16 Feb / Trieste - Hangar Teatri 06 Mar / Ljubljana - Kino Šiška (with @lucidvox) 30 Mar / Northampton - The Black Prince 31 Mar / Newcastle - Cumberland Arms 04 Apr / Norwich - Voodoo Daddy’s 06 Apr / Sheffield - Delicious Clam 11 Apr / Leeds - Wharf Chambers 17 Apr / London - Strongroom Bar 17 May / Berlin – Loge
Head over to Echoes and Dust and watch some great 'Live In The Studio' footage of Thee Alcoholics playing their latest single 'Baby I'm Your Man' – with added skronk from the excruciatingly talented Colin Webster.
The footage has been published as part of E&D's long running 'Under The Influence' feature – where can also read what Rhys from the band says are three albums that influenced Thee Alcoholics forthcoming album 'Feedback'.
Get intoxicated on Thee Alcoholics at these live shows:
09 Feb / Rennes / Le Marquis de Sade 10 Feb / Nantes / Quaim 16 Feb / Halifax / Grayson Unity 21 Feb / Manchester / The Peer Hat 22 Feb / Derby / Dubrek Studios 23 Feb / Newcastle / The Lubber Fiend 24 Feb / Nottingham / Chameleon 29 Feb / Bristol / The Crown 01 Mar / London / Moor Vaults Brewery
Alison Cotton returns with her new album 'Engelchen' – an album inspired by the story of Ida and Louise Cook, two remarkable women who helped arrange the paths of refugees out of danger in 1930s Nazi-occupied Europe.
Watch the video, made by John O'Carroll for the first track to be revealed, the poignant sounds of 'The Letter Burning' above
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'Englechen' is released on 15 March – preorder now on 'Swirl vinyl' via the Bandcamp link below, or on clear vinyl from your local record shop:
The great 'Feeding Tube Records' are releasing the album in North America.
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The secretive heroics of Ida and Louise almost beggar belief, and when Alison Cotton first discovered their story, she couldn’t understand why it wasn’t more widely known. Furthermore, she was inspired by their courage, fortitude and derring-do to compose Engelchen, a live musical tribute to the duo’s lives and work, which is now a full-length release on Rocket Recordings.
Throughout, this story is relayed by Alison, whether acapella or by means of richly emotive string arrangements, with a deftness of touch, sensitivity and intensity that matches the feverish nature of the experiences and the unforgiving environs in which they took place. Engelchen is a transporting work whose spirit is situated in a very specific time and place,
Nonetheless, the story of Ida and Louise Cook is more than merely an inspirational tribute to two mavericks who beat the odds in an unforgettable feat of altruism. It’s a celebration of the human spirit, one that reflects a universality in its narrative which transcends the boundaries of history and impacts very urgently on our daily lives. Whatever attempts may be made to tell this story, it’s hard to imagine one that resonates deeper than Engelchen.
See Alison live at these following dates, with more TBA:
23 March / Gregynog Hall / Newtown 28 March / Glad Cafe / Glasgow 29 March / The Lubber Fiend / Newcastle 30 March / Bishop's House / Sheffield 31 March / Rise / York 05 April / St Pancras Old Church / London
The howl of the ampstack, the thump of stick on skin, the clink of pint-glass.
The simple pleasures and vices endure, even as time warps and future dystopias loom large. Yet fresh horizons beckon even with the most trustworthy ingredients, and Thee Alcoholics are here to hammer the point home. 'Feedback', the debut from this London-based outfit is where riffage, rancour and revelation do battle, a bleary-eyed treatise from the edge of sanity with a life-affirming afterglow.
Thee Alcoholics are the brainchild of Rhys Llewellyn, a longtime Rocket alumnus whose background leans as heavily into the bassbin-shaking realms of electronic music as it does the tinnitus-inducing world of the cranked amp. Not content with hammering drumskins for numerous floor-shaking records on the Rocket discography from the likes of Hey Colossus and The Notorious Hi-Fi Killers, he’s also been responsible for brain-rearranging electronic works under the Drmcnt and Acidliner monikers. Thee Alcoholics, however - which initially gestated as a result of Rhys himself wanting to pursue the somewhat hostile sound in his own head during lockdown - maps out a collision course between all of the above.
“I wanted to capture something visceral and more intense and essentially make music that I loved and missed playing. I was doing a lot of home recording while lockdown was happening and going in my local studio in Peckham on my own just trying to get ideas out and record stuff to take home and carve in to something while stuck in the house” From this, Thee Alcoholics’ name arrived from the ether (“a gnarly name for a gnarly sound” Rhys reflects) and soon the ensuing racket was captured on two cassette releases for Wrong Speed Records. Ultimately, this path has led to various incarnations of a bruising live band, and hence to 'Feedback', where all the malice, indignation and inspiration of the decade so far coalesced into a brain-frying salvo of ornery catharsis.
Cranky and cantankerous yet lysergically aligned, 'Feedback' is mesmeric rock with swagger, warped into sci-fi shapes by the spirit and sonics of bass and soundsystem culture. The psychedelic shapes here are redolent of the ur-klang of The Fall and the monolithic lurch of The Heads, the motorik malevolence less an uplifting trip to the heavens than a drill down to the earth’s core.
Discernible in these jackhammer beats, grimly murmured vocals and delirious dirges to certain heads may be the trash futurism of Chrome, the decomposed stomp of unsung legends Earl Brutus and the electro-punk attack of Six Finger Satellite, yet all of the above co-ordinates are waylaid effortlessly by a balls-out intensity and a fearsome intent on aural oblivion at all costs.
'Feedback' may be elemental and primal, yet this is no psych comfort-blanket nor retro-fetishism, rather a repetition-driven journey headlong into intimidating territory unknown. Get on board, and strap yourselves in for a bumpy ride.
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Get intoxicated on Thee Alcoholics live experience:
09 Feb / Rennes / Le Marquis de Sade 15 Feb / Manchester / The Peer Hat 16 Feb / Halifax / Grayson Unity 22 Feb / Derby / Dubrek Studios 23 Feb / Newcastle / The Lubber Fiend 24 Feb / Nottingham / Chameleon 29 Feb / Bristol / The Crown 01 Mar / London / Moor Vaults Brewery
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