“The world got shook”
So Algiers formed a crew. The band—who have built one of the most exciting catalogs and cult followings of recent years, with 2020’s There Is No Year described as “electrifying and unpredictable” (The Observer) and “precise, thoughtful and powerful” (NME) —gathered a posse of like-minded artists to create their fourth album, SHOOK, out February 24th on Matador. Stacked with guests spanning icons through to future stars, SHOOK is a lightning rod for an elusive yet universal energy and feeling. A plurality of voices; a spiritual and geographical homecoming; a strategy of communion in a burning world; the story of an end of a relationship; an Atlanta front porch summer party. Ultimately, it’s a 17-track set of the most mind-expanding and thrilling music that you are likely to hear anytime soon.
Today, Algiers shake you with tour-de-force new single ‘Irreversible Damage’ featuring Zack de la Rocha. “This a relapse / what it be god / No rehab for my jihad / A rapture in a grief storm / Time on my neck an’ it be gone” de la Rocha spits to a breakneck climax of clattering beats, snaking guitars and pulsing electronics. “The end of that song is the sound of joy,” says Algiers frontman Franklin James Fisher. “That’s what hope sounds like in 2022 when everything’s falling apart.” Watch the visualiser HERE. It follows the recent release of new single/video ‘Bite Back’ featuring billy woods and Backxwash. Watch HERE.
Algiers will tour Europe in 2023, including a London show March 8th at the Dome. The band today also announce a special SHOOK event at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust on December 15th, which will feature special guests. The band are also confirmed for the 2023 edition of SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, with more dates to follow.
Algiers have always been unflinching, but SHOOK is at the same time notably joyous and celebratory. It was born when Fisher and Mahan found themselves back in their native Atlanta for several months, reeling from growing pressures and burnout as touring musicians. This triggered an intense period of beatmaking, reconnecting as friends over hours immersed in episodes of Rhythm Roulette and Against the Clock and descending deep into alt-rap YouTube rabbit holes. A revisit of DJ Grand Wizard Theodore’s 1970s punk-infused New York City rap masterpiece ‘Subway Theme’ served as a spiritual moodboard for the album’s cross-pollination of urban and counter-culture styles. Across the seamlessly flowing set, including spoken vignettes and ambient instrumental segues, the band pay respect to a sprawling lineage of rap and punk iconoclasts from DJ Premier, DJ Screw and Dead Boys to Lukah, Griselda and Dïat – chopping and screwing beats on a dusty SP-404 and a Sequential Circuits Tempest, building imagined sample libraries from scratch.
While community and collaboration has always been integral to Algiers’ ethos, SHOOK brings this to its fullest manifestation. The liner notes read like a who’s who of ground-breaking and contemporary underground music, featuring Zack de la Rocha, Big Rube (The Dungeon Family), billy woods, Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands), Jae Matthews (Boy Harsher), LaToya Kent (Mourning [A] BLKstar), Backxwash, Nadah El Shazly, DeForrest Brown Jr. (Speaker Music), Patrick Shiroishi, Lee Bains III, and Mark Cisneros (Hammered Hulls, The Make-Up, Kid Congo Powers). Their contributions throughout deftly reshape and recontextualize the notion of being Shook from a variety of perspectives, occupying shifting roles as oracles and narrators. “It very much deepens and broadens the world of Algiers”, says drummer Matt Tong.
Atlanta, where the genesis of this record took place, is ultimately at its heart. It opens with a robotic train announcement from Hartsfield Airport—iconic to many Atlanta natives. Field recordings and original samples created by the band emphasize throughout a sense of place, collectivity, imagined community and home, all building a world that evokes the elusive sensory experience of growing up in the urban South. “We were working in an environment that we were used to”, says guitarist Lee Tesche. “It feels like the most Algiers record that we’ve ever made.”
The accomplishment of this record is made all the more impressive by the fact it was made by a band who were falling apart and on the verge of breaking up. But instead they have produced an extraordinary, transformative record born from a shared sense of place and experience. “I think this record is us finding home,” says Mahan, with Fisher adding: “It was a whole new positive experience— having a renewed relationship with the city we’re from and having a pride in that. I like the idea that this record has taken you on a voyage but it begins and ends in Atlanta.”
TRACKLIST
1. Everybody Shatter (ft. Big Rube)
2. Irreversible Damage (ft. Zack de la Rocha)
3. 73%
4. Cleanse Your Guilt Here
5. As It Resounds (ft. Big Rube)
6. Bite Back (ft. billy woods & Backxwash)
7. Out of Style Tragedy (ft. Mark Cisneros)
8. Comment #2
9. A Good Man
10. I Can’t Stand It! (ft. Samuel T. Herring & Jae Matthews)
11. All You See Is
12. Green Iris
13. Born (ft. LaToya Kent)
14. Cold World (ft. Nadah El Shazly)
15. Something Wrong
16. An Echophonic Soul (ft. DeForrest Brown Jr. & Patrick Shiroishi)
17. Momentary (ft. Lee Bains III)
LIVE DATES
Dec 15 2022 Brooklyn, NY @ National Sawdust
Thu Feb 9 2023 Ireland, Dublin, Workman’s
Wed Feb 15 2023 Belgium, Brussels, Botanique Rotonde
Thu Feb 16 2023 Switzerland, Winterthur Salzhaus
Fri Feb 17 2023 Italy, Ravenna, Bronson
Sat Feb 18 2023 Italy, Pordenone, Capitol
Mon Feb 20 2023 Slovenia, Ljubljana, Kino Šiška
Tue Feb 21 2023 Austria, Vienna, Flex
Wed Feb 22 2023 Austria, Linz, Posthof
Fri Feb 24 2023 Czech Republic, Prague, Lucerna Music Bar
Sat Feb 25 2023 Poland, Warsaw, Niebo
Wed Mar 1 2023 Germany, Dresden, Beatpol
Thu Mar 2 2023 Germany, Berlin, Hole44
Fri Mar 3 2023 Germany, Bielefeld, Forum
Sat Mar 4 2023 Germany, Schorndorf, Manufaktur
Sun Mar 5 2023 Germany, Cologne, Club Volta
Tue Mar 7 2023 France, Paris, Petit Bain
Wed 8 Mar 2023, UK London, The Dome
