It’s a Friday night and you’re going out. Fuck it, you say, squeezing into skinny jeans, pulling on your best boots. You’re tired, of course you are, but you need to dispel the fug of the working week, shift the heavy weight from your hunched shoulders. It’s time to say hello to the other you.
Snatching your baccy from the table along with a nervous-looking credit card, you’re out the front door and pushing into drizzle. Headlights slicken the pavement ahead with white-gold, showing you the way. Already your cheeks are shining like they’re brand new.
You walk into the pub, becoming a rough-torn scrap of magazine, temporily unstuck, in a collage of conversations, heart-to-hearts and general shit shooting. Pint please, barkeep. The muted thud of a bass, the scrambled shredding of a guitar, and a distant hiss of cymbals reach your ears. A rock and roll band in the backroom, you smile, thrumming at your glass.
A man with superior forearms holds open the door for you – an oven door, you internally quip as heat and humidity rush you; a blast of all that is vital and good in the world. The 22 seconds of muffled faraway sound instantly crystallises – the drums are clear now, metronomic, pounding. This is some delicious Krautrock Neu shit.
Pushing into the throng your heart quickens. You climb into the beat, pogo between shins and shoes towards the stage. A taut urgent voice springs from the speakers – static and sea breeze – abstract vignettes, sharply drawn. A spinning head whips hair into your still-shiny left cheek, a post-punk guitar line slaps you from the other side. You’re locked in now, there’s no way out, carried on a wave.
Disentangle static into birdsong, he sings.
Disentangle static into birdsong. It makes no sense yet you understand every word. It’s why you’re here after all. The guitars drop away, disappear completely, and a lyrical refrain is left to build over a tight groove. What is this? A middle eight? A chorus? Or the sound of the fug being blown the fuck away.
Mould is a Bristol three-piece – Joe Sherrin, Kane Eagle and James Luxton – find them on Instagram. Birdsong is their debut single and the first they wrote together. It is out now in all the usual places.
Mould head out on tour in December and just so happen to be phenomenal live. Do not miss them.
DECEMBER
01 Moor Brewery, Bristol w/HETTA
03 The Moon, Cardiff w/HETTA
04 Centrala, Birmingham w/HETTA
06 Hug and Pint, Glasgow w/HETTA
07 Kazimier Stockroom, Liverpool w/HETTA
08 East Street Tap, Brighton w/HETTA
09 Blondies, London w/HETTA
10 The Social, London, Beavertown Brewery
Image credit: Alex Eden Smith
Enjoyed this? Read my piece on Slonk live at the White Rabbit. Mould’s gig at Bristol’s Lanes made my 2023 gigs of the year. Why not check out my favourite albums of 2023?
