 1,000 artists. My space was established at a time when I could utilize a large space, and I do, and depend on it. My fear is that I’m in the way of all this – that I could be sacrificed in the interest of a higher number of incoming artists, likely fairly affluent – and the character of the arts themselves gentrifying.”
A new video for "Espirais da Loucura” from Brazilian trio DEAFKIDS has been shared this week. The song is taken from the band’s explosive third album, Metaprogramação, which was recently released through Neurosis’ label, Neurot Recordings.
The new video for for "Espirais da Loucura” was directed by Vitor Jabour. The band offers, “‘Espirais da Loucura’ illustrates the desperate layers of absurdist madness in its inner and outer aspects – cloistered witnesses in fields of agony – the inner war between our own personas and desires. In its outer aspects, it reflects the chaotic confusion of our daily struggles in socio-political realities, where present and future are being written in hopeless and dystopian lines by this fascist and corrupted misgovernment we are currently living in Brazil. The video was created through analog circuit-bending by the Brazilian VJ Vitor Jabour, collaborating with what we call the ‘Brazilian Lo-Fi Abuse,’ by creating violent synesthetic sensations through the abstraction of colors, lights and sensory movements."
Watch the video here:
With harsh noise and industrial elements seamlessly melded into a volatile and rambunctious hybrid of ethnic jazz/world music-influenced punk, DEAFKIDS thematically tackles existential socio-political topics and dystopian themes through their own artistic lens. Their singular sound and manic energy coalesce to form one of the most intriguing and challenging acts in recent years.
DEAFKIDS will tour across Europe in support of the album this Spring, leading with two sets at Roadburn Festival April 11th and 12th. These shows will be followed by several weeks of shows, the tour lasting into early May, and the band joined by Rakta for the journey. North American touring with Neurosis and Bell Witch has also been announced. Dates and details below.
DEAFKIDS w/ Rakta:
11/04/2019 Roadburn Festival 2019 -Tilburg, NL
12/04/2019 Roadburn Festival 2019 – Tilburg, NL w/ PetBrick
14/04/2019 – Amsterdam, NL
16/04/2019 D. K. Luksus – Wroclaw, PL
17/04/2019 Underdogs – Prague, CZ
18/04/2019 Urban Spree – Berlin, DE
19/04/2019 Merleyn – Nijmegen, NL
20/04/2019 The Lexington – London, UK
21/04/2019 Soup Kitchen – Manchester, UK
22/04/2019 The Hope & Ruin – Brighton, UK
23/04/2019 Moon – Cardiff, UK
24/04/2019 The Cluny – Newcastle, UK
25/04/2019 Rough Trade – Bristol, UK
26/04/2019 Olympic Cafe – Paris, FR
28/04/2019 SWR Barroselas Metalfest 2019 – Viana do Castelo, PT
29/04/2019 Mag4 – Bruxelles, BE
30/04/2019 Bar Hic – Rennes, FR
01/05/2019 Tri Martolod – Concarneau, FR
02/05/2019 Léo Ferré – Brest Espace, FR
03/05/2019 Les 3 Pieces – Rouen, FR
04/05/2019 Het Bos – Antwerp, BE
05/05/2019 Donau Festival 2019 – Donau, AT
w/ Bell Witch, Neurosis:
07/08/2019 The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
08/08/2019 Cat’s Cradle – Carrboro, NC
09/08/2019 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
10/08/2019 Theatre Of Living Arts – Philadelphia, PA
Lifted from the blistering and bleak It Won/t Be Like This All the Time, an album with not a single duff track, ‘Shooting Dennis Hopper Shooting’ is perhaps one of the clear standouts. Taking its title (seemingly) from a review of the Denis Hopper documentary American Dreamer published in The Guardian in February 2016, it requires little further verbiage beyond ‘check it out’ here’:
BIG | BRAVE share the first full track ‘Sibling’ from their incoming album, A Gaze Among Them (Southern Lord, 10th May) by way of a brilliant video by Mathieu Ball & Robin Wattie.
Since their inception in 2012, BIG|BRAVE have explored terrains of experimental rock with a clear focus on the key principles; space, volume, and raw emotion. The essence of BIG | BRAVE’s magic has always been the way they balance these dynamics, and particularly how much sheer power comes from the beautifully quiet moments.
The same principles are the starting point for the new album, only the approach is different, beginning with the question "How do we take very little and make something bigger than what we actually have?" vocalist and guitarist Robin Wattie explains further "the biggest challenge was to not do what is easiest. i.e. what we knew worked for the last albums or what is, for us, easy to write. With A Gaze Among Them, Mathieu and I put ourselves through the ringer – I did not want to do what seemed to me to be a ‘logical next step’ in what we could do musically. I wanted to go back to our original concepts and work from there – space, tension, minimalism and voice (finding melody and musicality in pieces that consist of one note for longer than ten minutes, for example) were the primary concentrations I wanted to push."
In the process of revisiting their early intentions, BIG | BRAVE have boldly evolved, emerging with a thrilling new body of work that is all at once refreshingly new, explosively heavy, dynamically loud, beautifully minimal, carefully repetitive, and totally and utterly cathartic.
A Gaze Among Them features Robin Wattie (vocals, electric guitar, guitar amp, bass amp), Mathieu Ball (electric guitar, guitar amps) and Loel Campbell (drums) with guest appearances from Thierry Amar (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt Zion) on Contrabass and Seth Manchester‘s synth overdubs. The album was recorded with Seth Manchester at Machine with Magnets in Pawtucket Rhode Island.
The beautiful image adorning the cover (created by Robin Wattie) further demonstrates that BIG | BRAVE have blossomed. The trio sound rejuvenated and confident, and A Gaze Among Them is the sound of a band truly honing their craft, and feeling totally satisfied with it. Compelling. Necessary. Important.
Efrim Manuel Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion) and Kevin Doria (Growing, Total Life) have joined forces on the new LP are SING SINCK, SING, out via Constellation on 10th May. As a first offering, the duo have shared the track ‘We Will’, which layers oscillating waves of melancholy drone with plaintive, reverb-cloaked vocals, before eventually coalescing into a determined and hopeful refrain. You can hear it here:
AA
As the title suggests, this is also an interstitial album of sorts, an identity-bridge that leads away from Menuck as ‘solo’ artist and towards SING, SINCK SING which will be the new band name for future work by the duo.
Efrim Manuel Menuck & Kevin Doria Live Dates: 09 May – Montréal, QC @ Ritz PDB 10 May – Toronto, ON @ The Burdock 11 May – Hamilton, ON @ Christ Church Cathedral 16 May – Brooklyn, NY @ Murmrr 25 May – Biarritz, FR @ Festival Usopop 27 May – Limoges, FR @ Le Phare 31 May – Zottegem, BE @ Dunk Festival 01 June – Amsterdam, NL @ Best Kept Secret Festival 02 June – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Festival 03 June – Poznan, PL @ LAS 04 June – Berlin, DE @ Arkaoda 06 June – Brussels, BE @ Botanique Rotonde 07 June – Diksmuiden, BE @ 4AD 09 June – Paris, FR @ Villette Sonique
