The first track to surface is the thunderous song “Needle Cast,” which features BIG|BRAVE guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie. Wattie’s striking, shimmering vocals pair perfectly with Anderson’s multi-faceted instrumental approach. Anderson comments: “I’m extremely honoured to have been able to collaborate with Robin Wattie on this track. I’m a massive fan of BIG|BRAVE especially Robin’s emotive vocals and infectious melodies. Immediately after composing this track I was envisioning her dynamic vocals within the piece. The performance she recorded went beyond what I had imagined. Robin also created the amazing artwork that accompanies the music." All proceeds from “Needle Cast” will go directly to The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal.
BIG | BRAVE are pleased to announce European tour dates in April and May 2022 in support of their latest album, VITAL out now on Southern Lord. Dates and details below.
On their fifth album VITAL, the core trio of Robin Wattie, Mathieu Ball and Tasy Hudsontraverse minimalism and instinct, structure/freedom and meticulous timing, elements that have been the cornerstones of BIG | BRAVE’s precise, rhythmical sound. Lyrically the album explores the weight of race and gender, endurance and navigating other people’s behaviours, observation and protest. VITAL was recorded with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets.
08/04/2022 FR Dunkerque Les 4 Ecluses 09/04/2022 UK Ramsgate Ramsgate Music Hall 10/04/2022 UK Sheffield Record Junkee 11/04/2022 UK Leeds Brudenell Social Club 12/04/2022 UK Newcastle The Cluny2 13/04/2022 UK Norwich Norwich Art Center 15/04/2022 UK Glasgow Broadcast 16/04/2022 UK Manchester The White Hotel 17/04/2022 UK Leicester The Soundhouse 18/04/2022 UK Bristol The Crofters Rights 19/04/2022 UK London Electrowerkz 20/04/2022 BE Antwerp Kavka 22/04/2022 GER Hamburg Hafenklang 24/04/2022 SWE Göteborg Showdown 26/04/2022 NO Oslo Blå 27/04/2022 DK Copenhagen Pumpehuset 28/04/2022 GER Bremen MS-Loretta 29/04/2022 GER Schorndorf Club Manufaktur 30/04/2022 AT Innsbruck pmk * 02/05/2022 AT Linz KAPU 03/05/2022 CZ Prague Bike Jesus 04/05/2022 PL Warsaw Hydrozagadka 05/05/2022 LI Vilnius XI20 06/05/2022 LV Riga Noass 07/05/2022 EST Tallinn Svetaa Baar 09/05/2022 PL Gdynia Desdemona Club 10/05/2022 GER Berlin Kantine Berghain 11/05/2022 GER Dortmund Junkyard 12/05/2022 FR Paris Petit Bain 13/05/2022 FR Pau La Ferronnerie 14/05/2022 ES Oviedo La Salvaje 16/05/2022 PT Lisboa ZDB 17/05/2022 PT Porto Hard Club 18/05/2022 ES Madrid Wurlitzer Ballroom 19/05/2022 ES Barcelona Sala Vol 20/05/2022 FR Toulouse Le Connexion Live 21/05/2022 FR Lyon Sonic 22/05/2022 CH Geneva Cave12 24/05/2022 FR Strasbourg La Maison Bleue 25/05/2022 CH Zürich Rote Fabrik 26/05/2022 FR Metz Young Team Festival 22 27/05/2022 BE Ghent dunk!Festival 29/05/2022 RU Moscow Bumazhnaya Fabrika 30/05/2022 RU St. Petersburg Lastochka
Engine Kid, the 90s post hardcore collective featuring Greg Anderson (Southern Lord label owner, also in Sunn O))), Goatsnake & Thorr’s Hammer) share the previously unreleased track "Angel Dust" appearing on their special Record Store Day 6 x LP boxed set release Everything Left Inside.
About this track Greg Anderson comments, "during the process of unearthing Angel Wings master tapes a previously unreleased/unheard track from the session was discovered. Our recollections of this song were extremely foggy and the reason it was left off the full-length album remains a mystery! Vitality was injected into the track by wizard producer Brad Wood."
The boxed set includes other unreleased/unheard recordings as well as hard to find/sought after albums including the “Novocaine/Astronaut” 12”, Bear Catching Fish 2xLP, Angel Wings 2xLP and Split w/ Iceburn / Everything Left Inside 12” – all remastered and with an extensive 12-page booklet. A black vinyl version of the box is set for RSD on June 12th (not available outside the US) with additional versions of the record for the rest of the world to arrive at a later date TBC. Digital for the time being available via bandcamp:
Minimalism and instinct, structure/freedom and meticulous timing form the cornerstones of BIG | BRAVE’s precise, rhythmical sound.
Lyrically, the new album VITAL explores the weight of race and gender, endurance and navigating other people’s behaviours, observation and protest. The band further commented “this album involves what it means navigating the outside world in a racialized body and what it does to the psyche as a whole while exploring individual worth within this reality.”
Our first glimpse of the album arrives today in the form of a video for the track "Half Breed", consisting of a single shot of a single performative action that can be read as the representation of the damage an external force can have on someone or something without ever having to bear any responsibility and consequence. BIG | BRAVE adds "The action of shovelling dirt onto the person, also acts a way to discredit, shame and discriminate the individual. With the victim (on screen), being painfully covered with dirt by the perpetrator (off screen), all we have to witness is the damage done and left behind. We are aware of what is happening, what has happened, but the source is kept anonymous and can easily be missed and overlooked."
VITAL features the core trio Robin Wattie, Mathieu Ball and Tasy Hudson, for their most collaborative record they’ve made so far. The band say “having cut our teeth in very different musical backgrounds respectively, our intuitions vary, which has an interesting effect on our individual approaches and ears.” For this record, BIG | BRAVE once again made the trek down to Rhode Island to record with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets. They remark “we fully trust his instinct as an engineer and his creative output, getting to experiment with textures, concepts, layers, and with pretty much every single recorded sound, the process of making records with Seth is an absolute journey in sonic exploration".
Anna von Hausswolff presents an immersive new video for "Dolore di Orsini." The track appears on the latest album All Thoughts Fly, out now on Southern Lord.
The breathtaking new video for "Dolore di Orsini" was directed by Ludvig Holtenäs and Gustaf Holtenäs, with animation effects by Mathias Söderberg.
Anna von Hausswolff writes, "’Dolore di Orsini’ is a song about profound sadness and finding freedom in grief. It’s inspired by the idea that Pier Orsini, a wealthy patron of arts, created the garden Sacro Bosco as a way to cope with grief and loss after losing his wife, Giulia Farnese. I look at the park as a symbol for love where love is an incitement for chaos and harmony. The video depicts Mr. Orsini burying his wife, the passing of time in nature, and sculptures taking shape and being set up by the help of a spirit. A movement forwards whilst looking backwards."
Anna von Hausswolff shares the title track from her forthcoming new album, All Thoughts Fly, to be released via Southern Lord on 25th September. Here in solo instrumental mode, the entire record consists of just one instrument, the pipe organ, and represents absolute liberation of the imagination. Anna offers further insight into the title track below.
"I wanted to play with dissonance and polyrhythms to create a harmonic landscape that is constantly changing and expanding into something else. Everything you hear in this track, every little overtone and all ambience is entirely made through the organ. We used EQ but that’s it. The overall idea was to create an illusion of flying thoughts, intertwining and entangling into each other. Different words and worlds happening at the same time, affecting each other and changing each other’s directions and courses."
BIG|BRAVE share a video for "This Deafening Verity" a stand-out track from their most recent album A Gaze Among Them, out now on Southern Lord.
"The video is made from re-appropriated footage from a hot dog eating competition in the USA. With the video we didn’t want to only investigate the competitive hot dog eating community but rather at all spectacles of this character. Ones where gratuitous displays of abundance are celebrated and worshiped," the band remark.
BIG|BRAVE are returning to Europe in April and May opening the tour with their second appearance at Roadburn Festival, followed by dates in the UK and beyond – dates, details and tour poster below. Joining them for three dates will be violinist and sound artist Jessica Moss, who has toured with, and appeared on BIG|BRAVE’s previous album.
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.
Long-running Swedish d-beat/hardcore punk icons Wolfbrigade present the sole single from their impending tenth full-length, The Enemy: Reality, set for release next week through Southern Lord Recordings. The hammering new track ‘he Wolfman’ as been revealed through an official new video.
Directed by MeANkind and edited by Henrik Norsell, ‘The Wolfman’ is built upon the theme of Sigmund Freud’s ‘Wolfman’s dream.’ The video is an incredibly stark, prime example not only of Wolfbrigade’s long-established, ever progressing sound, but also of the band’s political message, beliefs, and outlook on humanity. A visual amalgamation of Orwellian overwatch by governmental powers, lessons unlearned from the nuclear arms race of the mid-1900s, and our current state of worldwide socio-political unrest serves as a backdrop for the band’s raging d-beat angst and scathing vocal detestation.
Just as anyone who complained that everything Mötörhead did sounded the same was missing the point, so anyone who complains that Wolfbrigade sound like Mötörhead are, too.
The appearance of a new Sunn O))) album just six months after Life Metal represents a significant upsurge in their usually steady output. But then, as much as it is a standalone document, Pyroclasts exists in many ways as a companion and counterpart to Life Metal, which in the slow-moving scheme of Sunn O))) represented a seismic shift on a par with Monoliths and Dimensions in that it brought a new focus. The question posed by Life Metal centred around what precisely could Steve Albini bring to Sunn O)))’s eternal drone guitar noise. In the event, his ‘stick the mics in front of the amps at a precise distance and angle and let the tape roll’ approach brought new sonic dimensions (but no monoliths) to the fore, giving the band a new and unexpected richness of sound. It’s this clarity and depth that also defines Pyroclasts recorded during the same sessions.
An element of ritual is integral to much of Sunn O)))’s work, and while this is perhaps nowhere more evident than in their live performances, the very nature of the music, the image, and the titling of their albums alludes to a certain type of repetitive organisation and (pseudo)spiritual convention. The origins of Pyroclasts is rooted in that ritualism, as is explained in the press release:
‘The Pyroclastsalbum is the result of a daily practice which was regularly performed each morning, or evening during the two weekLife Metalsessions at Electrical Audio during July 2018, when all of the days musical participants would gather and work through a 12 minute improvised modal drone at the start and or end of the day’s work. The piece performed was timed with a stopwatch and tracked to two inch tape, it was an exercise and a chance to dig into a deep opening or closing of the days session in a deep musical way with all of the participants. To connect/reconnect, liberate the creative mind a bit and greet each other and the space through the practice of sound immersion.’
And so the four pieces on Pyroclasts last between 10’54” and 11’04”, and being aware of the time constraints imposed by the players, the endings make sense: the first track, ‘Frost’, is close to what sounds like a natural ending as the drone hum hangs, but fades uncommonly fast when ordinarily they’d let the note hang for an eternity. Likewise the last of the four, ‘Ascensions’, which starts higher, faster, more aggressively than is usual for Sunn O))), and ends abruptly as though the tape was simply stopped dead – which it probably was.
Given the band’s maximalist tendencies and a propensity for sprawling sludgescapes spanning fifteen to twenty minutes this discipline and concision offers a new insight into their methods. Four tracks and a running time of circa forty minutes is tight for Sunn O))), and it works remarkably well.
Pyroclasts is exploratory and experimental in context of Sunn O))), and in revealing new facets while at the same time mining the same seam the band have explored since their inception, it’s an interesting and highly necessary document of their evolution and practises. Moreover, it’s another booming slab of texture-heavy droning doom and absolutely classic Sunn O))).
The Pyroclasts album is the result of a daily practice which was regularly performed each morning, or evening during the two week Life Metal sessions at Electrical Audio during July 2018, when all of the days musical participants would gather and work through a 12 minute improvised modal drone at the start and or end of the day’s work. The piece performed was timed with a stopwatch and tracked to two inch tape, it was an exercise and a chance to dig into a deep opening or closing of the days session in a deep musical way with all of the participants. To connect/reconnect, liberate the creative mind a bit and greet each other and the space through the practice of sound immersion. The players across the four pieces of Pyroclasts are Tim Midyett, T.O.S., Hildur Guðnadóttir, and as always Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson.
Pyroclasts was recorded and mixed by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio on two inch tape July 2018, and mastered by Matt Colton through all analogue AAA process at Metropolis July 2019. The album is released via Southern Lord on 23rd September.
While you’re waiting, you can check the trailer here:
