HYDRA HEAD ANNOUNCES 2007 SXSW SHOWCASE!
Come take part in what will be the heaviest night of music in Texas, March 15th @ Emo's Annex Tent (7pm)
featuring:
PELICAN * JESU * BIG BUSINESS * DAUGHTERS * OXBOW * and STEPHEN BRODSKY'S OCTAVE MUSEUM
Pelican
Chicago's instrumental rock masters, Pelican, are currently spending their time finishing up the recording of their new album (and follow-up to 2005's critically acclaimed "The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw") @ Chicago's Electrical Audio Studios, concluding 11 days of intense concentration and furious rocking. The album (due out this May on Hydra Head) will be engineered by none other than Andrew Schneider, the villain behind this years' prime offender Hell Songs by the Daughters, Cave In's latest jaw dropper Perfect Pitch Black, and the previous years' Summer bar fight soundtrack Subject to Change Without Notice by fellow Midwesterners Keelhaul. Those who witnessed Pelican on their West Coast/Canadian jaunt with Daughters had the opportunity to preview four of the new tunes, "City of Echoes", "Bliss in Concrete", "Dead Between the Walls", and "Spaceship Broken - Parts Needed". These songs only begin to scratch the surface of just what Pelican are up to w/ their new material. On a whole, the songs are more concise and more aggressive than prior work. Relentless repetition has taken a backseat to intensity and a desire to pack as many riffs as possible into each tune. Following the bands sure-to-be earth shattering performance in Austin, the band will be crossing the pond to play Holland's Roadburn Festival in April (along with the Melvins, Neurosis, Blue Cheer, OM, Red Sparowes, Growing, Thrones, and several others; see www.roadburn.com for more details), followed by a few weeks of dates preceding the fest, including dates in Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, and the UK. Catch this very rare performance as it will be a while (Summer maybe?) before these axe-slayers the road for their next full US tour.
www.hydrahead.com/pelican
Jesu
"As has come to be expected from Jesu, Conqueror obliterates everything in its path" - Pitchforkmedia.com
The mighty JESU is back, lead by the godfather of all things heavy, Mr. Justin K Broadrick (see also Godflesh, Napalm Death, Techno Animal, Final) brings us his latest treasure, "Conqueror," out 2.20.07 on Hydra Head. Taking a slight detour from their US tour w/ ISIS, Jesu will perform songs off their majestic new album and continue to demonstrate how Broadrick endlessly pushes the envelope of extreme and heavy music (and all music in general for that matter), w/ an ambient and trance-inducing set sure to mystify and amaze. Do not miss this very special and rare appearance from a true legend in his own right.
www.justinkbroadrick.blogspot.com
Big Business
Holy balls! LA by way of Seattle's Big Business will have just dropped their latest "Here Come The Waterworks" (3.6.07) by the time this monster show comes to be, and their set will likely be one of the highlights of the year. Big Business are some heavy mothers who blaze a trail of rock freedom for your soul and tell you it's ok to wile-the-fuck-out. Big Business is bigger and better than ever, with better hair, bigger hits, and the kind of overwhelming Norman
Schwarzkopf-style force that rolls like thunder, stings like a missile, and—above all—takes no shit. On their second full-length, bassist/vocalist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis (both of whom also happen to be the newest members of underground super-legends the Melvins) unfurl all the mammoth riffs, furious vocals and blazing drum work you’ve come to expect—nay, DEMAND—from LA’s answer to Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. No, wait… make that Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs. Either way, there’s a new sheriff in town—two of ’em, actually.
www.bigbigbusiness.com
Daughters
You know Daughters. Odds are you love them or you hate them, but either way there is no denying just how dynamic and powerful this band truly is. On their latest (and Hydra Head debut) "Hell Songs," Daughters warp the fabric of the cosmos like a black hole sucking us into its depths and completely fucking w/ our equilibrium. Their live show is second to none and their dizzying instrumental arrangements, combined w/ vocals sung by a hill-billied Satan himself (aka Lex Marshall), are monstrous and unyielding. This set will likely leave you in a pile of your own puke and blood begging for another round of organized chaos. Daughters is the soundtrack to Armageddon, or some insanely violent snuff film played at warp speed. Enjoy kiddies!
www.wearedaughters.com
Oxbow
As Reported by CMJ.com at the end of 2006:
San Francisco avant-rock quartet Oxbow is finishing their new album, The Narcotic Story, right now with a June 2007 release date on Hydra Head. Teaming with Grammy-winning engineer Joe Chiccarelli (Bon Jovi, Counting Crows, Tori Amos), the album will surely contain many surprises. Known for frontman Eugene Robinson’s penchant for disrobing onstage as much as the band’s bombastic caterwauls of post-grunge dissonance, this album (five years since their last album, An Evil Heat) will loose the dam of confused ill will that’s likely been brewing inside the band. In a letter to Hydra Head manager Mark Thompson, reprinted in Oxbow’s newsletter, Robinson wrote, “You guys have no idea what you got yourself into.” We checked in with Robinson and guitarist Niko Wenner to find out exactly what they did get themselves into.
What is “The Narcotic Story”?
Wenner: It is indeed a story, and accordingly the music follows a linear development also… People make films now where before they made opera, and let’s not be coy this is a perfectly joyously tragic pompous operatic expression by a beautifully loud noisy guitar bass drums and vocal band, with orchestra.
How could you possibly make listeners feel more uneasy?
Robinson: Many hundreds of ways: Pictures of their mothers urinating. Taking showers with their fathers. Helping their girlfriends around the house. All of which we’re not really likely to do as this is not our primary motivation for why we do what we do. But maybe you’re really asking, “Why does your music make listeners uneasy?”
Anything you can tell us about The Narcotic Story?
Robinson: It’s quiet and creepy and desperate and successfully broken. Like me when I wrote it.
Wenner: If I live through the making of this, I can die with a smile on my face.
www.theoxbow.com
Stephen Brodsky's Octave Museum
Cave In and Octave Museum frontman and guitarist Stephen Brodsky recently released what many of us consider to be one of the best pop albums of 2006. On the self titled debut, Brodsky and his Octave Museum create an album of lush, psychadelic, Beach Boys inspired pop gems, that rival just about anything being created in it's genre to date. Bear witness to one of our generations greatest song-smiths and experience the creativity and genius that has been lacking in songwriting for way too long.
www.myspace.com/theoctavemuseum
for more information, visit:
www.hydrahead.com
www.hydraheadlines.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/hydraheadindustries
