Gilla Band are sharing a new track and video, “Backwash” from their upcoming album Most Normal, out October 7, 2022 on Rough Trade Records. “Backwash” was directed and animated by Mortis Studios and follows earlier single “Eight Fivers”, which was accompanied by a video directed and animated by Mortis Studios with additional help from Ruben Hernandez. “Backwash” is available as a Big Love exclusive 7”, limited to 120 copies.
“The initial idea for the whole album was that it would loosely sound like a dream,” singer Dara Kiely explains. “We didn’t really stick to the brief but it led us down different sonic avenues. ‘Backwash’ is one of the few tracks where the words represent a dream-like circumstance. The lyrics are from a stream of consciousness rant, weird imagery and all that. The track is about attraction – fancying someone and not knowing what to say exactly. It’s an indirect love song, knowing you like someone but can’t quite articulate it. Thinking that you have already expressed your feelings, but like waking up from a dream you’ve forgotten what you actually have said or felt.”
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.
Covid lockdown robbed Gilla Band of any opportunity to try the new material out live, but the pandemic also incinerated any idea of a deadline for the new album. They were free to tinker at leisure, to rewrite and restructure and reinvent tracks they’d cut – to, as drummer Adam Faulkner puts it, “pull things apart and be like, ‘Let’s try this. We could try out every wild idea.”
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. “That felt like a fun route to go down, it was a definite influence.”
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
Tour Dates:
9/9/22 – Asten Heusden, NL @ Misty Fields Festival
9/17/22 – Leicester, UK @ Wide Eyed Festival
10/15/22 – Birmingham, UK @ Future Days Festival
10/16/22 – Bristol, UK @ Trinity
10/18/22 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
10/19/22 – Glasgow, UK @ SWG3
10/20/22 – Manchester, UK @ Canvas
10/22/22 – London, UK @ O2 Forum
10/23/22 – Brighton, UK @ CHALK
11/11/22 – Kortrijk, BE @ Sonic City Festival
11/12/22 – Reims, FR @ La Cartonnerie Club
11/13/22 – Lyon, FR @ Le Marche Gare
11/15/22 – Zurich, CH @ Bogen F
11/16/22 – Milan, IT @ Biko
11/17/22 – Munich, DE @ Strom
11/19/22 – Berlin, DE @ Lido
11/21/22 – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen
11/22/22 – Hamburg, DE @ Knust
11/24/22 – Cologne, DE @ Artheater
11/25/22 – Rotterdam, NL @ Maassilio
11/26/22 – Paris, FR @ La Gaite Lyrique
12/9/22 – Dublin, IE @ National Stadium
12/15/22 – Belfast, IE @ The Empire
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