Much-hyped debut from The Wytches due this summer
“Punky aggression amid the fuzz tone” -New York Times
“A primordial blues-ooze that suggests Jack White if his music were actually as
goth as his haircuts” -Pitchfork
“The band recalls the gnarlier moments of ’60s garage-punk a la the Nuggets compilation, and they’ve got the power and stage presence to pull it off.” -SPIN (40 Best Things We Saw at SXSW)
“Raw-throat punk, stoner/doom psych, and Bad Seeds swagger, with perhaps just the tiniest hint of Wicker Man folk” -Brooklyn Vegan (50 Artists We’re Excited To See at SXSW)
“This is the kind of psych music that doesn’t serve bowls of potpourri at dinner parties, instead taking surf rock, adding bilious riffs and pushing the drums down the stairs.” -Noisey
The Wytches have announced their debut album, Annabel Dream Reader, which will be released on August 26 via Partisan Records. To go along with this announcement, they have shared their new video for “Wire Frame Mattress,” which was directed by legendary rock photographer Steve Gullick. Says Gullick, “Promo videos have never really been my thing. I did a few a decade or so ago but have steered clear ever since. When I was asked to shoot a video for The Wytches however, I jumped at the chance – this band are special and I want to be involved.”
The Wytches will embark on their first-ever US tour this summer, supporting Cloud Nothings and METZ. They will hit major markets on the West and East coasts, and the full list of tour dates can be found below.
Formed in Brighton in 2011,The Wytches comprises Kristian Bell (vocals, guitar), Dan Rumsey (bass, vocals) and Gianni Honey (drums). Led by Bell’s luminous lyricism, feral delivery and overdriven, surf-like guitar bends, the trio create a sound that is at once raucous and unruly, and yet decorated with semi-automatic poetry and authentic emotional clout.
Having left Peterborough after feeling stifled by their hometown’s inward-looking hardcore scene, Bell and the semi-professional poker playing Honey relocated to Brighton in the autumn of 2011, applying to the city’s university before enlisting Bournemouth-raised, aspiring adventure novelist Rumsey on bass – the sole applicant of an advert placed on campus. From the outset promoting their own shows in the city, The Wytches have never lost the DIY spirit of their hardcore origins: arranging their own tours; printing flyers; pressing their first single, “Digsaw;” inviting friend of the band Samuel Gull to create their artwork; and producing their own videos – all in spite of squeezed funds.
It is this relentlessness and resilience that has led to The Wytches headlining countless shows across the UK and Europe to date, acting as chief support to Blood Red Shoes, The Cribs, Drenge, METZ, Japandroids, amongst others. In 2013 the band released a number of singles and EPs on London’s Hate Hate Hate Records (“Beehive Queen,” Thunder Lizard Revisited EP, “Robe for Juda”), before attracting the attention of Heavenly Recordings in the UK and Partisan Records in the USA, who will release their debut album,Annabel Dream Reader, on August 25 (UK) / August 26 (US).
Recorded at Liam Watson’s 8-track analogue ToeRag Studios in Hackney, Annabel Dream Reader was tracked in two days under the supervision of producer Bill Ryder-Jones (ex-The Coral). Comprising thirteen songs, Annabel Dream Reader sees the three-piece accomplish a dark and heady sound that embraces the black arts and the more extreme limits of rock, but which is never prescriptively macabre. Far from it, the band displays a broadness of influences – all at once the songs reference surf, grunge, metalcore, spy movie scores.
Bell admits to being inspired more by singer-songwriters (Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen, Roland S. Howard) than specific bands, and already he is an assured manipulator of his tools, combining Egyptianesque harmonic-minor scales with vivid, assonant wordplay, and utilising his voice as an instrument in its own right. Recording to rolling magnetic tape at ToeRag – with little room for error – lends an honesty and immediacy to the trio’s performances, while Ryder-Jones supplies the softer songs with flourishes of organ, and allows the self-confessed ‘obnoxiously heavy’ sections to detonate freely.
Not ones to rest on their laurels, The Wytches admit a strong desire to erase and ‘switch up’ their sound with each album – plans are already afoot for a more intricate, more instrumentally diverse second record. Returning from Austin’s SXSW Festival on a wave of praise from the likes of The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, FUSE, SPIN and Flavorwire, the band will continue touring extensively throughout 2014 – taking in the UK, Europe and the USA – while promoting Annabel Dream Reader and untethering a slew of singles beginning with a limited edition cassette, “Gravedweller,” their first for Partisan/Heavenly.
Tracklist:
1. Digsaw
2. Wide At Midnight
3. Gravedweller
4. Fragile Male For Sale
5. Burn Out The Bruise
6. Wire Frame Mattress
7. Beehive Queen
8. Weights and Ties
9. Part Time Model
10. Summer Again
11. Robe For Juda
12. Crying Clown
13. Track 13
Tour Dates:
07/02 – Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre w/ Cloud Nothings & METZ
07/03 – Seattle, WA – Neumos w/ Cloud Nothings & METZ
07/04 – Victoria, BC – Upstairs Cabaret w/ Cloud Nothings & METZ
07/05 – Vancouver, BC – Rickshaw w/ Cloud Nothings & METZ
07/07 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall w/ Cloud Nothings & METZ
07/08 – Los Angeles, CA – The Roxy w/ Cloud Nothings & METZ
07/09 – Los Angeles, CA – The Roxy w/ Cloud Nothings & METZ
07/10 – Santa Ana, CA – Constellation Room w/ Cloud Nothings
07/11 – San Diego, CA – Soda Bar w/ Cloud Nothings
07/12 – Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom w/ Cloud Nothings
07/14 – Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge w/ Cloud Nothings
07/15 – Lincoln, NE – Knickerbockers w/ Cloud Nothings
07/16 – Lawrence, KS – The Granada Theatre w/ Cloud Nothings
07/17 – St. Louis, MO – The Luminary w/ Cloud Nothings
07/21 – Toronto, ON – Drake Underground
07/23 – Boston, MA – Great Scott
07/24 – New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
07/25 – Brooklyn, NY – Glasslands
07/26 – Philadelphia, PA – Boot & Saddle
