What a difference a day makes. To pilfer from the press release, this post seems like it’s been a long time coming… Not that I’ve been ill or anything, just exceptionally busy around here. It’s hard to balance a job, upcoming nuptials and a part-time blog all at once let alone find time to listen to music. That’s shameful, isn’t it? I always find time to listen to music. I get stuck listening to the same thing at times but I always figure a way out of that rut.
Regardless, check out the demo for “Raise Me” below.
It’s been a long time coming…The Kills have compiled an extraordinary career spanning B-sides and rarities album titled Little Bastardsto be released on Domino on December 11th 2020.The songs date back from the band’s first 7-inch singles in 2002 through to 2009. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2 x LP, CD & Digital and marks the first ever vinyl pressing for some of these tracks.
The compilation includes the unreleased and never-before-heard demo “Raise Me” from the 2008-2009 Midnight Boom era. Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince produced and directed a striking new video for the recently excavated song.
| “Raise Me (Demo)” Video Often raw, intimate and zero-budget spontaneous, the album’s title is a wry comment on these excellent recordings’ neglectful fate: in many cases birthed on the fly to fill bonus-track space on CD singles, they’d effectively vanished together with the release format that necessitated their creation. Also: Little Bastard was the affectionate nickname that the pair gave to the drum machine which enabled their initial existence as a band of only two members for the first half of their career. “It was a Roland 880,” says Jamie, “which isn’t strictly a drum machine – it’s a sequencer, and an eight-track recorder, with its own drum machine built in, and that’s what we’d record all our beats on.” |
Little Bastards is available digitally, and on CD and LP. The deluxe double LP comes on neon yellow vinyl and is housed in a gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves. Pre-order the album here.
Other LP highlights include “I Call It Art” from the Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited covers compilation, the brilliant Midnight Boom digital bonus track “Night Train”, a blistering performance of “Love Is A Deserter” from an XFM radio session and a handful of classic American roots songs performed with the kind of bruising delivery they’re famous for: Howlin’ Wolfs’ “Forty Four,” Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell on You” and Dock Boggs’ “Sugar Baby”.
First ignited over trans-Atlantic mixtapes shared between two kindred spirits at the turn of the Millennium, the past two decades have seen The Kills master a savage balance, unleashing artful detonation and subtle vocal and guitar violence. That’s five albums and four EPs where Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince reimagined the possibilities of modern duality – alchemizing garage rock, punk, and blues into smoke clouds, psychic carnage, and a smoldering nocturnal slink into a northwest passage between Outkast and Suicide. Their last album, Ash & Ice (2016), was universally lauded, and their most recent release – a 2018 cover of Saul Williams’ “List Of Demands” b/w Peter Tosh’s “Stepping Razor” – marked 15 years since their first album as The Kills, 2003’s Keep On Your Mean Side. As performers, their chemistry is unmatched and unfettered; magnetic and enthralling whether drenched in guitar feedback or delivering a piano-led torch song under a single spotlight. The Kills have transcended whatever genres first claimed them and inhabit an entirely unique place in music culture. They are themselves. Inimitable and unparalleled, Little Bastards is a musical refresher manifest as a shot of pure adrenaline. Enjoy the memories. Long may they blaze.
The Kills – Little Bastards – tracklist:
1. SUPERPOWERLESS / Last Day Of Magic 7” (2008)
2. PASSION IS ACCURATE / Love Is A Deserter CD single (2005)
3. KISS THE WRONG SIDE / Cheap And Cheerful 7” (2008)
4. RAISE ME / Unreleased Demo (2009)
5. NIGHT TRAIN / Midnight Boom Digital Bonus Track (2008)
6. HALF OF US / No Wow 7” (2005)
7. LONDON HATES YOU / Tape Song 7” (2008)
8. I CALL IT ART / Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited Compilation (2006)
9. FORTY FOUR / Black Balloon 7” (2009)
10. LOVE IS A DESERTER / Recorded for XFM (2005)
11. THE SEARCH FOR CHERRY RED / Pull A U 7” Single (2003)
12. MAGAZINE / Love Is A Deserter 7” (2005)
13. BLUE MOON / Future Starts Slow 7” Single (2009)
14. JEWEL THIEF / Fried My Little Brains 7” Single (2002)
15. BABY’S EYES / The Good Ones 7” Single (2003)
16. I PUT A SPELL ON YOU / Screamin’ Jay Hawkins Cover (2009)
17. RUN HOME SLOW / The Good Ones CD Single (2005)
18. WEED KILLER / Black Balloon 10” (2009)
19. THE VOID / No Wow Expanded Edition CD (2005)
20. SUGAR BABY / Fried My Little Brains CD single (2003)
