blueneck

New Album, UK Tour

BLUENECK operate in a similar ‘post-rock’ territory as bands such as GODSPEED! YOU BLACK EMPEROR, SIGUR ROS and MOGWAI, but having spent eighteen months locked away recording in Somerset, they have delivered a dark, dynamic masterpiece which has a sound that is truly their own.
Blueneck are a reclusive four-piece based in Somerset, where they began their career on the local live circuit before steadily dropping conventional gigging in favour of a studio environment, where their music has evolved in a direction unrestricted by having to recreate it in a live arena.
Steering away from conventional songwriting, Blueneck’s music has developed into a cinematic soundscape of ambient atmospherics, dark, skeletal rhythms and swirling crescendos, all created with analog synths, sparse piano and huge, soaring guitars.

UK SHOWS – MORE BEING ADDED…!
Thursday, March 16th	MANCHESTER Roadhouse
Saturday, March 18th	BOURNEMOUTH The Gander
Wednesday, March 22nd	MIDSOMER NORTON The Wunderbar
Wednesday, March 29th	TUNBRIDGE WELLS Forum
Wednesday, April 5th	SOUTHAMPTON The Rhino
Monday, April 10th	LONDON Camden Dublin Castle
Monday, April 17th	LEEDS Mixing Tin
Monday, April 24th	SOUTHAMPTON Joiner’s (with CULT OF LUNA)
Friday, April 28th	YORK Barfly (with CULT OF LUNA)

BLUENECK release their new album, SCARS OF THE MIDWEST, on MAY 2nd 2006 on the DON’T TOUCH label, distributed by SRD

No Scarf......Nik Moore on 020 8769 6713
www.myspace.com/blueneck1 / www.blueneck.com / www.workhardpr.com
35 FARM AVENUE LONDON SW16 2UT TEL: 020 8769 6713 FAX: 020 8677 5374
e-mail: nik@workhardpr.com

blueneck: the album

Blueneck were always most successful (and most at ease with themselves) when creating ornate aural puzzles that rewarded the attentive, persistent listener. Indeed, live appearances from the band have become increasingly rare as they have rejected obvious traditional song structures/arrangement and embraced a daring post-rock sound through which they can more successfully communicate their moodily magnificent themes of isolation and vulnerability.

'Scars of the Midwest' is a demonstration of how far the band has travelled. In concept, it's the soundtrack for a journey through a series of landscapes, by turns unsettlingly alien and reassuringly human. Opener 'The Hills Have Eyes/Judas! Judas!' is the kind of tune that you really wouldn't want to meet alone in an alley; a doom-laden foray into nocturnal forest, inhuman yellow eyes blinking from between the branches. It's a solemn piano march, complete with
whispered chanting and unsettlingly guttural growls.
It's a brilliantly unsettling start to the album.

Next up is 'OIG', the most traditionally-structured song on the disc. Blasting off into the stratosphere, here you have evidence of the band really flexing their new musical muscles; a gorgeous spiralling piano riff, pounding rhythms and Ben Green's thrilling, multi-layered guitar heroics. Equally confident is the glacial 'LE:465', all Mogwai-esque riff, chiming molten guitar washes and chilly falsetto vocals. Breaking up the familiarity of the quiet-building-to-loud dynamic of the previous two songs is the simply stunning 'Ub1'. Echoing the futuristic ambience of Eno, a blissed-out Squarepusher or composer Cliff Martinez, this willingness to sacrifice traditional rock band arrangement is hopefully a sign of further experimentation in future recordings. 'Epiphany' is singer Duncan Attwood lost at sea, wind whistling and salt water whipping skin to the bone. Voice mumbled and cracking, he is at his most compellingly vulnerable here. Conversely, the song's denouement is an almost Muse-style operatic stagger; the equivalent of a Jules Verne-esque craft pulled violently under the brine. It sounds like the end of the world. 'UB2' works pulsing, submerged synths over swollen bass. The centrepiece of so many previous recordings, Ben Paget's brilliantly propulsive and left-field bass work is inevitably slightly more subdued on the more-balanced production of 'Scars of the Midwest', but here, over resolutely pounding drums, he shines. 'AMOC' is one of the most wilfully tender songs ever recorded by the band. Masterful e-bow, brass, strings, glockenspiel and plaintive vocals allow it to soar. Clearly a close companion to the wonderful - and equally compassionate - 'Hotel Song' (from 2003's 'A Matter of Balance'), this song simply aches.

After a succession of soundscapes that have braved the elements, we're welcomed indoors for the hallucinatory 'Yesterday's Forgotten'. A weary and numbly-resigned return home, we have come full circle. This, after all, is a re-recording of a song first featured on 2000's 'Menace at the Dam'; a demonstration of how far Blueneck's musical ambitions have progressed, yet a reminder of how compellingly addictive their themes of disconnection, longing and loneliness remain.

A challenging and icily-beautiful listen, 'Scars of the Midwest' is the sound of one of Britain’s finest underground bands challenging both themselves and the listener.

35 FARM AVENUE LONDON SW16 2UT TEL: 020 8769 6713 FAX: 020 8677 5374
e-mail: nik@workhardpr.com