Berlin-based Bretford Records releases Locust, the new solo album from Jeff Clarke (Black Lips member) – a stripped-down, melancholic change of pace from the Canadian singer-songwriter whose boisterous garage rock compositions with the bands Demon’s Claws, Hellshovel, and the Black Lips led to King Khan identifying him as one of the “unsung heroes of rock n’ roll.”

This time out, Clarke’s sincere, poetic texts are accompanied only by his acoustic guitar. The warm, dreamy, minimalist folk sound is enhanced by the recordings themselves – all done in a single session, outdoors in a forest north of Berlin, Clarke’s adopted home since 2016.

The concept for the intimate setting came from Lorenz Szukal, guitarist in legendary Berlin indie rockers Chuckamuck and die Verlierer, who recognized that Clarke’s songwriting, which he had long admired, would be equally powerful when pared down and showcased in a different light. When the two took Szukal’s mobile recording equipment into the woods, the more naturalistic atmosphere revealed a mixture of light and shadow, fragility and resilience, pain and relief in the songs.

And yet Locust is much more than a mere study in contrasts; harmonized by Clarke’s extraordinary writing, the thirteen songs of the album create a coherent ambiance in which Clarke’s voice – like the soft complaint of a lonesome wolf – blends with the vivid lyrical imagery, the subtle dynamics of his guitar playing, and an almost imperceptible echo to leave the listener in a daydream state. In daring to present his unique sensibility in such a raw, elemental setting, Locust marks a striking new direction and reveals Clarke to be a spiritual descendant of Townes van Zandt.

TRACK LISTING

01. Something Happened
02. Feathers Of A Moth
03. Bed Of Glass
04. Whips Of Holly
05. Locust
06. Left Out In The Cold
07. Hypothermia
08. Elizabeth
09. Weird Ways
10. Stolen Valor
11. Strawberry Sun
12. Kind Of Boy
13. Never Going To Run

Sixth full-length album from the gurus of Atlanta’s “flower punk” movement, from the heady daze of 2011 – finally back on vinyl and part of a series of Fire re-issues celebrating 20 years of the legendary garage rock gurus from Atlanta, Georgia. Arabia Mountain was recorded between Brooklyn and Atlanta in 2010, and with the collaborative assistance of celebrated producer Mark Ronson, Lockett Pundt of Deerhunter, and a human skull with a microphone jammed into it. “I was already a fan of the Black Lips coming into it and I definitely didn’t want to f**k up anything,” Ronson told Rolling Stone…and f**k up he did not. The production tests the limits of modern amplification, harkening to the full, meaty sound of The Stooges’ Fun House or Lola Versus Powerman by the Kinks. Unapologetic southern-fried twang, crunching through the gears with flowers blossoming everywhere. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Family Tree
A2 Modern Art
A3 Spidey's Curse
A4 Mad Dog
A5 Mr. Driver
A6 Bicentennial Man
A7 Go Out And Get It
A8 Raw Meat
Side B
B1 Bone Marrow
B2 The Lie
B3 Time
B4 Dumpster Dive
B5 New Direction
B6 Noc-A-Homa
B7 Don't Mess Up My Baby
B8 You Keep On Running 

The seventh studio album from the mighty Black Lips is finally back on vinyl, part of a series of Fire re-issues celebrating 20 years of the legendary garage rock gurus from Atlanta, Georgia. Featuring fan favourites such as ‘Boys in the Wood’ and ‘Funny’, this is an essential slice of Black Lips history. The band convened at Dunham Studios in New York to record initial tracks with Dap Kings music director Tommy Brenneck (Cee Lo, Charles Bradley), then decamped to Nashville to record several songs with Patrick Carney of The Black Keys producing, finally rounding out the album with a couple of songs co-produced with lifetime Lips recording collaborator, Ed Rawls. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Drive-By-Buddy
A2 Smiling
A3 Make You Mine
A4 Funny
A5 Dorner Party
A6 Justice After All
Side B
B1 Boys In The Wood
B2 Waiting
B3 Do The Vibrate
B4 I Don't Wanna Go Home
B5 Dandelion Dust
B6 Dog Years

Part of a series of Fire re-issues celebrating 20 years of the legendary garage rock gurus from Atlanta, Georgia. This 2017 record features a musically evolved Black Lips, who still stay true to their original blistering take on fuzzy, dirty rock n' roll. God’s Art or Satan’s Graffiti features guest contributions from Yoko Ono was produced by Sean Lennon throughout 2016. During the recording, the band isolated themselves from the outside world, infusing the album with a focused liveliness similar to the spirit that brought them together in the first place. On Satan's graffiti or God's art? founding members Cole Alexander and Jared Swilley teamed with former guitarist Jack Hines (who played in the group from 2002-2004) and additions Oakley Munson on drums and Zumi Rosow on saxophone. A sonically captivating document that is as creatively unhinged as it is precisely executed, one of the rawest and most expansive albums in the band's storied history.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Overture: Sunday Morning
A2 Occidental Front
A3 Can't Hold On
A4 The Last Cul De Sac
Side B
B1 Interlude: Got Me All Alone
B2 Crystal Night
B3 Squatting In Heaven
B4 Interlude: Bongo's Baby
B5 Rebel Intuition
Side C
C1 Wayne
C2 Interlude: E’lektric Spider Webz
C3 We Know
C4 In My Mind There's A Dream
Side D
D1 Lucid Nightmare
D2 Come Ride With Me
D3 It Won't Be Long
D4 Loser's Lament
D5 Finale: Sunday Morning

The classic third album from the Black Lips, originally released in 2005 and now back on vinyl and part of a series of Fire re-issues celebrating 20 years of the legendary garage rock gurus from Atlanta, Georgia. 16 tracks of grimy and chaotic punk, scuzzy and raw, and catchy as hell.

“Their strongest effort to date.” All Music
"The band at their trashy best; more melodic but every bit as psychotic. If The Royal Trux had listened to the Troggs instead of the Rolling Stones, they might have recorded this album. This baby is a masterpiece. Unapologetic southern-fried twang, crunching through the gears in a blitz of grimy bravado. Their music twitches with an engaging, wired vigour." ★★★★ Uncut. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Sea Of Blasphemy
A2 Can't Dance
A3 Boomerang
A4 Hippie, Hippie, Hoorah
A5 Not A Problem
A6 Gung Ho
A7 Everybody's Doin' It
A8 Feeling Gay
Side B
B1 Take Me Home (Back To Boone)
B2 Gentle Violence
B3 She's Gone
B4 Fairy Stories
B5 Dirty Hands
B6 Workin'
B7 Punk Slime
B8 Empassant

The follow up to the widely successful ‘Good Bad Not Evil’, the 2009 album is a perfect amalgam of their high-end live shows and subculture songwriting, meshed tightly to the Lips’ distinctive howl. Finally back on vinyl and part of a series of Fire re-issues celebrating 20 years of the legendary garage rock gurus from Atlanta, Georgia. Rolling Stone, Spin, Filter, Magnet, Stop Smiling, The Fader, Anthem, Paste, and The NY Times-approved garage rock veterans’ trashy psyche pop gem. Unapologetic southern-fried twang, crunching through the gears in a haze of psychedelia. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Take My Heart
A2 Drugs
A3 Starting Over
A4 Let It Grow
A5 Trapped In A Basement
A6 Short Fuse
A7 I'll Be With You
Side B
B1 Big Black Baby Jesus Of Today
B2 Again & Again
B3 Old Man
B4 The Drop I Hold
B5 Body Combat
B6 Elijah
B7 I Saw God 

Bending scuzzy boundaries, ‘Good Bad Not Evil’ is a coming-of-age garage rock classic record. Full of hedonistic delinquent anthems, the fourth studio album from Atlanta punks Black Lips reaches it’s 15 year anniversary. This deluxe edition includes unearthed photos and new liner notes from Jared Swilley and King Khan. The second disc features B-sides and rarities including ‘Cruising’, ‘I Wanna Dance With You’ and ‘Leroy Faster’. ‘Good Bad Not Evil’ perfectly encapsulates the disillusionment of the mid-00s America, slammed between warehouse parties, DIY generator shows and scattered party pics, which was recorded in a little house in Atlanta that had been converted into a studio called the Living Room. Referencing Shangri-Las in the title, this is where their knack for garage gems met Motown; with bass heavy grooves (later remixed by Diplo), a certified country twang and unabashed bravado. Instant hits like ‘Veni Vidi Vici’, ‘Cold Hands’, ‘Bad Kids’ and ‘O Katrina!’ immediately became Black Lips staples. This was a band caught in the eye of the storm, the touring continued, the parties didn’t stop, this was a band bending the scuzzy boundaries of their chosen genre. The record was hailed by the likes of Pitchfork, who proclaimed, “Black Lips are a go-to band for vintage lo-fi freaks, and their raucous live shows have helped them cross over outside of crusty dive bars. ‘Good Bad Not Evil’, however, is the record where naysayers, disinterested friends and acquaintances, people on the street, and anyone else within earshot has to sit up, shut up, and listen.” …and, shut up and listen they did.

The Black Lips return with their 10th studio effort ‘Apocalypse Love’, scorched with their trademark menace, it cryogenically mutates all recognised musical bases; it spins yarns about vintage Soviet synths, Benzedrine stupors, coup de’ tats, stolen valor and certified destruction, all set against a black setting sun. Since the turn of the decade the band have transformed from austere country pioneers, into a set of Lynchian surrealists, hellbent on recalibrating the history of rock ‘n’ roll. Singer and saxophonist Zumi Rosow muses, “It’s a weird dance record, one that reflects the moment that the world’s in right now…”

‘Apocalypse Love’ is an album that emanates from a dive bar jukebox in the back of your mind; with a playlist that bends between tub thumping doom-glam, Plastic Ono singalongs, cocktail-shaken space age pop, Morricone reverberations and lo-fi outsider acoustic-punk, with mariachi horns, theremins, drum machines and harmonies filtering through the infectious melodies. Stand-out number ‘Among The Dunes’ is an amorphous platform-heeled anthem, a signature sax-fuelled stomper filled with trippy swagger. While opener ‘No Rave’ proffers a hypnotic locked groove, with Cole Alexander’s trademark snarl delivered over a sulphurous wall of distorted hedonism, a dystopian anthem for an apocalyptic manifesto. Meanwhile, the twisted exotica of ‘Whips Of Holly’ with its silver screen façade is like the soundtrack to a classic Theda Bara vamp-fest. As the band venture into their third decade, ‘Apocalypse Love’ is proof that The Black Lips show no sign of slowing down…

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: 10th album from Atlanta outfit Black Lips, 'Apocalypse Love' is a self-proclaimed "weird dance record" - and I'm inclined to agree. It's scuzzy, twisted and has a strange but also sincere innocence to it - like a school disco in the Red Room from Twin Peaks.

TRACK LISTING

A1. No Rave
A2. Love Has Won
A3. Stolen Valor
A4. Lost Angel
A5. Whips Of Holly
A6. Apocalypse Love
A7. Operation Angela.
B1. Crying On A Plane
B2. Sharing My Cream
B3. Among The Dunes
B4. Tongue Tied
B5. Antiaris Toxicaria
B6. The Concubine 

“What Black Lips do so well is tease the horror out of wholesomeness and recast golden-age rock’n’roll in a strange, discomforting light” Pitchfork.

“Cosmic country that comes strutting off a dusty back porch with gritted teeth” Consequence Of Sound.

It’s country music but not as we know it which begs the question: Have these Bad Kids of 21st Century rock ’n’ roll finally grown up on their ninth studio album? Are they at peace with themselves? Have they made a record their parents could listen to? The Black Lips new album ‘Sing In A World That’s Falling Apart’ continues to flick the middle finger to one and all. This ain’t another gaggle of bearded southern sons fleeing their collective suburban upbringings and collegiate music education. There aren’t the usual clichés about drinking, honkytonks, and heartbreak. These are, after all, the same Black Lips who rescued the waning garage punk subgenre by not sounding or dressing their musical predecessors. They also dug contemporary hip-hop and punk and actualized themselves Like so many dramatic moments in the Black Lips career, ‘Sing In A World That’s Falling Apart’ was born out of crisis. The band’s stylistic evolution through decades of prolific touring and recording took them where no garage punk band had gone before - huge venues, network television shows, and major music festivals. Here Black Lips are at their grimiest, most dangerous and equipped with the best collection of songs since the aughts. Skidding onto the asphalt in a shower of sparks, they roll on with an unapologetic southern-fried twang, pacing the beast, every now and then dropping a psycho howl into the rubber room madness lurking underneath the truckstop fireworks. This ain’t your granny’s country album. And conversely this ain’t your mama’s Black Lips.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Just as the thigh-slapping hoedown starts, it fades away into rich psychy rock and swinging blues riffage. Black lips have always been one of the most distinctive bands that start with 'Black___' (of which there are A LOT), and 'In A World That's Falling Apart' provides a feelgood alternative to that exact scenario. Turn it up and don't stress. Black Lips got this.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hooker Jon
2. Chainsaw
3. Rumbler
4. Holding Me Holding You
5. Gentleman
6. Get It On Time
7. Angola Rodeo
8. Georgia
9. Odelia
10. Dishonest Man
11. Locust
12. Live Fast Die Slow

Atlanta’s valiant punks Black Lips release their first album in three years, Satan’s graffiti or God’s art?, on Vice Records. Produced by Sean Lennon at his studio compound in upstate New York throughout 2016, the album is the group’s most musically evolved to date, while still staying true to their original blistering take on fuzzy, dirty rock n roll.

TRACK LISTING

01 Overture: Sunday Mourning
02 Occidental Front
03 Can’t Hold On
04 The Last Cul De Sac
05 Interlude: Got Me All Alone
06 Crystal Night
07 Squatting In Heaven
08 Interlude: Bongo’s Baby
09 Rebel Intuition
10 Wayne
11 Interlude: E’lektric Spider Webz
12 We Know
13 In My Mind There's A Dream
14 Lucid Nightmare
15 Come Ride With Me
16 It Won't Be Long
17 Loser’s Lament
18 Finale: Sunday Mourning

Atlanta’s favourite sons Black Lips release their first full length in three years. Recorded at a variety of locations over the course of 2013, the 12 songs boast a stable of studio collaborators whose pedigree speaks to how much the band has grown and sonically matured over the course of their 15 year long career. The band convened at Dunham Studios in New York to record initial tracks with Dap Kings music director Tommy Brenneck (Cee Lo, Charles Bradley), then decamped to Nashville to record several songs with Patrick Carney of The Black Keys producing, finally rounding out the album with a couple of songs co-produced with lifetime Lips recording collaborator, Ed Rawls. The resultant collection was mixed by Grammy winner Jimmy Douglass and features artwork shot by legendary photographer Mick Rock (David Bowie, Queen, Lou Reed).

Originally released in 2005, the third album from Atlanta's enfants terrible finds the band at their trashy best. Somewhat more melodic but every bits as psychotic than their previous releases. To quote Mick Collins, "the Black Lips are the only garage band that matters". This baby is a masterpiece.

The Black Lips take "Back From The Grave" style garage punk frenzy to such extremes of slavering cacophony that they border on experimental noise rock at times. This is their fabulous second album from 2004.