On the back of their much-acclaimed standalone piece “Can The Sub_Bass Speak?,” Algiers will return in 2020 with their third album There Is No Year, set for release Friday 17 January on Matador Records / Remote Control Records. This latest chapter from the Atlanta via London/NYC four-piece can be previewed now with the video for first single ‘Dispossession’ – watch HERE. KEXP’s John Richards premiered the song this morning on ‘The Morning Show.’
Under the direction of producers Randall Dunn [Sunn O))), Earth] and Ben Greenberg [Zs, Uniform (as featured on Twin Peaks season 3)], There Is No Year encompasses future-minded post-punk R&B from the trapped heart of ATL, where they began; to industrial soundscapes à la 4AD-era Scott Walker or Iggy & Bowie’s Berlin period; to something like the synthetic son of Marvin Gaye and Fever Ray.
The album was recorded over the past year by childhood friends and Atlanta natives Franklin James Fisher, Ryan Mahan and Lee Tesche, as well as drummer Matt Tong, in New York and produced by Randall Dunn [Sunn O))), Earth] and Ben Greenberg [Zs, Uniform].
Those aware of the ideals of this outspoken four-piece will find their latest direction on There Is No Year traversing unprecedented ground. Coming off two years of nonstop world-touring for their critically acclaimed second album, The Underside of Power—including Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and the Balkans, where they have established a rabid following; an extended stint opening for Depeche Mode in huge stadiums such as the 75,000-capacity Olympiastadion in Berlin; as well as Glastonbury 2019—There is No Year solidifies and expands upon the doom-laden soul of their foundation, toward an even vaster, genre-reformatting sound, one somehow suspended in the amber of “a different era,” as described by guitarist Lee Tesche.
Filmed in the Noisy le Grand commune in the eastern Suburbs of Paris amidst modern architectural landmarks such as Le Palacio d’Abraxas and Les Arènes de Picasso – and including images from the band’s visit to Algiers during the uprising in March 2019— ‘Dispossession’ captures one thread of Algiers’ expansive, future-oriented new body of work. The song features additional vocals from Cleveland’s Mourning [A] BLKstar.
“The specter of dispossession is haunting us all,” says multi-instrumentalist Ryan Mahan. “Everywhere the imperial world represses the ghoulish histories that sustain our pasts, presents and futures. Franklin’s lyrics throughout ‘Dispossession’ and on our new record, There is No Year, like a neo-Southern Gothic novel with an anti-oppression undercurrent, testify to this modern horror, and chronicle the various ways we all—through living and longing—endure and resist its persistent attacks.”
“Amidst the urgency of now, ‘Dispossession’ sounds the warning about the permanent war against oblivion,” says director Sohail Daulatzai. “The video opens with the sites of colonial massacres of Algerians, moves to the repressive spaces of the banlieues, and includes shots of the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale—a park that celebrates the glories of empire. But this is not just about the past or Paris, it is everywhere that the banner of the West is waved, where monuments to our ruin are raised – reminders of the ongoing violence, of the tensions between dream and its discontents, past and present, them and us. I wanted to give visual resonance to these tensions, to our dignified stances amidst the madness, and to our memories of a future foretold.”
Formed in London in 2012 by Fisher, Mahan and Tesche, friends from Atlanta who had been playing music together since childhood, the band recruited drummer Matt Tong (ex-Bloc Party) and signed to Matador in 2014. Since, they have toured relentlessly worldwide and released two massively acclaimed albums, 2015’s self titled and their breakthrough 2017 sophomore LP The Underside of Power.
1. There Is No Year
2. Dispossession
3. Hour of the Furnaces
4. Losing is Ours
5. Unoccupied
6. Chaka
7. Wait for The Sound
8. Repeating Night
9. We Can’t Be Found
10. Nothing Bloomed
