Algiers -- The Underside of Power

holy shit that song's incredible

Nice track.

The song is good enough I can easily imagine it becoming a left field hit and me hating everyone walking around listening to Algiers. (If I'm being honest.)

Personally I'd love nothing better than everyone walking around etc.

I'd feel very happy for the band.

Damn, this song is so good. That bassline, my god...sounds like "Disco Inferno"

― passionate plant-based athlete (voodoo chili)

not sure if you mean the song or the band!

i don't get the notion of resenting the popularity of a band i love. maybe because it's so rare. i'm never going to be like "oh god look at all these bandwagon jumpers listening to the insensible eggs".

I don't resent it at all. But I do get tired of hearing stuff sometimes, and when everyone else is listening to the same thing it (selfishly) impairs my own enjoyment. Like, I can't think of the last time I played Phoenix. (sorry Phoenix)

xp the song (hence the quotes), but lol

Josh, when these guys blow up you can make fun of the song by calling it The Underpants of Power or something

many options available to you. including continuing to listen to them.

I don't resent it at all. But I do get tired of hearing stuff sometimes, and when everyone else is listening to the same thing it (selfishly) impairs my own enjoyment. Like, I can't think of the last time I played Phoenix. (sorry Phoenix)

― Josh in Chicago

man i can't remember the last time i listened to phoenix either. i think i will listen to "wolfgang amadeus phoenix" now. (honestly if they hadn't broken through i probably never would have heard them, considering i didn't mess with "buzz" indie during the time period in question.)

i guess i haven't ever really had that experience, of seeing a band where i'm the only person on the block who knows about them, to the point where i think of them as "my" band, starts getting played in chain restaurants as background music. but i also don't have that sense of possessiveness, of thinking of a band as "my" band.

That said, there is nothing I like better than a good band that gets the success it deserves (like Spoon, Phoenix, the xx, etc., and hopefully Algiers). It's neat when meritocracy works. Though just a few years when the same five or so albums ended up on the top of so many year end lists, I presume for being good albums, many on ilx mocked them and the publications that praised them, but I suppose that's ilx for you.

couple of uk tour dates announced as a warm up to the depeche mode shows:

Jun 06 Patterns / Brighton, United Kingdom
Jun 07 Shacklewell Arms / London, United Kingdom

http://algierstheband.com/

this song is so so good.. I can't believe...

pre ordered the vinyl

i don't like this quite as much as Black Eunuch from the debut but this is very promising

apaprently DM is touring with Warpaint and not Algiers for most of North America :/

i don't get the notion of resenting the popularity of a band i love. maybe because it's so rare. i'm never going to be like "oh god look at all these bandwagon jumpers listening to the insensible eggs".

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Thursday, April 27, 2017 4:40 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't resent it at all. But I do get tired of hearing stuff sometimes, and when everyone else is listening to the same thing it (selfishly) impairs my own enjoyment. Like, I can't think of the last time I played Phoenix. (sorry Phoenix)

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 27, 2017 4:50 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um guys...like i wouldn't really worry too much about having to hear algiers from every passing car this summer

nice song. The chorus has a "Get Ready" sound to it.

apaprently DM is touring with Warpaint and not Algiers for most of North America :/

Yup, that's what I've learned too. Pity, but I can't wait for the standalone tour. (And I like Warpaint so everyone wins.)

Yeah, no big deal, I was just hopeful

I really like Warpaint but they were a muddled mess when I saw them open for Nick Cave

nice series of opening gigs they've got there

this has leaked. holy shit.

Well that's highly unfortunate. (I mean, yes, it is great, but c'mon, a month out?)

New single "Cleveland" is out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xDDCxodgIs

^^^^tune

Keep an eye on this thread Monday.

love you ned but you've been following too many trump conspiracy theory twitter accounts :)

Yeah, not that funny.

ned you posted rick wilson, you should expect some good-natured ribbing

anyway I'm looking forward to the NPR stream or whatever

*scratches chin idly*

algiers set supporting depeche mode from this week up on dime now

Anyway, as I said:

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/06/19/533237337/a-band-apart-fractured-fury-algiers

So, I interviewed all four members, as well as Adrian Utley and Ali Chant, Ben Greenberg and Randall Dunn. Three months of intense work at times but I'm sure glad I did it; everyone was a pretty incredible interviewee -- a lot of terrifyingly smart people, in essence -- and this piece could easily have been at least three times as long based on their answers to questions alone.

nice one . gonna read this later.

Will definitely read the article later. That second track is a lot weirder/noisier than the first, which I liked better and which reminded me of The Heavy (who I like, so that's not meant as an insult). Ultimately, though, I know myself - this is the kind of thing I admire a lot, but wind up never actually listening to that much.

Fantastic, Ned. Since I tripped across these guys in your tweets I've had a lot of great listening and thinking.

xpost You might surprise yourself when you hear the whole thing -- but I understand that impulse very well.

Great read Ned! Very cool.

This is my album of the year at this point. And while we're talking about it, I wrote about them for CLRVYNT and also found them to be a super interesting bunch of people. Very smart, very interesting perspectives on... everything really.

http://clrvynt.com/elder-interview/

Ah, sorry, wrong link: http://clrvynt.com/algiers-feature/

Hey we can talk about Elder too.

haha, both great bands!

i really liked their first album & v hyped to see them live for the second time next month. thanks for the long article ned!

You're welcome! I hadn't realized how exhausted it would all make me but I'm kindly weirdly wiped out today.

And now you can all finally hear it and judge for yourselves.

http://smarturl.it/TheUndersideOfPower

Still my album of the year, easy.

This album absolutely rules and I'm definitely looking forward to exploring it further.

Can't help but think that Matt Tong made the right decision.

― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Tuesday, April 25, 2017 6:01 PM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah so this is incredible, *perfect* sequencing

I'm a minute into this and... DAMN

this album really harshly reminds me of the fact that so many bands would benefit from having an actual singer

Go forth and rock.

And here's the full thing -- including Chicago, so there ya go Josh

http://algierstheband.com/live/

Yeah, Empty Bottle, nice n little!

I'm both depressed and excited by how small these venues are, the one in TO is like 150 capacity tops

Meantime here's a new tape/download

https://algierstheband.bandcamp.com/

I adore this record, one of my favourites from this year, but I wish it was less compressed. The squished dynamics aesthetic works in some places, but a DR of 5 or 6 doesn't lend itself nicely to listening on headphones.

between these guys, Zeal & Ardor and Here Lies Man, there seems to be a kind of micro-trend in this kind of metal-industrial/traditional black music fusion thing. I'm not sure how good those other two bands are, but why now?

why not now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waiwJ5rW4xw

new single which is a sort of spoken word response to criticism of the band over a free jazz freakout? it's cool

more info from Matador:

ALGIERS have released a collaborative audiovisual piece, “Can the Sub_Bass Speak?”, a new work from the band and production duo Randall Dunn and Ben Greenberg. The new piece pits charged language and free jazz collage by ALGIERS multi-instrumentalist Franklin James Fisher, saxophonics pioneer Skerik and drummer D’Vonne Lewis against a maelstrom of visuals by award-winning filmmaker Sam Campbell and typographer Farbod Kokabi.

Inspired by a chance encounter with artists Moor Mother and Harrga at Wysing Polyphonic in 2018, “Can the Sub_Bass Speak?” contorts ALGIERS’ post-punk deconstruction of racial and class sonic politics into new collaborative directions. “Can the Sub_Bass Speak?” is the centerpiece of a larger web installation thereisnoyear

There are some new UK/euro dates as well

Looking forward even more to the new album now.

Has there been any indication that's forthcoming?

new single which is a sort of spoken word response to criticism of the band

And that goes for all of you punks in the press
That want to start shit by printin' lies instead of the things we said
That means you andy secher at hit parader, circus magazine
Mick wall at kerrang, bob guccione jr. at spin
What you pissed off 'cause your dad gets more pussy than you?
Fuck you! suck my fuckin' dick!
You be rippin' off the fuckin' kids
While they be payin' their hard earned money to read about the bands they want to know about
Printin' lies, startin' controversy
You want to antagonize me? antagonize me motherfucker!
Get in the ring motherfucker! and I'll kick your bitchy little ass! punk!!
I don't like you, I just hate you
I'm gonna kick your ass, oh yeah! oh yeah!
You may not like our integrity yeah
We built a world out of anarchy oh yeah!

xpost -- Per J's post, it'll be a note-for-note cover of both Use Your Illusions.

(Actual answer: I'm not positive it's totally done but I'm pretty sure it is, and there have been quiet rumblings that it's en route -- no idea whether it'll be before the end of the year or not, though.)

enjoyed this, wonder if the whole album will be a bit like it

not heard this yet but i do find 'Whaaa we've been misquoted by the meeja' songs tedious on the whole

i tend to agree but this sounds cool enough and is delivered compellingly enough for me to forgive that

I am listening to this song now and a) it rules, and b) I do not think this is addressing criticism of the band as such

like, I don't think anyone is telling the two white members of the band that they aren't real niggas, like that Chris Rock sketch

the reference of the title btw for those who dont know https://cup.columbia.edu/book/can-the-subaltern-speak/9780231143851

I'm listening to "Can The Sub-Bass Speak?" again and I am impressed with the level of restraint I showed here in responding to the description of the song

one of my tracks of the year, easily, but first time I've read that description and fucking hell

The new album is quite lovely, BTW; my review of it runs next week I believe.

there's really a lot going on in "can the sub-bass speak?" so my apologies for not capturing all its intricacies in a very brief description upon first listen

but ill maintain that critical attempts to pigeonhole the bands music etc. is one of the many things it does address

new long-ass remixes of "Cleveland" just in time for the election

https://open.spotify.com/album/2ttGvriuz92KNvllIjp30A?si=MdXPB0PySj6hTTmaF4blyQ

Oh great, thanks!