"Profoundly psychedelic…makes you feel grateful just for being alive.” – XLR8R“Supermax-tight monolith monsters of psychedelia.” – L.A. Weekly
“Dark and noisy and messy. Which is cool, if you like strange shit.” – Vice
Groundbreaking record label Lovepump United (HEALTH, Ghengis Tron) announced today the upcoming release of Hoarse Lords, the debut full-length by Clipd Beaks on November 6th, 2007.
The creation of Hoarse Lords began in the summer of 2005, when Clipd Beaks relocated from Minnesota to Oakland, California. Influenced by hobo culture, the drugged-up hyphy sounds currently dominating Bay Area airwaves, and underground “Neu San Francisco” warehouse parties where techno bangers fade into tribal noise jams, everything on Hoarse Lords is turned up to 11. Harsh and distorted, it's a fitting new sound for a band that references “clipping” in their name, and feels every bit as sick and violent as a severed, bleeding beak.
Formed in 2003, Clipd Beaks started off with little more than a battered Arp Axxe synthesizer and a microphone but quickly set about marking off its own turf at the intersection of psychedelic post-punk and futuristic noise. Bassist Scott Ecklein and drummer Ray Benjamin met at age seven and have played music together ever since. The nascent Beaks rhythm section met guitarist/synthesist Greg Pritchard inadvertently when, during his “reactionary prepubescent punk” phase, he violently beat on one of Ray’s drums while calling them wankers due to their pre-teen band’s sonic similarities to Smashing Pumpkins.
After graduating from high school, where they experimented with mind-altering substances such as British rock and San Diego art-core, the three boys played in an epic instrumental post-rock/prog band. Singer Nic Barbeln was in a different band, whose delayed vocal loops and jam band tendencies they secretly admired from afar. When Nic’s band’s drummer ran off to Woodstock to become a Buddhist monk, he was invited to join the other boys for an impromptu jam sesh, and on a sub-zero January night in a loft above a metal bar in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Clipd Beaks was born.
Its first record -- which the band recorded and released itself -- came out that July. It was called Gang Caves and it was about caves near the Mississippi River that gangs used to hang out in. Incorporating lo-fi orchestral samples, liberal use of the aforementioned analog synth, and effected vocals á la Vincent Price’s cameo on “Thriller”, the record still stands as a bizarre testament to the young Beaks’ insatiable appetite for experimentation.
In March of 2006, Tigerbeat6 released the Preyers EP featuring the song “Messed up Desert” which will appear on the soundtrack (alongside Broken Social Scene and Madlib among others) to the upcoming film Gardens of The Night (LINK) starring John Malkovich. Recorded while the band was packing its bags in preparation for an epic cross-country move to California, Preyers documented the anxiety of five boys growing into men in the strange last days of American Empire, leaving their placid Midwest homes behind to venture into the unknown.
Now happily settled in Oakland, Clipd Beaks sounds like they're pushing themselves further and further into some unknown and terrifying black hole. On Hoarse Lords, song titles like “Melter” (MP3), “Wrathscapes”, and “We Will Bomb You” set the scene: these are the end times, and Clipd Beaks is right there with you, banging their drums in a tornado. As the record builds to a ferocious conclusion, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, a feeling of peace beyond the point of pain. We can't escape, so we submit, and are consumed. Hoarse Lords will be released by Lovepump United on November 6th, 2007, and followed by an extensive U.S. tour.
“The West Coast's equivalent of our beloved Deerhunter… strangely hypnotic.” – Creative Loafing
“Groovy… abrasive with the synthesizers. It's like, if you can't see the direct lines between This Heat and DJ Screw, then maybe you need to do a little more homework.” – The Fader
Hoarse Lords tracklisting:
Release Date: November 6th, 2007
01. Melter (MP3)
02. Wrathscapes
03. Manipulator
04. High on Charms
05. Hoarse Lords
06. We Will Bomb You (We Will)
07. Woo Melodies
08. Black Glass
09. Let It Win
No comments:
Post a Comment