The Bug Club cap off 2023 with their second full-length album - an hour-and-a-bit long double LP called 'Rare Birds: Hour of Song'.

Now then, what could you possibly have to say that takes two records to spit out? Pay attention to this and learn. It's The Bug Club's Hex Enduction Hour. South Wales' Double Nickels On The Dime. It's The Faust Cycle for people with shorter attention spans. Listen to me, why don't you. I'm from the label. I'm relevant. I have a huuuuge record collection, I love name-dropping, and I don't have many friends.

Their eighth release since joining forces with Bingo Records in summer 2020, 'Rare Birds...' is a culmination of a year spent relentlessly touring. But it's not one of those hackneyed road records. It's about birds, to an extent. Well, it is, and it isn't.

Spare us an hour and four minutes. That's what we're asking of you here. It's a big ask, these days.

But if you do, you'll find yourself entrenched in an immersive world of The Bug Club. The other records - with the sardonic and surreal, the riffs and the obsession with outer space - were a run up. With 'Rare Birds...' Sam, Tilly and Dan have created an expansive environment in which we can all bask in a cocktail of garage rock, poetry, nonsense, wordplay, sentimentality and fuck-offs. Ivor Cutler's come round to play with Gordon Gano and Kimya Dawson in a semi-detached in Caldicot. They've made something you're going to really like.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Snapping percussion and raucous guitar lines, swimming in post-punk waters but with a wry and keen humour to go along with the impeccable jagged garage-rock instrumentation. Another killer outing from Bingo records.

TRACK LISTING

1. burds Wurds - My First Lie
2. Samuel Was Beautiful Tonight
3. burds Wurds - For Feeling
4. I Will Feel The Same
5. burds Wurds - Tomorrow's Triangle
6. Undone
7. burds Wurds - I Think We'll Go With This
8. Fully Clothed
9. burds Wurds - The Key
10. Marriage 03:36
11. burds Wurds - Shut My Beak
12. Four Sisters
13. burds Wurds - What's Your Sweet Cereal?
14. Is This The Music You Like?
15. Can Ya Change A Thing Like This?
16. burds Wurds - Hot Emptiness
17. We Can't All Play Saxophones
18. burds Wurds - Big Gold Medallion
19. Short And Round 02:40
20. burds Wurds - Louder Than Normal Ha Ha Ha
21. Passionflower, Paperbacks And Woodlice
22. burds Wurds - The Pantry Flap
23. Blues Magicians
24. burds Wurds - The Big Frog
25. Strawberry Season
26. burds Wurds - It's Lovely
27. Do It All Again
28. burds Wurds - Really Nice
29. Drown Me Out
30. burds Wurds - Twelve Surnames
31. One Big Heavy Person
32. burds Wurds - More Of A Pretty Turkish Bookmark
33. Mister Do You Have The Time For Sittin'?
34. burds Wurds - Fish Tongue
35. In My Hour Of Song
36. The Loudest Violin
37. burds Wurds - Now We Can Move On
38. Antique Heirlooms
39. burds Wurds - Cubed Up!
40. Cheap Linen
41. Burds Wurds - Something Small
42. Rare Birds
43. burds Wurds - Ready For Living
44. Three Brians
45. burds Wurds - From One Rare Bird
46. Wide Awake Forever
47. Burds Wurds - This Story's End

'Pure Particles' follows the great sellout success of The Bug Club's debut EP 'Launching Moondream One'. Again released on Bingo Records, it sees the South Wales trio deliver a larger portion of raucous, riffing garage shot through with a sense of humour that reminds you that, while they may be excellent musicians, they're certainly not going to bore you about that.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Word Of God 00:35
2. My Baby Loves Rock & Roll Music 02:37
3. Vegetable Garden 02:56
4. The Fixer 02:27
5. Pure Particles 02:13
6. Jonathan's Gone 02:07
7. If My Mother Thinks I'm Happy 04:22
8. A Love Song 01:14
9. Pure Particles Theme 01:37

The Bug Club’s name does a good job of introducing the band & their music: a tight-knit, collaborative effort focused on telling tales of the everyday that we often take for granted, shot through with humour & riffs-a-plenty.

Imagine Jonathan Richman bought a really big amp & a time machine & found himself somewhere on the Nuggets compilation. Or perhaps Ray Davis palled up with Sterling Morrison, got really into The Minutemen & agreed that songs need not be longer than two minutes. Then, maybe, you’re almost where the Welsh three-piece are coming from.

The creative trio of Sam Willmett (guitar/vocals), Tilly Harris (bass/vocals) and Dan Matthew (drums) formed The Bug Club in 2016 in the little-known rock n' roll hotbed that is Caldicot, Monmouthshire. Following relentless gigging in their local area, The Bug Club were picked up by Bingo Records & released their first proper single - ‘We Don’t Need Room For Lovin’ - in February 2021. It garnered immediate acclaim, with BBC 6 Music’s resident tastemaker Marc Riley playing it a few times a week ever since & booking them in for a post-lockdown live session right off the bat. The announcement of the EP ‘Launching Moondream One’ followed - as did the release of second single ‘Checkmate’, with which came a similar level of radio airplay. And then the same again for the EP's title track.

First and foremost a live band, the band record as a group quickly, capturing the energy & sound of the gigs that make them such a popular fixture on the live circuit. 

RIYL: The Modern Lovers, The Wave Pictures, The Vaselines, The Velvet Underground, The Kinks.

TRACK LISTING

1. Checkmate 02:13
2. All Of The Scariest Monsters Live In London 02:04
3. We Don't Need Room For Lovin' 02:00
4. Launching Moondream One 01:33
5. The Word Of God 00:35
6. My Baby Loves Rock & Roll Music 02:37
7. Vegetable Garden 02:56
8. The Fixer 02:27
9. Pure Particles 02:13
10. Jonathan's Gone 02:07
11. If My Mother Thinks I'm Happy 04:22
12. A Love Song 01:14
13. Pure Particles Theme 01:37

The friendship between Al Cisneros (Sleep/Om) and Kevin Martin (The Bug/King Midas Sound) begun when King Midas Sound supported OM at the Scala in London in 2012. Subsequently the duo quickly realised via passionately animated conversations, that they shared a serous addiction to reggae 7", and in particular, a mutually insatiable appetite for roots and the deepest dub versions being consistently transmitted from Jamaica...This resulted in Cisneros, then inviting Martin to specifically drop hardcore dub sessions as support to Sleep in Berlin, and on tour with OM. It was during the European Om tour in 2019, that Cisneros offered to record an ep for The Bug's fledgling PRESSURE label.

And now 'Rosin' is the fulfilment of that promise. Al's side of the single, showcases the low end specialist extending the bassbin pounding methodologies of those incredible b-line masters who first inspired him to relentlessly explore the infinitely resonant worlds of bass and space. So 'Rosin Immersion' and it's subsequent dub 'Dabby You', echo 'Flabba Holt's classic work with the Roots Radics or Robbie Shakespeare 's tremendous output for Channel One with The Revolutionaries...These devastating mixes extend the hallowed roots tradition that Cisneros worships, and gleefully opts for an even lower, slower, grind .... It's another fantastic example of Al's parallel dub world, that he has been tirelessly promoting with his incredible Sinai label releases for the past few years, as he simultaneously continues to reshape Metal with Sleep and zoned 'out' rock with Om too. On the flipside, Martin took up Al's invitation to remix his original song, but Kevin here opts for radical mutation instead of homage. What may have begun as a single remix, ends as two militantly distinct future dubs aimed straight at the body and dome...Echoing Kevin's recent collaborations with Will Bevan aka Burial, for their collaborative Flame series, as previously released on PRESSURE, this pair of thundering tracks reflect The Bug at his most immersive and psychedelic. 'Fathoms' and '50 hz' revel in their otherness, and the sonic sorcery of his Brussels based sound lab. The twin rhythms are undoubtedly inspired by the spirit of The Bug's production heroes Scientist, King Tubby or Adrian Sherwood, but are set adrift in a futuristic sci-fi format for ambient heads and sound system disciples alike to get fully lost in.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A rather 'trad' sounding dub excursion from Al Cisneros here, which contrasts nicely with the more avant/noize based approach to dub and dancehall favoured by The Bug.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Al Cisneros – Rosin Immersion
A2. Al Cisneros - Dabby You
B1. The Bug – Fathoms
B2. The Bug - 50hz

Green Dream in F# is a culmination of The Bug Club universe that has been constructed over the course of two sold out EPs, a couple of standalone singles, and the kind of relentless touring the band has quickly become known for. ‘It’s Art’ is a typically short piece of garage pop perfection, beginning quietly and with singer and guitarist Sam Willmett listing the band’s musical heroes in the manner similar to one of those he namechecks: Jonathan Richman. The band’s ever-present sardonic wit is at the forefront, as they question the meaning and purpose of art - and in turn themselves - before throwing in a blistering guitar riff and the trademark duel-vocals between Sam and Tilly Harris (bass, vocals) before things get too serious.

The band say this first single sets the tone for the album, and musically it presents us with a refined version of what we have come to expect on the basis of previous releases: whip-smart pop songs performed flawlessly and with humour by one of the tightest musical units going. As indicated by the names of both first single and album, The Bug Club’s debut LP shows the band taking a long, hard look at the way the music industry - and by extension the art world - takes itself so seriously, and deciding to ignore that and carry on doing things on their own terms.

Riding atop drummer Dan Matthew’s relentlessly solid foundation, Green Dream in F# packs in 14 tracks covering favourite The Bug Club topics including space, small town life, love and swearing. Sam and Tilly’s playing could be virtuosic if they were in any way arrogant, but they’re not, and so well-crafted and at times complex guitar work sits neatly within the sharp song structures that never stick around too long, and backs engaging and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny lyrical storytelling.

Following the remarkable DIY success of early EPs Launching Moondream One and Pure Particles (also available via Bingo Records), Green Dream in F# shows a band not at all phased by the prospect of putting out their debut full length. Instead, they use the space to stretch their abilities and create something as cohesive, involved and engrossing as you’d expect the imaginary, dog-directed symphony their LP’s name pokes fun at to be.

TRACK LISTING

1. Only In Love
2. Six O’Clock News
3. Little Coy Space Boy
4. Love Is A Painting
5. It’s Art
6. Love For Two
7. My Guy
8. Going Down
9. Yesterday’s Paper
10. Sitting On The Rings Of Saturn
11. Christmas Lullaby
12. Love Letters From Jupiter
13. Some Things Sound Better In Space
14. Green Dream In F#

Kevin Martin’s first solo full-length album under The Bug moniker for seven years could not be better timed, and could not be more needed: ‘Fire’ - the third exhilarating part of an incendiary urban triptych, that began with 2008’s explosive ‘London Zoo’ via 2014’s mind-melting 'Angels & Devils' - is fourteen tracks that immolate the synapses, flail the body, that cinematically take you from arcing evocations of a bleak lockdowned city-scape to swooping deep-focus close-ups of Martin and his collaborator’s psyches at breaking point. The aggression, the attitude, the vertiginous scope and subterranean incisiveness, the destabilising unsettling frenzy of The Bug sound is marshalled to perfection throughout but ‘Fire’ is no mere reanimation of the Bug’s past - for Martin, the album is both a response to the unique circumstances of the past year but also a chance to reflect his own journey from reclusive sound-obsessive to family man, and his thirst - in a period of enforced hermetic isolation - for contact, for the mayhem that can only happen between people, noise and bass, the derangement of the senses that has been Bug’s method and trajectory ever since it first crawled out of London’s deepest corners in the late 90s. It’s the Bug’s best yet, possibly the most ferociously realised and immensely moving music Martin has ever made, and still touches on those initial cravings and impulses that first propelled ‘London Zoo’ into your world like a pipe bomb through your letterbox. It’s a HUNGRY record in all senses.

“I've always been addicted to the physicality and intensity of sound: I started The Bug because I wanted to make music for a soundsystem I had in storage, and the live experience of The Bug has always been something I wanted to reflect on record - I’m always looking for fuel to the fire and live shows - and MISSING live shows in lockdown was a real impetus” Martin admits. “I’m always asking - how can I ramp this up MORE? How can I get people more out of control? For me a live show should be unforgettable, should alter your DNA, or scar you for life in a good way - that’s always been my goal, to set up shows that are unforgettable. I like friction, chaos, fanning the flames with sound, and this album is the most reflective of the live show in terms of intensity and the sheer fuck-off attitude of those shows. ‘WHAT the FUCK?’ is the reaction I want - insane is a good reaction especially at a time when there’s so much control in how people consume music and are pacified culturally”.

The MCs featured (longtime likeminds like Flowdan, Roger Robinson, Moor Mother, Manga Saint Hilare, Irah & Daddy Freddy alongside relatively new names to the Bug stable like Logan, Nazamba and FFSYTHO) inevitably reflect the external madness of a world turned upside down, but also dig deep into themselves to craft reflective, pitilessly honest portrayals of the rage, resistance and resignation the last year has engendered in all of us. Check the juddering maelstrom of ‘Clash’ wherein Logan matches every lunging hit of the kick and Martin’s none-more-dank dubtronics with a diseased narrative of mental warfare and strife, or ‘Pressure’ where Flowdan imperiously calls out the universe for a scrap over a beat so thunkingly rapacious its as if the ghost of Andy Weatherall has been reanimated for some rerubbing duties. Throughout ‘Fire’ you can hear MCs and Martin upping the ante, pushed to new heights and lows by an ever-present, periphirally-glimpsed armageddon. The album is bookended by the TS Eliot Award winning poet and long term friend and collaborator Roger Robinson.

“2020 was the worst dystopian nightmares made real - part of me was panic-stricken, the other part of me was ‘how am I going to stay sane?’” recalls Martin. “I’ve got to support 4 people and it might be YEARS before I play shows - this was at the back of my mind making the album. Just to keep calm I got into making solo albums which was meditative, got me back in touch with myself and enabled me to rebuild my studio which kept me working and helped me keep my head straight. It was crucial because I’ve realised through life that what keeps me grounded is music. I used to think I wanted to bury myself in NOW, reality, sensation, information - as time’s gone on I’ve realised I want to actually make a parallel world in sound - the studio gave me an escape from just how fucked up the world was last year. That feeling of external chaos but really questioning yourself internally is something that all the MCs, in different ways, reflect on ‘Fire’. And I feel I’ve grown - making music not just as an egotistical pursuit but to support my family has meant I’ve stopped overthinking things - we KNEW when tracks were finished and loosening my maniacal control over the music, letting it breathe and come together more naturally. That’s something I think you can hear throughout the album.”

‘Fire’ then is 14 tracks that not only chart where we are right now, but offer tantalising glimpses of just what miracles we might soon conjure again together. Growing up VAST. Get some ‘Fire’ in your belly and feel the BURN. This plague has found its soundtrack. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Having long been one of the most uncompromising forces in music, there is a significant amount of excitement over the new Bug LP. and with good cause. 'Fire' lurches from cavernous bunker techno to shadowy trip-hop via dark hip-hop, perfectly performed by a superb line-up of guest collaborators, and brought together in The Bug's inimitable no-holds-barred production style. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. The Fourth Day (feat Roger Robinson) (1:57)
2. Pressure (feat Flowdan) (3:48)
3. Demon (feat Irah) (3:48)
4. Vexed (feat Moor Mother) (3:44)

Side 2
1. Clash (feat Logan) (3:07)
2. War (feat Nazamba) (4:30)
3. How Bout Dat (feat FFSYTHO) (3:47)

Side 3
1. Bang (feat Manga Saint Hilare) (3:03)
2. Hammer (feat Flowdan) (3:28)
3. Ganja Baby (feat Daddy Freddy) (3:15)
4. Fuck Off (feat Logan) (3:24)

Side 4
1.Bomb (feat Flowdan) (4:46)
2. High Rise (feat Manga Saint Hilare) (4:17)
3.The Missing (feat Roger Robinson) (4:35)

A Color of the Sky is the third album by Lightning Bug - the project of musicians and friends Audrey Kang, Kevin Copeland, Logan MIley, Dane Hagen and Vincent Puleo. A Color of the Sky is an album of many firsts: the band’s first album with their new label home, Fat Possum, the band’s first time recording together as a live band, and the first time Lightning Bug, initially a three-piece, is rounded out by Hagen and Puleo as full-time band members. Recorded in a rundown home-turned makeshift studio in the Catskills, A Color of the Sky finds Lightning Bug sounding more organic, dynamic and lush than ever, while also finding the band’s songwriter Audrey Kang sounding bolder than before.

"Here I wanted to connect how the struggles and flaws within the individual are mirrored in the greater problems of society. How do we as individuals know we are on the right path? How do we as a society, as a species, know we are on the right path? So I started with myself, and my own struggles, touching on how I hide myself away from other people, on my stage fright, on my inability to be vulnerable, on this feeling I used to have that I needed to prove I was worthy of being alive. Then I tried to connect these struggles outward to global issues like xenophobia, the building of walls, destruction of the environment that we are ALL so guilty of. I feel like the lyrics are pretty self explanatory on this one."

RIYL: Grouper, Helena Deland, Ana Roxanne, Snail Mail, Julia Holter, Slowdive, Japanese Breakfast, Tomberlin, Hand Habits, Big Thief, Broadcast, Stereolab, Jessica Pratt, Deerhunter, Mazzy Star, Cate Le Bon, Boards of Canada, Adrianne Lenker, Gia Margaret

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. The Return
2. The Right Thing Is Hard To Do
3. September Song, Pt. Ii
4. Wings Of Desire
5. The Chase

SIDE B
1. Song Of The Bell
2. I Lie Awake
3. Reprise
4. A Color Of The Sky
5. The Flash

The Bug aka Kevin Martin, and producer/vocalist Dis Fig aka Felicia Chen, refer to their style on ‘In Blue’ as “Tunnel Sound”; a foggy, melancholic meltdown of narco-dancehall-soul and dread-drenched, electronic dub. The 2018 prototype rhythms for this album were a continuation of Martin’s ongoing quest for a futuristic dancehall mutation, but more sci-fi, aquatic and smokey than before. An obsessive search for the right sultry 2AM voice to ride his syncopated walls of sub, fuzzed out white noise and infinite echoes eventually led him to Dis Fig’s torched soul-jazz glow, and 20 months of subsequent lab exchanges have resulted in the deeply sensual pulsations and lyrical long shadows of ‘In Blue’ - an album that shares shades of King Midas Sound’s wrecked lovers rock, alongside the bass immersion that The Bug has become infamously known for. Just as Martin took a stylistic swerve on ‘In Blue’, so did Chen. Previously known for experimental noise onslaughts and emotional exorcisms, she opts here for threatening intimacy and hushed confessionals, concentrating on bittersweet vocals and seductive surprises that are all the more potent for their inferred narratives and delicate delivery. Mixed during lockdown, the sense of claustrofear, escapism and tension throughout is palpable. With the bewitching croon of Dis Fig directing the flow, carnality and violence merge under the turbulent, cinematic surface of an hypnotically addictive album.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Around Me
A2.Come
A3.Destroy Me
B1.Blood
B2.In 2 U
B3.Levitating

C1.Forever
C2.Blue To Black
C3.Take
D1.No Return
D2.You
D3.End In Blue