Tag: Philadelphia bands

Poison Ruin enter the “Torture Chamber” on their new single.

L-R: ​​Nao Demand (guitar), Will McAndrew (bass), Mac Kennedy (vox, guitar), Allen Chapman (drums) Photo By Kevin Gray

Poison Ruin’s highly anticipated album Harvest follows the release of their S/T debut which spread like wildfire throughout the punk and DIY community throughout the past two years. The Philadelphian band quickly amassed a following for their lo-fi, catchy metaphoric revolts that stab at the pulsing heart of what it means to live under the permanent midnight of contemporary life. 

Harvest gazes at the world with a sense of grave seriousness, its stare softened only by the alluring seduction of a dream world’s open-ended possibility. Its songs move with a type of uncanny confidence, assembling an array of references to past styles and sensibilities that collapse in on one another, congealing into a truly unique sonic landscape. 

Just ahead of its release, Poison Ruin share their melodic thrasher, “Torture Chamber” which questions the limits and conviction of one’s own beliefs: “What is a truth for which you’d die? And what are the words that could set you free?”

Watch “Torture Chamber” (Official Music Video) via YouTube
Listen / Share / Playlist Here

With Harvest, Poison Ruin aligns their sonic palette to their godless, medieval-inflected aesthetic symbolism, creating a record which strikes with an assured sense of blackened harmony.

“I’ve always found fantasy tropes to be incredibly evocative,” vocalist/guitarist Mac Kennedy notes, “that said, even though they are a set of symbols that seem to speak to most people of our generation, they are often either apolitical or co-opted for incredibly backwards politics.” 

Harvest’s lyrics and imagery, Kennedy reworks fantasy imagery as a series of totems for the downtrodden, stripping it of its escapist tendencies and retooling it as a rich metaphor for the collective struggle over our shared reality: “Instead of knights in shining armor and dragons, it’s a peasant revolt,” he explains, “I’m all for protest songs, but with this band I’ve found that sometimes your message can reach a greater audience if you imbue it with a certain interactive, almost magical realist element.” 

These are not superficial or self-aggrandizing political statements. Rather, Poison Ruin stares into the abyss of present-day life with a sober and empathetic outlook, portraying our cracked reality as a complex and difficult to parse miasma of competing desires.

Poison Ruin’s Relapse debut, Harvest was mastered by Arthur Rizk. It sees its release on April 14 alongside the reissue of their eponymous 2021 LP which has established the band as one of punk and the underground’s newest beloved treasures. Poison Ruin will tour extensively this year. Next up are two record release shows in NYC and their hometown, Philadelphia just before heading overseas for a full EU / UK run including a performance at Roadburn. See below for a full list of dates.

Pre-Save / Playlist Harvest on Digital Platforms Here
Pre-Order Harvest on Vinyl / CD Here
Pre-Order S/T on Vinyl / CD Here

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Bailey at Another Side.]

Irreversible Entanglements return with wild 23-minute “single.”

Photo by Bob Sweeney

Free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements – comprised of poet/MC Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), saxophonist Keir Neuringer, trumpeter Aquiles Navarro, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Tcheser Holmes – return with a new standalone single, “Homeless/Global,” out now via International Anthem and Don Giovanni. “Homeless/Global” is an unabridged take from the first moments of a recent Philadelphia recording session, and is the first piece of new music the group has released since their 2017 acclaimed self-titled debut. Their forthcoming follow-up LP will see release in spring of 2020.
 

Stream “Homeless/Global” –
 https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/homeless-global

 
“Homeless/Global” stretches out inside a vacuum of time, running over 23 minutes in a blink of an eye. The track starts by falling backwards into an energetic recollection of Strata East swing, swelling forcefully till it bursts into the foreboding preach of Ayewa. Her poem is wide-ranging, touching on migration, exile, and border violence. Ayewa runs down an inventory of Black history that “no one remembers.” The band builds back up through soaring saxophone by Neuringer, before the rhythm section simmers down to a deep pocket of psychedelic groove held together by Stewart’s mantric basslines and textured by Navarro’s extended trumpet technique, as drummer Holmes dances dynamically around a pulse. “Homeless/Global” captures the essence of the band in improvisational ritual, and the increasingly powerful capacity they’ve collectively developed over 2+ years on the road.
 
A statement on the music, from the band: “As with the session for our first album, we began this session by just setting studio levels and hitting that record button. ‘Homeless/Global’ was the first thing we played, no script, no plan. It’s a studio take that reflects what we do live: take the stage without a map, navigate the world in deep, telepathic, contrapuntal communion with each other and the histories we’re tapping into, push into the known and unknown, and arrive at the end together.“
 
Originally performing as two different ensembles at a Musicians Against Police Brutality event in 2015 (in response to the NYPD slaying of Akai Gurley), the five musicians that now make up Irreversible Entanglements recognized a shared ethos, and shortly after, assembled as a single unit for an impromptu studio date at Seizure’s Palace in Brooklyn.  That session yielded their debut album Irreversible Entanglements (released by International Anthem & Don Giovanni in September 2017). Critical and communal acclaim for the album (including “Best of 2017” nods from NPR Music, WIRE Magazine, Bandcamp, and others) fueled a high demand for the band in the live setting, and the group have since spent much of 2018 and 2019 on the road. They have collaborated in performance with many legends of creative music including Amina Claudine Myers, Pat Thomas, and Nicole Mitchell; and their highest profile shows have included Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, Le Guess Who Festival In Utrecht NL, Barbican in London, and the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

Keep your mind open.

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