Well funky…
“The Du-Rites are an NYC-based instrumental funk combo of J-Zone (drums, organ, bass guitar + turntables) and Pablo Martin (guitar, bass guitar, synth, Fender Rhodes). Debut album drops late fall 2016. The Du-Rites are here to put a neckbone in your kale salad!”
Geoff Barrow is a founder member of seminal trip-hop outfit Portished. Together with British composer Ben Salisbury, they have been releasing soundtrack material on Barrow’s Invada imprint, which has also recently been home to the soundtracks for Netflix Narcos and Stranger Things.
Most recently, Barrow and Salisbury have composed the score for an episode of the new series of Charlie Brooker’s dark, satirical sci-fi series Black Mirrors.
This also led me to another of their projects, Drokk: Music inspired by Mega-City One.
We’ve got a bumper crop of tunes from around the world on this week’s Radio Muerte: rap-rave from france; an all-girl indie band from Madrid; a My Bloody Valentine remix of The Undertones; a new Red Fang video; the mighty Oathbreaker from Belgium; the first new Sleigh Bells material for a while; Wu-Tang/Fugazi mashups; Derby’s finest indie-noise trio, Unqualified Nurse Band; Manchester’s Liines; Faith No More; the entirely crackers Brain Tentacles and festival ska/punks Dirty Vertebrae.
Listen out to the next episode for a pre-Desertfest Belgium warmup. Enjoy your weekend.
We kick off this episode with London’s Cold in Berlin.
Found while digging through the lineup for Hard Rock Hell’s Stoner/Doom weekender in Sheffield. Still can’t work out if they’re actually playing the festival but hopefully they are. Female led post-punk alt.rock for fans of Savages and Siouxsie.
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Twitter and ColdInBerlin.com.
French rap-rave in the vein of Die Antwoord but marginally more acessible. Three guys from Toulon in France delivering some angry, shouty nu-rave (if that’s still a thing) beats, bleeps and rhymes.
More info: Facebook, YouTube, Bandcamp and ZeGranZeft.com.
More info: Instagram, Facebook and the Hinds website.
The Undertones
My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields has remixed Undertones’ ‘Get Over You’ for a new reissue of Undertones’ first two albums.
Second track of the forthcoming album ‘Only Ghosts,’ due out October 14, 2016.
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp, Twitter and RedFang.net.
Allow this song by Belgian band ‘Oathbreaker’ to lure you into a false sense of security with it’s gentle, tortured female acapella vocal intro before it rips you a new one. For fans of Julie Christmas.
More info: Soundcloud, Twitter, Facebook and Bandcamp.
Not as abrasive as anything off their debut album, but definitely a grower. Wait for the sudden cut in the track that sounds like the song has changed. Very interesting, and better second time round.
More info: Twitter, Facebook and Soundcloud.
An entire album of Fugazi/Wu-Tang Clan mashups you say? I still can’t tell if this is one of the best or worst ideas in musical history, but it seems to work somehow. Apparently from 2011 but new to me.
Derby’s big thing at the moment, UNB have their debut album The Debasement Tapes coming out in the next week or so on local imprint Reckless Yes.
More info: Bandcamp, , and .
Manchester indie band Liines are starting to make waves with their catchy, grungy grooves. Expect a new single from them in the very near future.
More info: Twitter, Soundcloud, Facebook, YouTube and WeAreLines.com.
A song that has been lurking for a while in album-track form from last year’s Sol Invictus, Faith No More have just realeased a seedy accompanying video to Cone of Shame.
More info: Facebook, Twitter and FNM.com.
Probably the most crackers thing I’ve heard all year. From a band that, on the surface, resemble a three fairly straightforward, middle aged, beardy heavy metal fellas but then musically, veer wildy between some sort of future jazzcore, spacerock, psych, funk and post-rock hardcore (all at the same time on occasion) in a manner that Zappa or Beefheart would listen to and go ‘my word, that’s a bit odd’. Considering there’s only three of them, there’s a lot going on and I’d love to see if they can do it live.
Their eponymous debut album is available now from Relapse Records. I Can’t stop listening, it’s like Stockholm Syndrome for the ears.
More info: Soundcloud and Facebook.
Crusty ska-punk-rock with all the right credentials, Dirty Vertebrae are a Cheshire 5-piece with a male rapper and female vocalist leading the way, quick-fire chatting and harmonies bouncing off each other beautifully, kind of like how the dynamic in Senser works but with different vocal styles. You could probably throw a stone into any of the little festivals round the country and hit one of them. Playing at Farstock at The Maze in Nottingham on November 19th.
More info: Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter and DirtyVertebrae.com.
Nottingham post-rock supergroup and all round awesome people DFM have released their video for NYD. Taken from the last EP, NYD is a slow burner that builds and builds to a wall of distorted guitars and tortured vocals. Soon to be starting a co-headline tour with Glasogow’s Fvnerals. Catch them on the following dates:
5 OCTOBER: SHEFFIELD – Trafalgar Warehouse
16 OCTOBER: MANCHESTER – ACP Festival
19 OCTOBER: GLASGOW – Audio
20 OCTOBER: EDINBURGH – Opium
21 OCTOBER: NEWCASTLE – Northumberland Arms
22 OCTOBER: LIVERPOOL – Maguire’s Pizza Bar
23 OCTOBER: LEEDS – Wharf Chambers
25 OCTOBER: BRISTOL – The Cube
26 OCTOBER: LONDON – The Unicorn
27 OCTOBER: BRIGHTON – The Prince Albert
29 OCTOBER: NOTTINGHAM – The Bodega
You can also read an interview with guitarist and vocalist Caroline Cawley over at She Shreds Magazine.
More info: Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Soundcloud.
This weekend sees the Hard Rock Hell organisation’s inaugural venture into the Stoner/Doom rock scene with the
predictably titled HRH Stoner vs Doom at the Sheffield O2 Academy.
Presumably, seeing the popularity of Desertfest, HRH have decided to jump on this particular bandwagon and
give it a try. We shall see how it pans out. The following is a selection of tracks and videos from the lineup
for the two day event.
More info: Twitter, Facebook and .
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp, Baig Cartel and HailConan.com.
More info: Facebook, Twitter, Big
Cartel and TheBlackSpiders.com.
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp and ElectricCitizenBand.com.
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp, Twitter and vodunband.com.
More info: Facebook and Bandcamp.
More info: Facebook.
More info: Facebook and Bandcamp.
More info: Bandcamp and Facebook.
More info: Bandcamp and Facebook.
More info: Facebook and Bandcamp.
More info: Facebook and Soundcloud.
More info: Bandcamp and Facebook.
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp, YouTube and the Regulus website.
More info: Bandcamp.
Nottingham supergroup featuring members of Dystopian Future Movies, Mammothwing, Iron Swan and Pilgrim Fathers, COTCS are a cornucopia of psych-prog-rock with a hefty dose of Jesus Christ Superstar thrown in. The album launch and their first ever gig takes place tongiht (16th September) at Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms.
More info: Facebook, , YouTube and the Church website.
Main support act for COTCS tonight are…
A unique mixture of Medieval folk, prog, doom and psychedelia makes Crumbling Ghost one of the hardest bands to pigeonhole. See them for yourself tonight or catch them at one of their gigs around the country.
More info: Facebook, Blogger, Twitter and Bandcamp.
Ten-year veterans of the stoner rock scene out of Dallas, Texas, Wo-Fat are coming right at you with a new album and the guaranteed-to-be-a-single, ‘Riff Born’.
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp, Twitter and WoFat.net.
Jangly, wall-of-noise shoegazy-indie-pop with helium-enriched female vocals, from St Petersburg in Russia. Brilliant.
More info: Bandcamp, Facebook, Soundcloud and YouTube.
Noisy, female-driven post-hardcore in the vein of Julie Christmas/Made Out Of Babies, Bruxa Maria’s music, like the masked, AK-toting revolutionary on the album cover is provocative and confrontational noise-rock. Took me a couple of listens, but it won me over.
More info: Facebook and Bandcamp.
Starting out in life as a studio experiment when Alex Figueira, a Portuguese-Venezuelan producer and percussionist, and friends got together in his tiny studio in Amsterdam and ended up producing this LP which brings together elements of tropicalia, psychedelic rock, fuzz funk, musique concrete, acid house, radiophonic electronics, hair metal, voodoo and African, Brazilian and Latin rhythms.
More info: Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter and FumacaPreta.com/.
A long way from their nineties hits All Star and Monkees cover I’m A Believer, EDM track Love is a Soldier is more akin to something by the Dub Pistols or Fluke than the rap/ska/rock/pop crossover territory that Smash Mouth are used to.
All-girl alt.rock outfit from LA comprising of founders Emily Kokal (vocals, guitar), Theresa Wayman (vocals, guitar) and Jenny Lee Lindberg (bass, backing vocals), and Stella Mozgawa (drums). This is the new single taken from their forthcoming third album Heads Up.
More info: Twitter, Facebook and Warpaint.com.
Heavily featured here on DM, Die Antwoord have a new album, ‘MOUNT NINJI AND DA NICE TIME KID’ out now. Banana Brain is the first track lifted from it.
More info: Soundcloud, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and DieAntwoord.com.
Smashing the grid, an introduction to the band.
More info: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and the Wakrat website.
Recorded by Ian Boult at Stuck on a Name studios just round the corner from my house in Nottingham is this thrashy skate-punk combo. Longest track: 1:53.
Political, ska-punk from Leeds UK, just back from playing the Freak Boutique stage at Boomtown Fair.
More info: Bandcamp.
The lastest video from Slaves is crackers “snapshot of the band’s daily lives in Tunbridge Wells and New Cross”, which apparently includes pub larks, pregnancy tests and having no cash in the bank. ‘Spit It Out’ is taken from the band’s upcoming second album ‘Take Control’ (featuring a guest appearance from Beastie Boy Mike D), out on September 30th.
http://cache.vevo.com/assets/html/embed.html?video=GBUV71601324
The mighty Red Fang return with another album (out 14th October) and a new single complete with a Predator inspired music video.
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp, Twitter and RedFang.net.
Zef South African rap-rave duo Die Antwoord have shared the first track ahead of the release of their forthcoming fourth studio album. Following on from the recent Suck on This mixtape, the album is called Mount Ninji and Da Nice Time Kid and features guest appearances from Cypress Hill’s Sen Dog, Dita Von Teese and Jack Black. More information and the full tracklist can be found on Pitchfork.com.
More info: Soundcloud, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and DieAntwoord.com.
Rather predictably, the first release from rap-rock supergroup Prophets of Rage is a cover of Public Enemy’s Prophets of Rage although any band featuring a lineup of this quality (Tim Commerford, Tom Morello and Brad Wilk from Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy‘s Chuck D and DJ Lord, as well as Cypress Hill‘s B-Real) can be forgiven a multitude of sins. I just hope the rest of their output is a little more adventurous.
More info: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and ProphetsOfRage.com/.
From the forthcoming crowd-funded album and the Anonymous Nobody… (due out on the 26th August), hip-hop mainstays De La Soul have shared a new track, Royalty Capes.
More info: Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud and the De La Soul website.
More info: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and miauk.com/.
R&B is not normally my bag but Lolawolf’s electropop/R&B/trap clashup style is not your usual bitches and bling fodder but rather tidy urban class that could easily cross over to both mainstream pop and hipster taphouse playlists.
Formed in February 2014 by actress and singer Zoë Kravitz (daughter of Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz), keyboardist James Levy, and drummer/producer Jimmy Giannopoulos. Lolawolf is based in Brooklyn, New York City.
Keep an eye out for their tasty, stripped down track Teardrop</> featuring Miley Cyrus on vocals.
More info: Soundcloud, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.
While we’re on a bit of a ‘celebrity daughter R&B’ tip, here’s another track I stumbled across, this time by Willow Smith, the daughter of uber-megastar Will Smith and sometime rockstar Jada Pinkett-Smith, who you may remember from the diabolically catchy ‘Whip Your Hair’. Willow Smith has definitely come of age, delivering a properly sophisticated, minimalist chunk of wine-bar cool with this track 8. Attention seems to have diverted away from Willow since her debut on to her gender-fluid brother but she deserves the limelight to fall back on her if she keeps delivering stuff like this.
More info: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and WillowSmith.com.
Derby’s finest garage rock outfit Pet Crow have just signed to Reckless Yes records following their recent gig at The Hairy Dog supporting Menace Beach. One to watch, this two-girl, two-boy outfit are gonna be big.
More info: Bandcamp, Instagram and Facebook.
Like something straight off of 90s US college radio, Leeds-based five-piece Menace Beach will appeal to fans of bands like Pavement, Pond and Seaweed or more recent bands like Marmozets.
More info: Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter and MenaceBeach.co.uk.
Another fat jam from Skrillex, this time with a tonne of gangster-shit strapped to it courtesy of Rick Ross and the added weight of the attachment to the forthcoming Suicide Squad movie soundtrack.
More info: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Soundcloud and Skrillex.com/.
If an all-female band from Seattle listened to a steady diet of Belly, Cowboy Junkines, Jan & Dean and Dick Dale, they might sound something like this. Label mates to The Julie Ruin and Tacocat, La Luz deliver chilled indie surf guitar with beautifully harmonised vocals. La Luz are Shana Cleveland (guitar), Marian Li Pino (drums), Alice Sandahl (keyboard) and Lena Simon (bass) and they’ve been together since 2012.
More info: Hardly Art Records, Bandcamp, Facebook and Vimeo.
I think it’s probably safe to say that there are very few music videos that revolve entirely around the dismantling of an old shoe, but that’s exactly what two-piece industrial-rap exponents Death Grips new video for ‘Giving Bad People Good Ideas’ does.
More info: Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and ThirdWorlds.net.
One of the new batch of announcements for the Desertfest Antwerp festival this year, the Atmoic Bitch wax are often referred to as a ‘Super Stoner Rock’ band as a result of their three members already having had successful careers in other bands. The Atomic Bitchwax are Chris Kosnik (bass & vocals, currently of Monster Magnet, formerly of Godspeed and Black NASA)
Bob Pantella (drums & percussion, formerly of Raging Slab, currently of Monster Magnet) and Finn Ryan (guitar & vocals, formerly of Core).
More info: Facebook, TeePee Records and TheAtomicBitchwax.com.
A beautiful slice of slowly building ambient electronica from the Soundcloud pages of Rocket Recordings, Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation have featured on this blog before and I’m a big fan. Here they are remixed by Russian trio Gnoomes.
More info: Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Facebook and Josefin’s website.
Having found their remix of the Josefin Öhrn track, I went in search of more to see what their own material sounds like. Gnoomes are Russian musicians Alex, Pavel and Dmitriy.
According to their bio..
‘Gnoomes initially didn’t want to tie band’s music to existing tags and made their own – stargaze. Stargaze is like a human state, when you’re lying on the grass with your friends, telling funny stories, and watching shooting stars.’
Hard to tell you what to expect from them other than it is ambient, floaty, psychedelic oddness. Go in with no preconceptions and you’ll have a great time.
More info: Bandcamp, Facebook and Soundcloud.
Falling into the same group as The Graveltones and Royal Blood, The Picturebooks are another awesome two-piece outfit. Originally from Germany but living in California, these guys are all about the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle – riding motorbikes, skateboarding in the sun and bringing exciting, visceral electric blues-rock. Soon to be embarking on their European tour, catch them somewhere near you soon if you can.
This track is from their debut album Imaginary Horse, which can be bought from Riding Easy Records.
More info: YouTube, Riding Easy Records, Twitter, Facebook and thepicturebooks.com.
One of the greatest rock bands in the world, Red Fang have shared the first single of their forthcoming fourth album Only Ghosts which is available to pre-order in a variety of beautiful formats from Relapse Records.
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp, Twitter and RedFang.net.
More info: Twitter, Soundcloud and bloodorange.nyc.
Experimental Nottingham two piece consisting of just two girls and their drumkits. Rattle are Theresa J Wrigley and Katharine Eira Brown. Their debut album is due out early in August this year.
More info: Facebook and Bandcamp.
Easily knocking pretenders to the electro-pop crown sideways with her mad production and songwriting skills (Charli XCX, I’m looking in your direction), Claire Boucher aka Grimes comes back with another all-round polished performance in this new video for her song <I from her fourth album Art Angels.
Also listen to Grimes break down the production of this song on the Song Exploder podcast.
More info: Twitter, Facebook, the 4AD website, instagram, Tumblr, Soundcloud and Grimes’ Website.
Top quality shoegaze/nu-gaze from Italian combo Be Forest. Be Forest consists of Costanza Delle Rose (Bass and vocals), Erica Terenzi (Drums and vocals) and Nicola Lampredi on Guitar. As well as the links below, there’s a nice little write-up about the band on wwnb.net.
‘Your Best American Girl’ from Japanese-American New Yorker Mitski Miyawaki’s new album and follow-up to 2014’s ‘Bury me at Makeout Creek’ Puberty 2, which already looks set to be one of the must-have albums of 2016. Out now.
More info: Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter and Mitski.com.
Dramatic post-rock instrumentalism from London. Their Bandcamp bio says it better than I ever could:
“Two man everything machine endlessly seeking what-the-fuck aural mesmerism in a maze like arrangement of sound system culture, riffs and pan-cultural psychedelics. Dark primal frequencies are felt and not heard, unremitting circular drums shatter and rebirth whilst a cast of vocal characters provide an astral guide through these dizzying new sound worlds.”
More info: Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and gumtakestooth.com.
Without question, one of the most influential guitar bands ever. Black Francis and friends have released some of the greatest guitar noise over the years. Playing a one-off gig in the UK at Brixton Academy next week ahead of a new album Head Carrier, this is the newly released track.
More info: Facebook, Soundcloud and pixiesmusic.com.
Although it seems to have been around forever, Courtney Barnett is only just releasing Elevator Operator from the album ‘Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit’. She’s also shared a star studded video for the single too featuring Wilco singer Jeff Tweedy, Kath And Kim actress Magda Szubanski, Sleater Kinney, The Drones and Australian musicians Tim Rogers and Paul Kelly.
More info: Soundcloud, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Courtney Barnett’s website.
In the current crop of hot two-piece bands (White Miles, Picturebooks, Royal Blood, Deap Vally) Graveltones are among the finest. Jimmy and Mikey can rock any room with their sweaty, energetic live performances and they have just released their first live album Live at The Lexington and are currently on tour with the Brooklyn Brewery delivering the free beer.
More info: Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and thegraveltones.com.
Described as ‘Aretha Franklin fronting Royal Blood’, Vodun are a shot in the arm to rock music. Playing african-influenced psych-doom-blues, they will be visiting Nottingham next week for a gig with local space-glam outfit Abracadabra.
More info: Facebook, Bandcamp, Twitter and vodunband.com.
More awesome seventies-style rock from Small Stone records in the shape of The Stooges and MC5 meeting Ted Nugent and ZZ Top at the drive-in. Proper solid vintage rock and roll.
More information can be found on their section of the Small Stone Records website.
More new music on this dramatic political day for the United Kingdom. Fortunately, the internet has no boundaries and YouTube and WordPress are free (for the time being) so here goes. Enjoy.
Noisy, post-punk two piece who seem to have been constantly touring since I saw them a year or so ago now bring you an entirely new album. Get it while it’s hot.
More info: Bandcamp, Facebook and Soundcloud.
Japanese band Deerhoof get their teeth into Def Leppard’s 1987 single ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’.
More info: Twitter, Facebook, Bandcamp and Deerhoof.net.
Wolf Alice have released a new single not taken from their debut album ahead of the release of their ‘My Love is Cool’ box set featuring the LP, two re-pressed ‘rocking-horse-shit’ ten inch singles, a CD of demos and a 40-page hardback book. Yours for sixty notes. I’ve already pre-oredered mine.
More info: Soundcloud, YouTube, Facebook and the Wolf Alice website.
Wanna hear a band featuring William DuVall (Alice in Chains), Brent Hinds (Mastodon), Thomas Pridgen (The Mars Volta), Ben Weinman (Dillinger Escape Plan), and Pete Griffin (Dethklok)? Of course you do.
The debut album Broken Lines is out on the 23rd September. The album also features Juliette Lewis and Queens of the Stone Age’s Jon Theodore.
More info on Facebook.
Named for lead singer and guitarist and perennial musician Barrie Cadogan (who has played with Morrissey, Primal Scream and Edwyn Collins) and probably more famous for recording the theme song to the TV serries and Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul, Little Barrie have just released a new seven inch single featuring two previously unreleased tracks, ‘I.5.C.A.’ and ‘Shoulders UP, Eyes Down’. If you’re into the sixties garage-rock scene (Sonics, Stooges etc) then you’ll love Little Barrie.
More info: Facebook, Twitter, Bandcamp and LittleBarrie.com.
The dream-team female supergroup consisting of K.D. Lang, Laura Veirs and Neko Case share another track from their forthcoming long-player.
More info on the Case/Lang/Viers website.
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