ARTiST: These New Puritans
ALBUM: Best Pyramid
BiTRATE: 186kbps avg
QUALiTY: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.97 Final / -V2 --vbr-new / 44.100Khz
LABEL: Domino
GENRE: Indie
SiZE: 51.21 megs
PLAYTiME: 0h 35min 01sec total
RiP DATE: 2007-12-20
STORE DATE: 2008-01-28
Track List:
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01. ...Ce I Will Say This Twice 0:16
02. Numerology (AKA Numbers) 3:11
03. Colours 2:26
04. Swords Of Truth 3:12
05. Doppleganger 1:30
06. C.16th 1:38
07. En Papier 4:55
08. Infinity YtinifnI 2:26
09. Elvis 2:46
10. 4ú 2:13
11. MKK3 1:49
12. 4 0:07
13. Navigate û Colours 4:20
14. H. 0:28
15. Costume 3:36
16. I Will Say This Twià 0:08
Release Notes:
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These New Puritans have done a lot in their brief time. Their debut EP, Now
Pluvial , came about as a result of one intense, 24-hour session in October 2006
in the shed-cum-studio assembled by de facto leader Jack Barnett and his band û
twin brother George (drums), Thomas Hein (bass, sampler), and Sophie
Sleigh-Johnson (synth, sampler).
Recorded in harsh, digital audio onto Jack's laptop, the EP was released on 7"
vinyl in a limited edition of 500 copies by Angular Records, before being made
available as a free download for a single day, and then deleted.
This is symptomatic of a band whose identity is rooted in mystery, and which
first began to emerge in the form of oddly filmed webcasts and a website
splattered with cryptic writings and links to pictures of boiling water and
trees speeding past car windows.
In early 2007, George was invited to work with Hedi Slimane on his Autumn '07
collection for Dior Homme. A week before the catwalk show, Slimane called Jack
to Paris, requesting of him the small task of composing a suitable 15-minute
soundtrack.
The resulting 'Navigate, Navigate' showed the band, in only a few short months,
to have moved light years ahead of Now Pluvial. A collaboration in the truest
sense of the word, it seemed to draw as much of the resulting press attention as
did Slimane's sleek, elegant costumes.
By this stage, the band had begun to earn a strong reputation for their furious
live shows û first in dingy East London clubs, and then across the UK and
Europe. Onstage, clad in a neat uniform of black and gold, These New Puritans
have the capacity to draw you in and knock you out in the same breath.
The band's ringleader, Jack is possessed and mage-like, reaching out to the
heavens for inspiration; George plays the drums with a fury that suggests, where
he not behind the kit, he might need to kill a man; Thomas flits between a rack
of samplers and his bass guitar in half-studied, half-manic concentration; and
Sophie stands ice cold, summoning sounds from an ancient synthesizer and a
miniature sequencer.
Beat Pyramid, their full-length debut, is the next phase in These New Puritans'
hyperbolic progression. Recorded alongside Gareth Jones û the producer of albums
by Einsturzende Neubauten, Liars, and Wire û its songs are an ever-mutating blur
of brash chords, subtle details, and taut rhythms, borne of influences as
disparate as Sonic Youth and dubstep, This Heat and Greek pottery, David Lynch
and Dr. Feelgood, J Dilla and the 16th century occultist John Dee.
This is a band of extremes. The songs on Beat Pyramid have an immediacy that
belies their complex themes: 'Numbers' is a modern pop song about medieval
numerology; 'Infinitytinifni' a celebration of the melting of the polar ice-caps
set to one chord and three drums; 'Swords Of Truth' a deft slab of death disco
named after the terrorist cell linked with the kidnap of BBC journalist Alan
Johnson, that may or may not also have been written in homage to the Wu-Tang
Clan.
The first (and last) thing you'll hear, however, is a strange, dislocated voice.
"We started off with just this voice; this fragment of voice saying 'I Will Say
This Twice, I Will Say This Twice' û that was the mystery," says Jack. "And we
thought 'OK, where can we go now?' We resolved the mystery, and that's what the
album is. It's not just called Beat Pyramid, it is a Beat Pyramid ."
"This music is weightless," says Jack midway through 'Swords Of Truth', perhaps
the most striking track on the album. "This music's symbolic." In seven words,
he manages to sum up his band better than anyone else could û in typically
oblique fashion, of course.
Enjoy!