Brakes – last seen in the UK taking the festival by storm at End Of The Road, and currently on tour in the USA - release a AA single ‘Why Tell The Truth (When It’s Easier To Lie?)’/ ‘Worry About It Later’ on the 9th November, both tracks taken from their acclaimed 2009 ‘Touchdown’ album.
The band have just announced the release of a 20 track live album ‘Rock Is Dodelijk’ (released 2nd November) and a short brace of November dates – as follows:
Sun 8th Nov - Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
Mon 9th Nov - Brighton, Komedia (downstairs)
Tuesday 10th Nov - London, Relentless Garage
Thurs 12th Nov - Leeds, The Well
Notorious for their rambunctious energy and ear-splitting immediacy, ‘Rock Is Dodelijk’ faithfully captures Brakes thrilling crash through a 20 song set hand-picked by the band partly from a hometown (Brighton, UK) show in August 2008, and partly from a May 2009 show in Cologne, Germany. The set includes choice cuts and singles from their back catalogue - the tracklisting closely resembles a “best-of” compilation, but this record is far more than a simple hits collection. Opening with a vocal-heavy, 1-minute long rendition of ‘Hi How Are You?’ before moving onto a cutting, muscular ‘Hey Hey’ (the first of two versions to feature on this record), the polar extremes of Brakes’ distinctive songwriting are all given equal importance: present here is the country-inspired stroll of ‘NY Pie’, a bassline worthy of Johnny Cash (who is referenced again in the form of a affectionate cover of ‘Jackson’ at the end of ‘Rock Is Dodelijk’) and a guitar line that effortlessly, sweetly twists around the chord sequence; the spitting, fierce gall of ‘Comma Comma Comma Full Stop’, a thorny, fuzzy, overdriven 4 seconds of music; the Rapture/Chinese Stars/Liars-esque, “über-rocking” ‘All Night Disco Party’.
From Brakes:
“The idea of this record was to try and capture both the essence of a classic live album and the roughness of a bootleg. The Concorde show was recorded using the multi-track system at the venue, allowing us to mix instruments separately after the event. During the making of 'Touchdown', on tea breaks or when inspiration ran dry, the legendary Paul Savage would do a little more work on the recording, tweaking knobs and compressing unruly performances. The result is comparable to a lot of live albums in that the running order has been edited, the mix balanced and perfected after the event and the whole thing generally cleaned up a bit. However, as fans of desk tapes and fan recordings, we wanted to include a sort of 'official bootleg' as part of the record. The second half of the album, recorded in Cologne, shows the band absolutely as raw as it can be, from the audience's point of view. The recording is straight from the desk, with no other mixing or tweaking. While there are mistakes galore, it's the most honest representation of the band live. We like our records, but there's a different side to the band that needed to be captured, and for us this is the closest it gets. Besides, the Cologne gig was such a monumentally awesome night that a record of it ought to be kept. Enjoy.”
The band have just announced the release of a 20 track live album ‘Rock Is Dodelijk’ (released 2nd November) and a short brace of November dates – as follows:
Sun 8th Nov - Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
Mon 9th Nov - Brighton, Komedia (downstairs)
Tuesday 10th Nov - London, Relentless Garage
Thurs 12th Nov - Leeds, The Well
Notorious for their rambunctious energy and ear-splitting immediacy, ‘Rock Is Dodelijk’ faithfully captures Brakes thrilling crash through a 20 song set hand-picked by the band partly from a hometown (Brighton, UK) show in August 2008, and partly from a May 2009 show in Cologne, Germany. The set includes choice cuts and singles from their back catalogue - the tracklisting closely resembles a “best-of” compilation, but this record is far more than a simple hits collection. Opening with a vocal-heavy, 1-minute long rendition of ‘Hi How Are You?’ before moving onto a cutting, muscular ‘Hey Hey’ (the first of two versions to feature on this record), the polar extremes of Brakes’ distinctive songwriting are all given equal importance: present here is the country-inspired stroll of ‘NY Pie’, a bassline worthy of Johnny Cash (who is referenced again in the form of a affectionate cover of ‘Jackson’ at the end of ‘Rock Is Dodelijk’) and a guitar line that effortlessly, sweetly twists around the chord sequence; the spitting, fierce gall of ‘Comma Comma Comma Full Stop’, a thorny, fuzzy, overdriven 4 seconds of music; the Rapture/Chinese Stars/Liars-esque, “über-rocking” ‘All Night Disco Party’.
From Brakes:
“The idea of this record was to try and capture both the essence of a classic live album and the roughness of a bootleg. The Concorde show was recorded using the multi-track system at the venue, allowing us to mix instruments separately after the event. During the making of 'Touchdown', on tea breaks or when inspiration ran dry, the legendary Paul Savage would do a little more work on the recording, tweaking knobs and compressing unruly performances. The result is comparable to a lot of live albums in that the running order has been edited, the mix balanced and perfected after the event and the whole thing generally cleaned up a bit. However, as fans of desk tapes and fan recordings, we wanted to include a sort of 'official bootleg' as part of the record. The second half of the album, recorded in Cologne, shows the band absolutely as raw as it can be, from the audience's point of view. The recording is straight from the desk, with no other mixing or tweaking. While there are mistakes galore, it's the most honest representation of the band live. We like our records, but there's a different side to the band that needed to be captured, and for us this is the closest it gets. Besides, the Cologne gig was such a monumentally awesome night that a record of it ought to be kept. Enjoy.”
