D-Tension releases the first single, “The No Name Song,” from the upcoming (April 2023) album Tales From The Pub. The album is the one thing D-Tension has yet to do: make a 100% solo album. No guests, no features, no help. D just locked himself in his home studio (his wife’s closet) and wrote, performed and produced an album of fresh new material. D plays guitar, bass, drums and drum programming, keys and sings every note on this record. When the album was done D wasn’t sure what to call it. Then mixing engineer Nick Zampiello of New Alliance East commented “these songs sound like tales from the pub”. That’s because they are. The album is about people watching and bar-life experiences.
“The No Name Song” is about a universal dilemma: That feeling when you meet someone but can’t remember their name ten seconds after they just told you what it was. How friendships and relationships never happened because you can’t remember their name. The song is also a secret easter egg / ode to songs that mention names.
Today, Manchester, UK-based band Mandy, Indiana return with new single, “Injury Detail,” via Fire Talk Records, their first new music since the release of 2021’s acclaimed ‘…’ EP. Mandy, Indiana – Valentine Caulfield (vocals/lyrics), Scott Fair (guitar/production), Simon Catling (synth) and Alex Macdougall (drums) – meld experimental noise and dance music, from drum machine snaps and pulsing bass to white noise and lo-fi scuff. Produced by Fair and Robin Stewart of Giant Swan, “Injury Detail” is a dramatic reintroduction, opening with a grand organ before morphing into a thumping dance track fit for a warehouse rave. “‘Injury Detail’ was inspired by the idea of being trapped in a liminal space, with the guitars creating a seemingly limitless and undefined landscape. The vocals act as a guide to possible salvation, or perhaps something of a more sinister intent,” explains Caulfield. The accompanying video was directed by Thomas Harrington Rawle.
Formed out of the fertile Manchester independent scene, Mandy, Indiana generate a sound that is at once chaotic and precision engineered – abrasive beats and gnarled guitars sit in thickets of distortion around Caulfield’s commanding vocals sung in her native language, French. Their songs, which incorporate found samples and field recordings, are recorded in a variety of spaces, from rehearsal rooms and home studios to cavernous industrial mills and shopping malls. Mandy, Indiana’s first recordings emerged around 2019, culminating in their debut, 2021’s ‘…’ EP, which featured a heavy-hitting remix from Daniel Avery. Its single, “Bottle Episode,” was named a Best Song of 2021 by Pitchfork, who recognized the “perverse playfulness” of Caufield’s grim lyrics, and Paste, who hailed it “an exhilarating darkness for the bold to brave.” The EP also led to Stereogum naming Mandy, Indiana a Best New Band of 2021. Since then, they’ve become a live favorite in the UK, supporting the likes of Squid, IDLES, Gilla Band, Wet Leg, and SCALPING, along with festival appearances at Pitchfork Paris, End of the Road, and more. The band will be making their US debut at SXSW 2023 as part of the official lineup. “Injury Detail” is a taste of more music to come from Mandy, Indiana this year.
“There is a specific type of grief that comes from witnessing the brutality of what humans are capable of towards each other. If that grief goes unprocessed, it is doomed to also manifest as brutality,” says Phoenix-based musician and producer Sam An. “There have been many moments while writing this record that I was grieving through an event that was personal or worldwide, and then another sudden, tragic event would happen. I needed to re-evaluate what I wanted to say because my world and perspective had shifted again. Trying to keep up with tragedy can make one feel helpless, and one way to feel in control is through acts of destruction. My personal impulse towards destruction nearly ended this project.”
Set for release March 17th, 2023, on 2XLP/CD/Digital through Gilgongo Records, ‘STREGA BEATA’ is the 3rd full-length album from Sam An’s dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project under the semi-notorious moniker Lana Del Rabies. After a brief hiatus, this record is her first full-length release since the gothic, industrial noise of 2018’s Shadow World. ‘STREGA BEATA’, which loosely translates to “Blessed Witch,” is an apocalyptic myth told through dense, textural compositions pulling from the vast corners of dark genre music. The title’s meaning is appropriate for the existential, cathartic, and otherworldly themes explored.
Today, along with the album’s announcement, she has shared the pounding, entrancing first track from the record, entitled “A Plague”.
“A Plague was initially written before the Covid-19 Pandemic began, and refers to the angst of living through an overwhelming number of manmade atrocities, absorbed personally and peripherally by everyone all at once in today’s world” she comments. “The album STREGA BEATA is an allegory told from the evolving perspective of a mythological, cryptic creator figure, who is responsible for humanity but not in control of the world we have created. This track is an expression of the fury towards mankind’s current state of self destruction, while declaring vengeance through the same futile means of destruction.”
Written, produced, and almost entirely performed by An, she says, “I started writing the third record immediately after the promotion of Shadow World. I had recently become sober and was mending myself not just from experiences of abuse and trauma that occurred throughout my life, but processing how I had abused the people closest to me in my most out of control moments. I also at the time had a job involved in child welfare, and the violent separation and exploitation of children at the US/Mexico border was happening miles from where I grew up and affecting the community around me. Brutality often feels like it is everywhere with how we experience the world now, but for the first time, I could not numb myself from it. That awareness only extended through the world events we all have had to live through these last few years, and the personal loss that came from that. I began working through the pain of abuse, death, and grief, through an actual story in my work”
This is where the mythical allegory in ‘STREGA BEATA’ begins – the record is told through the evolving perspective of a cryptic and obscure “Mother” creator figure, specifically echoing the mother and crone goddess archetypes. This figure is vocalized through LDR’s eerie harmonies, spoken words, pleading howls, and frenetic screams aimed towards another archetype, the chosen one. These vocalizations sometimes hover above trip-hop low tempos and unnerving atmospheres (“Mourning,” “Hallowed is the Earth”), sink through vintage horror movie darkwave synths (“Master,” “Apocalypse Fatigue”), weave through art metal distortions and relentless drone bass tones (Mother), or blast through unconventional industrial rhythms (“Prayers of Consequence,” “A Plague”).
Ultimately, ‘STREGA BEATA’ is a deep exploration of the cyclical consequences of unhealed grief for us and our world. “I have used this story to process the harm that power enables. There is a fine line between empowerment and using power to cope with the feeling of losing control. I thought a lot about the power of the natural world, particularly storms, while writing this. Storms are created by opposing pressures, causing destruction. It’s interesting how some ideologies will co-opt storms in their iconographies and language, but don’t acknowledge that storms are events that cannot be controlled or contained. The way out of pain is by reconciling what you cannot control and taking ownership of what you can. It is the only way to stop cycles of destruction. Sometimes you must complete another cycle before realizing you are ready to end it for yourself and others. I feel this record is the end of a destructive cycle for me, and why I returned to myself as this project.”
More about Lana Del Rabies: Lana Del Rabies is the solo dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project of Phoenix based musician, producer and multimedia artist Sam An. With origins as an experimental project that re-contextualized the more ominous aspects of modern pop music made by women (like that of Lana Del Rey), Lana Del Rabies’ music incorporates industrial, gothic noise and metal, with experimental, darkwave and ambient elements. Her work thematically embodies discordant spaces between the occult and the political, personal trauma and collective grief, and brutality and benediction.
Her first two records, In The End I Am A Beast (2016) and Shadow World (2018) were released by Los Angeles based label Deathbomb Arc.
Proving once again that “power trio” isn’t just a descriptive handle from the distant past, but a louder-than-God 21st Century reality, New York’s Skull Practitioners release their first full-length album, Negative Stars, for In the Red Records on January 20th. The album is the second release for Los Angeles-based In the Red by the trio — guitarist Jason Victor, bassist Kenneth Levine, and drummer Alex Baker, following the band’s acclaimed EP, Death Buy, issued in 2019.
Previously, Victor had established himself as the dazzling co-lead guitarist for Steve Wynn and the Miracle Three -when Wynn revived his ‘80s L.A. Paisley Underground consortium The Dream Syndicate in 2017, Victor took the guitar chair previously occupied by Karl Precoda and PaulCutler. Levine was playing in DBCR, a three-piece unit. “We wanted to go to a five-piece, and needed a drummer and another guitar player,” he says. “We put an ad out on Craigslist and met Jason and Alex that way. Alex was just two weeks into living in New York. We played together for a while, and then it just sort of dissolved. Jason, Alex, and I actually had more of a shared, common musical perspective, and the three of us decided, ‘Let’s stick together with just us three.’”
Skull Practitioners recorded a limited cassette-only debut, st1, which they self-released in 2014. The four-song collection, on which Baker was the lone band member to take a vocal, marked the start of a long hunt for the right voice. “We kept looking for a new singer, and that person never came,” says Victor. “None of us wanted to sing at all. After a while, we had been together as a three-piece for so long that we had our thing, and it became difficult for someone to fit into it. So we pulled a Genesis! The best thing about it is that now all three of us will sing, and that takes the pressure off just one of us.” Levine adds, “Whoever writes, sings. It’s their expression, so they should say what they have to say.”
On Negative Stars, Levine performs “Dedication” and “What Now,” and Victor sings “Exit Wounds,” “Leap,” “Intruder,” and “Ventilation.” The album’s expansive instrumental tracks are “Fire Drill” and Skull Practitioners’ longtime club highlight “Nelson D,” which first appeared on st1 in a live version. You can hear a multitude of influences coming off each other in Skull Practitioners’ music, ranging from TheGun Club to Sonic Youth to Joy Division, Black Flag, and beyond. Each player brings something uniquely his own to the mix.
“Black Flag was huge for me,” says Victor. “There is that element of improv, and of aggression, that I was attracted to in that band. With our band, there’s definitely an aggressive angle there, and absolutely an improvisational one. We’re all willing to give everyone the space for contributing ideas. This band really does function as a democracy, which is nice.” Levine adds, “All of us were into different things, and there’s some kind of overlap and we kind of influence each other, and there’s stuff that we turn each other on to.”
Everything on Negative Stars coheres so seamlessly, but like with so many others, its recording was hampered, and protracted, by the COVID-19 pandemic.“The main album session was a few years ago,” Baker says. “That was when we went into the studio for a couple of days with our friend, engineer Ted Young, and we tracked the bulk of the album there. We recorded the instrumental parts first, then started vocal tracking in January of 2021. It took us so long to decide that all the instruments were done at that point. The vocals were actually done at our practice space. We just set up the mics and did that ourselves.”
Levine adds, “The record was in mid-flight, and then the pandemic hit, so we were just sitting around for six months or a year, and we said, ‘Well, we may never finish this.’ So we wound up literally sitting in a room with masks on during most of the vocal tracking. If we’d waited to go into a real studio, it would have come out even later. Alex did all the engineering on that, and we’re very appreciative of all his engineering prowess.”
With their album finally complete and the pandemic lifting, Skull Practitioners have begun to take to the stage more regularly: they have opened shows for Lydia Lunch, Hammered Hulls, Live Skull, and In the Red label mates the Wolfmanhattan Project (Kid Congo Powers, Mick Collins, and Bob Bert). They plan to get on the road in the near future.
Says Levine, “I think the band is represented at its best in a live setting. That’s where we’re in our element. Playing live, we’re out for blood.” Victor adds, “With the live thing, we just want to destroy, in the nicest, most friendly way — we’re nice people. Someone said about us, ‘These guys look like a bunch of accountants.’ People don’t really know what to expect before they hear us. I think they’re all a little surprised, maybe, and we like having that element of surprise — ‘We’re gonna blow your minds a little.’”
Greg Puciato, who has released both his critically-acclaimed debut and sophomore solo albums in the short span of two years, has set a Dec. 20 release date for his inaugural live album, 11/11/22 Los Angeles.
“You don’t get many first shows,” says Puciato of his Nov. 11 outing at Los Angeles’ Don Quixote. “Having the ability to properly document one and get high quality audio and video…I didn’t wanna regret not doing that. It’s gonna be killer to look back at this 100 or even five shows from now and see how much further along the live versions of these songs are. When I hear these recordings, I instantly feel transported to that room, that night, with my bandmates onstage and friends and everyone there in attendance. A lot of love and support and passion and hard work and talent in the room. I hope it does the same for you if you were there, and resonates as strongly for people who weren’t able to attend. I can’t wait to do more of this and see everyone again and more of you in other places down the line.”
A preview of the 11-song collection arrives today with the Jim Louvau and Tony Aguilera directed video for “Deep Set (Live)” (https://youtu.be/6U3IGUQmV1o). Puciato noted: “’Deep Set’ feels good to lead with. One of my favorite memories of the tracking of Child Soldier: Creator of God were the vocals to this song…incidentally recorded at the same time of year as this show. The song was always meant to feel loose and live; the recorded vocal was a front-to-back one-take that we did in a shed in Nick Rowe’s (producer and live guitarist) backyard…so bringing it to life onstage with him, and Chris (Hornbrook) for the first time felt like a nice, symbolic full circle.”
11/11/22 Los Angeles will be available exclusively via Bandcamp, with the album streaming on Dec. 20, and vinyl pre-orders launching the same day. The collection will arrive on additional streaming services following its vinyl release in the Spring.
Joining Puciato for the live performance, and featured in this video, are the aforementioned Nick Rowe (guitar), Chris Hornbrook (drums), James Hammontree (guitar), and Jeff “Manwolf” Geiser (bass).
Having just completed shows in the UK, Ireland, Europe and North America playing select dates and as main support to The Lemonheads, Bass Drum Of Death (John and JIm Barrett, Ian Kirkpatrick) announce a US headline tour beginning February 8th, in support of their forthcoming album, Say I Won’t, released January 27th via Fat PossumRecords.
The band have revealed three tracks/videos from the album so far; the Zeppelin-esque ‘Head Change’, the midtempo bruiser ‘Say Your Prayers‘ (a collaboration with Mike Kerr of Royal Blood) and the hi-octane ‘Find It‘ (the video features live footage from the band’s sold out New York show in June of this year). Today, to accompany the tour announcement, they share a blistering live version of ‘Head Change’, to give a taste of what to expect on the road.
Say I Won’t is the first Bass Drum of Death album written, demoed, and recorded with the touring band, instead of bandleader John Barrett doing everything on his own. He found a freedom in working with collaborators that wasn’t available to him before, opening different aspects of the songwriting. It was a process of live recording, layering on different parts and overdubs, and then stripping it all back to the bones of the song, keeping the raw wild heart of the music intact. “My first two records were made entirely by me alone with my gear, my laptop, and a Snowball USB mic,” says Barrett. “They were just made quickly, cheaply, as an excuse to tour. I wanted to take my time with this record. Make something good that I was proud of in itself.”
The band recorded the new record with Patrick Carney of The Black Keys at Audio Eagle Studios in Nashville and the result is a groove-oriented, 1970’s-indebted collection of rock songs, with tempos set for cruising and scuzzy guitars galore. There’s an energy and vitality to the music that feels in line with the best of the Bass Drum songs, but with an added boost that comes from new bandmates and a new perspective.
The albumfinds a reinvigorated Barrett firing at all cylinders, backed by his best band yet. It’s Bass Drum of Death at their loosest and scuzziest and most tuneful, a true rock record in all the right ways. It’s a throwback by way of moving forward, sporting a maturity and swagger that comes from a decade of playing music on the road and surviving to tell about it. More than anything, Say I Won’t is a blast to listen to, music built for driving with your stereo cranked.
2023 dates are below – tickets can be found on the band’s website.
The epic Mosswood Meltdown is returning July 1st and July 2nd, 2023 to Oakland’s Mosswood Park. Today, the festival announces its first wave of the lineup, which features Le Tigre for their only Bay Area appearance of the year, Gravy Train!!!!, The Rondelles, and Tina & the Total Babes for their exclusive, only shows of 2023, Quintron & Miss Pussycat, and more. And of course, it wouldn’t be a Mosswood Meltdown without our iconic and punkeriffic host, John Waters. The lineup thus far can be found below and early bird tickets for the festival (for a holiday special pricing) are on sale this Friday at 9am PST/noon EST.
MOSSWOOD MELTDOWN 2023 TEASER Le Tigre (1st Bay Area gig in 15 years!) Gravy Train!!!! (Only gig 2022/2023) Tina & the Total Babes (Only gig 2022/2023) The Rondelles (Only gig 2022/2023) Quintron & Miss Pussycat
Austin band Holy Water share the first single single today from their forthcoming self-titled debut album via Metal Injection. Hear and share “Waterest Him With Tears” HERE. (Direct Bandcamp)
Heavy music is experiencing a renaissance of innovation and creativity, while most of contemporary music genres have stagnated in recent years.
Case in point: Holy Water, a powerful new step merging heavy doom guitars, stoic experimentalists like Caspar Brötzmann Massaker and Khanate mixed with early 80s proto-industrial sounds like Psychic TV and The Leather Nun, metalgaze melodies and hints of Wovenhand’s gothic folk. Yes, that’s a wide range of styles, but it shows just how deftly Holy Water, the nom-de-tune of vocalist/guitarist Jasper den Hartigh cuts its own sonic space.
Jasper den Hartigh was previously a member of critically praised New Orleans post-punk band Heat Dust, which released a handful of recordings on The Flenser label and toured with Thou and The Body.
Holy Water’s 11-song eponymous album was self-recorded in 2021, at home and at den Hartigh’s Austin rehearsal space. Help on drums came from Andrew Stevens, guitar from Neckbolt’s Ben Krause, and vocals from den Hartigh’s wife, Sarah Contey.
“The album came after an extensive creativity exercise I did called Compost-Turn,” den Hartigh explains. “In which I put out 7 releases from friends and myself as physical bookmarks. When it came time to work on a self-titled solo project, this helped the songs appear rapidly. This album was my attempt at making a pop-record, while trusting my gut, using lessons learned over the course of my entire musical life. From being in punk bands, to playing slowcore, to ambient noise, and heavy metal. The songs all have references to Dutch fairy tales but also contain more personal writing.”
Holy Water will be available on cassette and digital on February 3rd, 2023, LP to follow in summer. Cassette preorders via Primal Architecture, digital via Bandcamp and LP via Time Release.
Today, shame announce Food for Worms, their explosive new album out February 24th on Dead Oceans, and present its lead single/video, “Fingers of Steel.” In conjunction, the band announces their biggest headlining tour to-date, with stops in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Chicago and more. Following 2021’s Drunk Tank Pink, “the sound of a band stretching into new shapes” (Pitchfork), shame finally arrive at a place of hard-won maturity on Food for Worms, which frontman Charlie Steendeclares to be “the Lamborghini of shame records.”
Food for Worms marks a sonic departure from anything they’ve done before, and – for the first time – the band are not delving inwards, but seeking to capture the world around them. Abandoning their post-punk beginnings for far more eclectic influences, Food for Worms draws from the sharp yet uncomplicated lyrical observations of Lou Reed, as well as the more melodic works of 90s German band Blumfeld. They called upon renowned producer Flood (Nick Cave, U2, PJ Harvey) to execute their vision. “I don’t think you can be in your own head forever,” says Steen. A conversation after one of their gigs with a friend prompted a stray thought that he held onto: “It’s weird, isn’t it? Popular music is about love, heartbreak, or yourself. There isn’t much about your mates.”
The “Fingers of Steel” video, directed by James Humby, sees the band work 19-hour shifts creating fake social media accounts to like, follow, and comment on their own material. Of the video,Steen says: “Self-obsession, social media flagellation and death can all be seen in this Oscar-nominated performance. No one’s ever done a video like this before and when you watch it, you’ll see why. Think Casablanca, but in color, and better.”
On one hand, Food for Worms calls to mind a certain morbidity, but on the other, it’s a celebration of life; the way that, in the end, we need each other. The album is an ode to friendship, and a documentation of the dynamic that only five people who have grown up together – and grown so close, against all odds – can share.
Back in 2018, around debut album Songs of Praise, shame were at the vanguard of a transformative scene that changed the underground music landscape in the UK; paving the way for artists soon to come. Then, Steen suffered a series of panic attacks which led to the tour’s cancellation. For the first time, since being plucked from the small pub stages of south London and catapulted into notoriety, shame were confronted with who they’d become on the other side of it. This era, of being forced to endure reality and the terror that comes with your own company, would form shame’s second album, Drunk Tank Pink.
Reconnecting with what they first loved about being in a band hotwired them into making the album after a false-start during the pandemic. Their management then presented them with a challenge: in three weeks, shame would play two intimate shows and debut two sets of entirely new songs. It meant the band returned to the same ideology which propelled them to these heights in the first place: the love of playing live, on their own terms, fed by their audience. Thus Food for Worms crashed into life faster than anything they’d created before. The band recorded while playing festivals all over Europe, invigorated by the strength of the reaction their new material was met with. That live energy, what it’s like to witness shame in their element, is captured perfectly on record – like lightning in a bottle.
Food for Worms sees shame enter a new, surreal landscape, as reflected in the cover art designed by acclaimed artist Marcel Dzama. It’s suggestive of what is left unsaid, what lies beneath the surface, the farcical and fantastical everyday that we are living in, in a society where both everything and nothing is possible. Recording each track live meant a kind of surrender: here, the rough edges give the album its texture; the mistakes are more interesting than perfection. In a way, it harkens back to the title itself and the way that with this record, the band are embracing frailty and, by doing so, are tapping into a new source of bravery.
It’s through this, and defiance, that the band have continually moved forward together; finding light in uncomfortable contractions and playing their vulnerabilities as strengths. The near-breakdowns, identity crises, Steel routinely ripping his top off on-stage as a way of tackling his body weight insecurities – everything is thrown into their live show, and the best shows of their lives are happening now.
Food for Worms Tracklist 1. Fingers Of Steel 2. Six-Pack 3. Yankees 4. Alibis 5. Adderall 6. Orchid 7. The Fall of Paul 8. Burning By Design 9. Different Person 10. All The People
shame Tour Dates Wed. Mar. 1 – Dublin, IE @ Button Factory Fri. Mar. 3 – Glasgow, UK @ SWG3 Sat. Mar. 4 – Newcastle, UK @ Boiler Shop Sun. Mar. 5 – Leeds, UK @ Stylus Tue. Mar. 7 – Sheffield, UK @ Leadmill Wed. Mar. 8 – Liverpool, UK @ Invisible Wind Factory Thu. Mar. 9 – Bristol, UK @ SWX Sat. Mar. 11 – Manchester, UK @ New Century Hall Sun. Mar. 12 – Cardiff, UK @ Tramshed Tue. Mar. 14 – Nantes, FR @ Stereolux Wed. Mar. 15 – Paris, FR @ Cabaret Sauvage Thu. Mar. 16 – Bordeaux, FR @ Rock School Barbey Sat. Mar. 18 – Lisbon, PT @ LAV Sun. Mar. 19 – Madrid, ES @ Nazca Mon. Mar. 20 – Barcelona, ES @ La 2 de Apolo Wed. Mar. 22 – Nimes, FR @ Paloma Thu. Mar. 23 – Milan, IT @ Magnolia Fri. Mar. 24 – Zurich, CH @ Plaza Sun. Mar. 26 – Munich, DE @ Technikum Mon. Mar. 27 – Berlin, DE @ Astra Tue. Mar. 28 – Hamburg, DE @ Markthalle Thu. Mar. 30 – Oslo, NO @ Vulkan Fri. Mar. 31 – Stockholm, SE @ Debaser Sat. Apr. 1 – Copenhagen, DK @ VEGA Mon. Apr. 3 – Brussels, BE @ AB Tue. Apr. 4 – Cologne, DE @ Floria Thu. Apr. 6 – Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg Fri. Apr. 28 – London, UK @ Brixton Academy Wed. May 10 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall Fri. May 12 – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar Sat. May 13 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer Sun. May 14 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw Tue. May 16 – Boston, MA @ The Sinclair Thu. May 18 – Montréal, QC @ Foufounes Électriques Fri. May 19 – Ottawa, ON @ Club SAW Sat. May 20 – Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace Mon. May 22 – Kalamazoo, MI @ Bell’s Eccentric Cafe Wed. May 24 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall Fri. May 26 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway Sat. May 27 – Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck Sun. May 28 – Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic Lounge Tue. May 30 – Dallas,TX @ Granada Theater Fri. Jun. 2 – Austin, TX @ The Scoot Inn Sat. Jun. 3 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall Sun. Jun. 4 – New Orleans, LA @ Toulouse Theatre
MC/Lyricist RawPoetic (aka JasonMoore) shares a new single, “Digits,” from his forthcoming album, Space Beyond The Solar System, out December9th on 22ndCenturySound. It follows lead single “A Mile In My Head,” which features legendary saxophonist ArchieShepp “soaring above a simple piano melody…with [IrreversibleEntanglements‘ Luke] Stewart’s bass driving it forward alongside a boom-bap beat and several smooth productional flourishes from Damu” (The FADER). “Digits” is immediate, with Raw Poetic’s vocals spitting over an atmospheric beat and keys. “‘Digits’ is basically about moving through the digital ages, yet being unfazed by it,” says Raw Poetic. “I like being an average joe. I like doing things in an organic way. So while the sound rides and moves into this unique digital format, we still give you what’s true to us.”
Although Space Beyond The Solar System could be considered a concept album by its outcome, its inception started from a string of experiments between Moore and frequent collaborator/producer Damu the Fudgemunk. These initial sessions had no specific direction but became the catalyst for what would become a prolific wave of Raw Poetic projects; five of which have been released since 2020. At two hours, absorbing Space Beyond in its entirety may be overwhelming for most, especially in the present day, but Raw and Damu are very aware of this. With a total of over 40-plus years experience between the vocalist and producer, the two of them went down memory lane taking every influence and experience in their personal histories to extract ingredients for a groundbreaking statement. Space Beyond The Solar System is their most comprehensive environment to date.
The creation of Space Beyond sparked a conversation between Raw and Damu about their creative chemistry, with Raw likening their direction to a “space beyond the solar system.” His comment was a eureka moment for the two artists, giving their wandering efforts a sense of definition that was needed. “I think we’ve been exploring music beyond our limits for a few years,” says Raw Poetic. “It’s hard to tell where we’ll land, but we are constantly pushing our way out of the norm. Hence the title, ‘Space Beyond the Solar System.’ It’s just to say, this is new territory for us. Where the sky was once the limit, now it’s just the start.”
Raw Poetic will head overseas to headline the Jazz Cafe in London April 1, 2023. More European dates to be announced in the coming weeks.
