“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Unqualified Nurse Band
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.