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Gilla Band Share New Track ‘Post Ryan’

September 14, 2022

Gilla Band are sharing a new track and video, “Post Ryan” today off their upcoming album Most Normal, out October 7, 2022 on Rough Trade Records. “Post Ryan” was directed by Michael Speed and follows earlier singles “Backwash” and “Eight Fivers”, which were accompanied by videos directed and animated by Mortis Studios. This single comes alongside the news of cancelling their upcoming show at London’s O2 Forum due to production issues, they have however organised a residency of exciting small shows around London across Sept/Oct/Nov 2022, the first at The Windmill this Friday sold out in the first minute of going on sale. Details below.

“Post Ryan” is the album’s electrifying closer, in which the beat has been taken from ‘I Ran’ by Flock of Seagulls, the band quote saying ‘We thought, that’s a really great, immediate pop-sounding beat, let’s start there and go somewhere else’ – to have that immediacy, and then abstract out from there.” That’s exactly what happens, that pulsing beat swallowed by amps humming like wasps and itchy, uncomfortable clangs of guitar, the perfect backdrop for singer Dara Kiely’s deadpan, confessional soliloquy.

Dara quotes on the single “Our friend Ryan turned 30 during lockdown and we were asked by his mates to make a track for his birthday, singer Dara Kiely explains, “We wrote and recorded ‘Happy Birthday Ryan‘ (a hair metal attempt penned by our secret Hard Rock alias, The Whisky Guns). Right after that we came up with the bones of what is now known as Post Ryan. This probably took the longest time out of all the tracks. The words of the track were originally really silly. There’s was a line about wearing Christmas socks all year round. Stupid stuff. It didn’t really fit the tone. After messing around with the Electro Lobotomy and getting the second half of it figured out, I improvised a melody over it. The lads wanted me to get out of my comfort zone and write something really direct. This was the exact opposite of the approach we had for The Talkies. Felt very naked. I had to leave the room when I showed them my demo of the new vocals.”

For their first album as Gilla Band, the foursome have redrawn their own paradigm. Most Normal is like little you’ve heard before, a kaleidoscopic spectrum of noise put in service of broken pop songs, FX-strafed Avant-punk rollercoaster rides and passages of futurist dancefloor nihilism.

The group also fell under the spell of modern hip-hop, “where there’s really heavy-handed production and they’re messing with the track the whole time,” says bassist Daniel Fox. “There was a conscious effort to be more direct this time, whether it was with the lyrics or the music and with the production – for everything to be a lot more ‘here’ and to feel more poppy, and then really try to mess with it and subvert it”.

The common thread holding Most Normal’s ambitious avant-pop shapes together is frontman Dara Kiely. Throughout, he’s an antic, antagonistic presence, barking wild, hilarious, unsettling spiels, babbling about smearing fish with lubricant or dressing up in bin-liners or having to wear hand-me-down boot-cut jeans.

Most Normal is Gilla Band’s third album; it was self-produced, and recorded and mixed by bassist Daniel Fox at Sonic Studios and their rehearsal place. The album will be available on limited-edition blue vinyl and a limited edition alternate cover with white vinyl.

Pre-order is available at: https://gillaband.ffm.to/mostnormal

Forthcoming 2022 Live Shows:

16 Sept – London, UK @ The Windmill

8 Oct -London, UK @ Peckham Audio

15 Oct – Birmingham, UK @ Future Days Festival

16 Oct – Bristol, UK @ Trinity

18 Oct – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club

19 Oct – Glasgow, UK @ SWG3

20 Oct – Manchester, UK @ Canvas

21 Oct – London, UK @ Moth Club

23 Oct – Brighton, UK @ CHALK

9 Nov – London, UK @ Studio 9294

11 Nov – Kortrijk, BE @ Sonic City Festival

12 Nov – Reims, FR @ La Cartonnerie Club

13 Nov – Lyon, FR @ Le Marche Gare

15 Nov – Zurich, CH @ Bogen F

16 Nov – Milan, IT @ Biko

17 Nov – Munich, DE @ Strom

19 Nov – Berlin, DE @ Lido

21 Nov – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen

22 Nov – Hamburg, DE @ Knust

24 Nov – Cologne, DE @ Artheater

25 Nov – Rotterdam, NL @ Maassilio

26 Nov – Paris, FR @ La Gaite Lyrique

9 Dec – Dublin, IE @ National Stadium

15 Dec – Belfast, IE @ The Empire 

 Forthcoming 2023 Live Shows:

10 Feb – LA, CA, USA @ Teragram Ballroom

11 Feb – Berkeley, CA, USA @ Cornerstone Berkeley

13 Feb – Portland, OR, USA @ Mission Theater

14 Feb – Vancouver, BC, CANADA @ Wise Hall

15 Feb – Seattle, WA, USA @ Sunset Tavern

21 Feb – Brooklyn, NY, USA @ Brooklyn Made

22 Feb – Philadelphia, PA, USA @ Johnny Brenda’s

24 Feb – Cambridge, MA, USA @ Sonias

25 Feb – Washington, DC, USA @ DC9

27 Feb – Chicago, IL , USA @ Lincoln Hall

 

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