Berlin-based post-punk art rock band, Art Brut, are delighted to announce details of their new album, Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out! , which will be released on 23rd November via Alcopop! Records .
The record was produced by award winning folk musician Jim Moray, and the striking artwork comes courtesy of contemporary German pop artist Jim Avignon—a hugely respected cult figure in the art and Techno subculture in Berlin, he currently lives and works both in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and in Berlin.
To celebrate the news the band have revealed the video for their new single ‘Hospital!’ today, in which a delightfully fragile ‘Eggy Argos’ traverses the pitfalls of modern life. It’s a stark juxtaposition with the deeply personal track for the band’s larger-than-life front man and huevo-namesake Eddie Argos who, three years ago, found himself dangerously ill in hospital.
“I didn't realise quite how ill I was at the time,” explains Argos, “I was in a German hospital und mein Deutsche is nicht sehr gut. I had a big operation, bigger than they were expecting when they started operating on me, and there were a few complications. They kept me in for nearly a month. It was the most undignified month of my life and although I was very grateful to the surgeons for saving my life and also to the nurses for taking care of me, I despised every fucking minute of time I spent there.
“The only thing that kept me sane was the mantra that eventually became this song. Every single lyric was written and repeated over and over again as I suffered numerous indignities. Songwriting is something I've always used to alleviate stress and on this occasion I really tested it to its limits. What I am most impressed by is that even when I'm at death’s door and pumped full of morphine, staggering around and collapsing all the time, I can still write a comical call-and-response backing vocal to amuse myself.
“I'm very glad not to be in hospital anymore—of course, as this was three years ago, I've broken all the promises I make to myself in this song.”
Previous single ‘Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out!’ continues to pick up an ever-increasing bundle of spins from BBC 6Music and Radio X, with support flooding in for the band’s long-awaited return from the likes of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NME, The 405, Clash and many more international publications. The track also hit the ‘Alt Rocked’ and ‘Transistor’ playlists on Spotify.
Art Brut are now comprised of founding members Argos, Ian Catskilkin and Freddy Feedback—whose absence in press shots is due to her extended maternity leave—while Toby Macfarlaine joins on guitar and Charlie Layton joins on drums.
www.facebook.com/ArtBrutOfficial
Berlin's new duchess of alternative pop Sofia Portanet releases her third single Wandering Rat, bringing post punk and Neue Deutsche Welle into international realms with her very own contemporary style. Wandering Rat is the english/german version of her second release Wanderratte.
Born in Berlin, raised in Paris and brought back to Berlin, Sofia proudly wears her classic German musical influences: "I like the repetitive and minimalistic side of German Krautrock bands such as Neu! and the musical arrangements, lyrics and sounds from German new wave bands such as Ideal, DAF and 80ies synth pop. I love and am truly inspired by the musical and visual craziness of French avant-garde pop bands such as Les Rita Mitsouko."
Sofia has a special vocal style using classical and opera elements and mixing them with influences from Lene Lovich, Kate Bush and Edith Piaf.
Die Wanderratten is the title of a poem by German romantic poet Heinrich Heine that influenced Sofia to write the lyrics for her new song, stating that her manner of wandering was through making music and traveling in her mind.
Sofia says: "The song is about longing, looking for the unknown, the urge to depart and the joy of getting out of your ordinary life and losing yourself in a foreign land, meanwhile discovering and rediscovering your own personality."
www.facebook.com/sofiaportanet
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