Tomahawk, who recently announced their first full-length album in eight years, Tonic Immobility (March 26, Ipecac Recordings), have shared a second track from the twelve-song album, debuting the graphic video for “Dog Eat Dog.”
"It’s a statement about competition, oppression, and unity–served up with a healthy dose of slapstick humour,” said Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard/Unsemble) of the Eric Livingston directed clip. Mike Patton (Mr. Bungle/Fantômas) added: "Dogs patiently wait, obediently, for humans to snuff each other out…so they can take over the world. Dogs rule!!!!”
Mr. Bungle, who recently released their first album in over two decades, The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo (Ipecac Recordings), have partnered with acclaimed Director Derek Cianfrance (“The Place Beyond The Pines,” “Blue Valentine”) for the band’s “Sudden Death” video.
"If you lived in Lakewood, Colorado, during the early 1990s, there’s a slim chance you would have seen and heard a 16 -year-old boy driving slowly around town in a white, 1974 Mustang II, with his windows rolled down, disrupting the neighborhood by blaring the music of Mr. Bungle. That 16-year-old kid was me, and that music that I listened to, over and over and over again, set the bar for my life as an artist,” explained Cianfrance. “So, 30 years later, when I got a call from Mike Patton asking me to direct a music video for one of the songs on their new album, The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo, I questioned whether my life was really a dream… I informed Mike that I had never directed a music video before, but he wasn’t dissuaded. I listened to the album and asked if I could work with the song “Sudden Death.” It reminded me of the feelings of angst I carried throughout my youth while growing up in the shadow of a looming, forbidding thermonuclear war. I decided I could make a short film (well, not so short – the song is almost 8 min!) about these fears that haunted me. I was also interested in meditating on the theme of desensitization in modern society, where citizens are gradually and systemically numbed to the possibility of cataclysmic consequences. Since the song was written in the mid-‘80s, I determined that the video should feel like it was made during that time and imagined it as some sort of rediscovered relic. Shooting during a global pandemic proved a fitting backdrop to the malaise of the song. It also presented a unique challenge as I was too nervous to work with actors – so I had to come up with another solution. making this video with a small team of trusted collaborators, and working with my life-long heroes, was nothing short of a total dream come true."
Mr. Bungle, who recently announced the Oct. 30th release of The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo (Ipecac Recordings), the band’s first newly recorded music in 21 years, have released a second single and accompanying video from the forthcoming album: ‘Eracist’. The dystopian video was directed by Derrick Scocchera with photography by Nicholas Finn Myggen.
Rolling Stone, who included the album in their most anticipated Autumn 2020 releases, said: “The idea of throwing musical curveballs is encoded in Mr. Bungle’s DNA, so it makes sense that for their first LP in 21 years, the NorCal avant-metal weirdos aren’t going the traditional comeback-album route. Instead, they’re offering up a re-recording of their very first demo — the never-reissued 1986 tape The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo — with three-fifths of their original lineup and a couple of high-profile ringers: Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian and ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo.”
The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny Demo pre-orders are available now, with the release available as a standard digipak CD and digitally as well as a collection of limited edition offerings (listed below with many sold out upon pre-order). A video for “Raping Your Mind” arrived in late August. The 11-song album was produced by Mr. Bungle, recorded by Husky Höskulds at Studio 606, and mixed by Jay Ruston. Rhea Perlman narrates “Anarchy Up Your Anus.”
Mr. Bungle, who a year ago today announced their first live outings in two decades, have announced the release of The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny Demo on Oct. 30th via Ipecac Recordings.
As was the case with the live performances, original Mr. Bungle members Trevor Dunn, Mike Patton, and Trey Spruance are joined by Scott Ian (Anthrax, S.O.D.) and Dave Lombardo (Dead Cross, Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies).
The 11-song release features tracks written by the Eureka, Calif.-born band for their 1986 cassette only demo as well as a reimagined cover of the S.O.D. classic “Hypocrites / Habla Español O Muere” (a.k.a. “Speak English or Die”) and Corrosion of Conformity’s “Loss For Words.” The album was produced by Mr. Bungle, recorded by Husky Höskulds at Studio 606, and mixed by Jay Ruston. Rhea Perlman narrates “Anarchy Up Your Anus.”
A 21-year wait and the first new music is a two-and-a-half minute cover version? Hell yeah! It was more than worth the wait, too.
Mr. Bungle roar back with their first recorded music since 1999, releasing a blistering cover of The Exploited’s politically-charged anthem, “USA” (available now on all digital platforms via Ipecac Recordings.
The Bay Area band, whose current incarnation features original members Trevor Dunn, Mike Patton and Trey Spruance with Scott Ian (Anthrax, S.O.D) and Dave Lombardo (Dead Cross, ex-Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies), is donating 100% of the proceeds from both the song and a limited edition t-shirt to the MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund, through the 4th of July. The shirt, which will only be offered through Independence Day, is available exclusively via Mr. Bungle’s webstore (https://kontraband.shop/collections/mr-bungle). MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund was created by The Recording Academy® to help those within the music community who have been affected by the Coronavirus pandemic.
"Doesn’t matter what part of the political spectrum you are on, everyone at some point has said ‘Fuck the USA’. The closest thing we have to a universal sentiment," says Spruance.
“This is a song that resonates and speaks to the country that Ipecac calls home,” adds Ipecac Recordings Co-owner Greg Werckman, who will also be donating the label’s proceeds from the single. “Over 100,000 US citizens are dead from the pandemic. At the same time protective masks have turned into a political football and no one has a grasp on testing. Racism continues to rear its ugly head. Police brutality spikes, unemployment spikes, depression spikes and ‘our’ ego driven elected officials don’t seem to care. We need to do a better job of looking out for each other. MusiCares looks after all of us in the music community.”
tētēma (Mike Patton and Anthony Pateras) release a video for “Wait Till Mornin’", the second single from the band’s second album, Necroscape (April 3, Ipecac Recordings).
“Peter Gunn on methamphetamine with RD Burman as co-pilot, being pursued by Madlib through an early 80s London industrial estate,” is how Pateras describes the three minute track. He went on to add: “This was one of the first songs we wrote for the new album, and probably played a big part in convincing us doing another would be a good idea. It is the only song on the record with a drum less chorus; like a lot of our music, the drama is upside down.”
“Wait Till Mornin’” is the second track to be released from the 13-song Necroscape, with the band debuting “Haunted On The Uptake” in mid-January. Pre-orders, which include a limited edition embossed gatefold vinyl (2500 copies), CD digipak and digital download are available here: https://smarturl.it/necroscape.
Necroscape is the second album from the modernist electro-acoustic rock proposition, seeing the outfit continuing to employ the wayward orchestrations and arresting physicality of their 2014 debut, Geocidal with a renewed melodic language which grounds its multi-colored twists and turns in hallucinatory lyricism.
Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mondo Cane) and renowned French composer Jean-Claude Vannier, share the final glimpse into their new album by way of the album track ‘Browning’ ahead of the release of Corpse Flower (Ipecac Recordings, Sept 13th).
A variety of musicians, both in Los Angeles and Paris, took part in the recording of Corpse Flower with the Los Angeles team including Smokey Hormel (Beck, Johnny Cash), Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Beck, Air, Nine Inch Nails) and James Gadson (Beck, Jamie Lidell). The Parisian players are Denys Lable, Bernard Paganotti (Magma), Daniel Ciampolini, Didier Malherbe, Léonard Le Cloarec and the Bécon Palace String Ensemble. The lyrics for “Ballad C.3.3.” are drawn from Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol”’ poem, which was initially published using the name C.3.3.
Corpse Flower is available now for pre-orders (http://smarturl.it/CorpseFlower), including special embossed versions featuring Kenro Izu’s stunning cover photo. The album will be available on 180gram coloured vinyl, as well as a CD digipak and digitally.
Spotlights have covered some significant ground and developed a critical mass in a comparatively short time-frame: in just three years, they’ve gone from slipping out their D.I.Y. debut, Tidals, to touring with Deftones, Melvins, Quicksand, Hum, and Glassjaw to Pelican and Pallbearer, thanks to a feature in Brooklyn Vegan. And so the story goes that Ipecac Recordings co-founders Mike Patton and Greg Werckman fell under the band’s spell and signed them. And lo, Spotlights’ Ipecac debut, Seismic, arrived in in the Autumn of 2017.
Follow-up Love & Decay picks up where its precursor left off, and launches with a deluge of crushing weight, with ‘Continue the Capsize’ crashing on with a wall of simmering guitars, slow, pounding percussion, and shuddering bass, a slow, low-end orientated doom-laden sonic assault, over which taut led guitar lines build a web of tension… heavy doom meets post-punk dynamics… and then it all goes mellow. That gritty, dingy bass still churns beneath it all, and as dream guitars and vocals call to mind early Ride, the bass remains pure doom.
Hybridisation is nothing new, but on Love & Decay, Spotlights have hit a magnificent sweet spot that forges the perfect balance between wistful and weighty: ‘The Particle Noise’ is all the 90s shoegaze, slowed down, and rendered with all the throb, all the weight, and it’s the noise of particles shattering against one another. The vocals are melodic, laid-back and fragile, and while the guitars are layered, textured and luscious, they’re also dense, distorted and cranked up to the pain threshold. When the midsection hits, the sludge factor soars to 10 and the decibels rocket and it’s like a punch in the stomach with a mess of pulverising low-end which feels like a dangerous undercurrent dragging hard beneath gentle, lapping waves.
‘Far from Falling’ slips into proggy post-rock territory, with an epic slow-build and sustained crescendo. It’s somehow entirely unpretentious, and works in context: as the e-bow-driven guitar comes to the fore, the enormity of the sound becomes utterly captivating and wholly immersive.
Landing at the mid-point, ‘Xerox Mix’ is the shortest song on the album, and has the most overtly pop tones, but at the same time is propelled by driving grunge guitars, overdriven and up in the mix.
The second half of the album shows no let-up in intensity, and again maintains the balance between emotive vulnerability and brutal force, with ‘Mountains are Forever’ hurling forth a volcanic tempest in which the gnarled metal vocal is all but buried in a deluge of thick, molten guitar and pulverising bass.
It all guides the way to the final track, the eleven-minute ‘The Beauty of Forgetting’, which brings everything together: beginning with delicate, chiming notes, it builds and builds to a sustained crescendo that roars. And when it ends, I find myself feeling empty, and somehow altered.
Love & Decay sees Spotlights do shoegaze in the vein of Justin Broderick’s Jesu: epic, expansive, emotive, blending ethereal with crushing weight, it’s a potent cocktail that stirs deep emotions while vibrating the physical being to achieve maximum resonance and optimal impact. And that impact, while almost impossible to articulate, is uniquely profound.
And the bonus track, ‘Sleepwalker’, which appears on the physical editions, is definitely worthwhile, too.
Dead Cross, the SoCal hardcore outfit featuring Dave Lombardo (ex-Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies, Misfits), Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk), Justin Pearson (The Locust, Retox) and Michael Crain (Retox, Festival of Dead Deer), have released a self-titled, four-track EP via Ipecac Recordings.
News of the EP arrives as the band premieres a video for ‘My Perfect Prisoner’. The clip was produced by Eric Livingston who also created the cover art for both the band’s full-length debut and this EP.
“I think part of Dead Cross’ motives are to bridge gaps between useless genres and definitions. Part also might be to just burn that shit down. It’s in our collective DNA. Either way, as long as people love it or hate it, we succeed.” – Justin Pearson.
Dead Cross, the SoCal hardcore band featuring Dave Lombardo (ex-Slayer/Suicidal Tendencies), Justin Pearson (Retox / The Locust), Mike Patton (Faith No More / Tomahawk) and Michael Crain (Retox / Festival of Dead Deer), premiere a new video for ‘Obedience School’ directed by Dennis Bersales, whose work has been used in collaboration with Dim Mak, Three One G, SM Prime, Kenneth Cobonpue, and Roberto Cavelli. The track features on their new self-titled album, produced by the legendary Ross Robinson, to be released August 4th on coloured vinyl and CD via Ipecac Records and Three One G, as well as digitally through iTunes.
Dead Cross’ debut self-titled LP vacillates from sounding like Godzilla attacking Tokyo to becoming the potential soundtrack of witches catching waves in a hurricane. Its highs are sharp and wicked, its lows ominous and evil, all the while laced with wit and, many times, an element of tongue-in-cheekiness not often found in thrash or hardcore music. Dennis Bersales brings the unyielding intensity of the band to life in the video for Obedience School, made from actual footage of a cockfighting event in the Philippines. Though brutal, the violence is anything but gratuitous; the imagery meaningfully works in conjunction with Patton’s lyrics, forcing the viewer to consider the ugly tendencies of mankind.
Check out the video here:
DEAD CROSS TOUR DATES:
August 10 Santa Ana, CA The Observatory *
August 11 Las Vegas, NV Brooklyn Bowl
August 12 Phoenix, AZ The Marquee *
August 14 Dallas, TX Gas Monkey Bar & Grill
August 15 Houston, TX Warehouse Live
August 16 Austin, TX Emo’s
August 18 Tucson, AZ The Rialto Theatre *
August 19 San Diego, CA The Observatory North Park
