BAMBARA
IL NUOVO SINGOLO
"LETTERS FROM SING SING"
DISPONIBILE ORA
IL NUOVO ALBUM
BIRTHMARKS
IN USCITA IL 14 MARZO SU BELLA UNION
At the end of 2024 Brooklyn-by-way-of-Atlanta trio Bambara announced their fifth album Birthmarks. The follow up to their 2020 breakthrough Stray, the album was created in collaboration with co-producer Graham Sutton (These New Puritans, Jarvis Cocker, Sea Power) from UK experimental pioneers Bark Psychosis, features guest vocals by Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Emma Acs (Crack Cloud), and will be out 14th March on longtime label home Wharf Cat Records in North America and Bella Union in the rest of the world.
Following the album’s first single “Pray To Me”, which BrooklynVegan described as “the kind of driving, anthemic, cinematic and darkly romantic song that Bambara do so well”, today Bambara are sharing
a second preview of their new LP with the track “Letters From Sing Sing” together with a video directed by Jason Miller that echoes the narrative of the song.
Commenting on the track and video Bambara vocalist Reid Bateh says: “This song is a series of letters from the narrator to another character in the album’s story, Elena, whose boyfriend he murdered. He’s telling her about his attempts to persuade the court to reinstate the practice of execution—specifically for him. He believes that if he can persuade them, he will be able to see her one last time, convinced that her intense anger and thirst for vengeance will drive her to attend his execution. We were lucky to finally collaborate with visionary director and fellow Athens, GA expat, Jason Miller. The central character, Elena, is portrayed by Wife Erath in a captivating performance.”
Birthmarks is a reincarnation of sorts for the trio — Twin brothers Reid (vocals) and Blaze Bateh (drums), alongside childhood friend William Brookshire (bass) — altogether. Five years removed from Stray, and three from their 2022 EP Love On My Mind, Birthmarks inevitably arrives with the weight of a new chapter after a lengthy absence. Long ago having established their brand of magnetic darkness — equally formed by the grit of their adopted New York City home and the mysterious corners of the Georgian swamps that raised them — Bambara found themselves in a period of slow, laborious evolution. Birthmarks emerges directly from the band’s favoured aesthetics and themes but captures them with a new sense of sonic adventurousness and thematic subtlety, resulting in a collection of songs that are somehow both the band’s most apocalyptic and most poignant.
Bambara's music has always had a literary bent, and that has become more pronounced on recent albums, as Reid has become increasingly focused on narrative storytelling through his lyrics. On 2018’s Shadow On Everything that took the form of a novelistic narrative that ran throughout the record, whereas Stray was more like a collection of short stories, partly inspired by his fellow Georgian Flannery O'Connor. Birthmarks may be his most ambitious narrative work to date, weaving together a vast saga spanning decades, delivering an allusive and chronologically scrambled story of depraved men and angelic women over music veering from dreamlike to nightmarish.
The album also traverses wide swaths of new sonic territory for Bambara, blending their customary serrated post-punk with influences like DJ Shadow, Cocteau Twins, Massive Attack and Portishead. “Letters From Sing Sing” makes for an interesting entry point, as it's both the track that hews closest to the dramatic, muscularity of their earlier albums, while incorporating a new textural depth in its arrangement that reveals just how far they've come.
Bambara are a once-in-a-generation band of intrepid experimentation and compulsive storytelling. For those who crave potent and electrifying music in the lineage of its most celebrated literarily-inclined auteurs - Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen et al - they are, without question, the real deal.
Bambara UK & EU Tour:
Weds 16 April – FR, Nantes – Stereolux
Fri 18 April – NL, Tilburg – Roadburn Festival
Sat 19 April - LU, Esche – Out Of The Crowd Festival
Tues 22 April – UK, Brighton – Komedia
Weds 23 April – UK, Birmingham – Hare & Hounds
Thurs 24 April – UK, Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
Fri 25 April – UK, Glasgow – Room 2
Sat 26 April – UK, Salford – The White Hotel
Mon 28 April – UK, Bristol – The Fleece
Tues 29 April – UK, London – The Garage
Thurs 01 May – BE, Brussels – AB Club
Fri 02 May – NL, Groningen – Vera
Sat 03 May – DE, Hamburg – Molotow
Tues 06 May – SE, Stockholm – Bar Brooklyn
Weds 07 May – NO, Oslo – Blä
Fri 09 May – DK, Copenhagen – Loppen
Sat 10 May – DE, Berlin – Lido
Mon 12 May – DE, Munich – Ampere
Tues 13 May – DE, Cologne – Helios 37
Weds 14 May – FR, Reims – La Cartonnerie
Thurs 15 May – FR, Paris – La Maroquinerie
Birthmarks tracklist:
1. Hiss
2. Letters From Sing Sing
3. Face Of Love
4. Pray To Me
5. Holy Bones
6. Elena’s Dream
7. Because You Asked
8. Dive Shrine
9. Smoke
10. Loretta
Ilaria
IL NUOVO SINGOLO
"LETTERS FROM SING SING"
DISPONIBILE ORA
IL NUOVO ALBUM
BIRTHMARKS
IN USCITA IL 14 MARZO SU BELLA UNION
At the end of 2024 Brooklyn-by-way-of-Atlanta trio Bambara announced their fifth album Birthmarks. The follow up to their 2020 breakthrough Stray, the album was created in collaboration with co-producer Graham Sutton (These New Puritans, Jarvis Cocker, Sea Power) from UK experimental pioneers Bark Psychosis, features guest vocals by Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Emma Acs (Crack Cloud), and will be out 14th March on longtime label home Wharf Cat Records in North America and Bella Union in the rest of the world.
Following the album’s first single “Pray To Me”, which BrooklynVegan described as “the kind of driving, anthemic, cinematic and darkly romantic song that Bambara do so well”, today Bambara are sharing
a second preview of their new LP with the track “Letters From Sing Sing” together with a video directed by Jason Miller that echoes the narrative of the song.
Commenting on the track and video Bambara vocalist Reid Bateh says: “This song is a series of letters from the narrator to another character in the album’s story, Elena, whose boyfriend he murdered. He’s telling her about his attempts to persuade the court to reinstate the practice of execution—specifically for him. He believes that if he can persuade them, he will be able to see her one last time, convinced that her intense anger and thirst for vengeance will drive her to attend his execution. We were lucky to finally collaborate with visionary director and fellow Athens, GA expat, Jason Miller. The central character, Elena, is portrayed by Wife Erath in a captivating performance.”
Birthmarks is a reincarnation of sorts for the trio — Twin brothers Reid (vocals) and Blaze Bateh (drums), alongside childhood friend William Brookshire (bass) — altogether. Five years removed from Stray, and three from their 2022 EP Love On My Mind, Birthmarks inevitably arrives with the weight of a new chapter after a lengthy absence. Long ago having established their brand of magnetic darkness — equally formed by the grit of their adopted New York City home and the mysterious corners of the Georgian swamps that raised them — Bambara found themselves in a period of slow, laborious evolution. Birthmarks emerges directly from the band’s favoured aesthetics and themes but captures them with a new sense of sonic adventurousness and thematic subtlety, resulting in a collection of songs that are somehow both the band’s most apocalyptic and most poignant.
Bambara's music has always had a literary bent, and that has become more pronounced on recent albums, as Reid has become increasingly focused on narrative storytelling through his lyrics. On 2018’s Shadow On Everything that took the form of a novelistic narrative that ran throughout the record, whereas Stray was more like a collection of short stories, partly inspired by his fellow Georgian Flannery O'Connor. Birthmarks may be his most ambitious narrative work to date, weaving together a vast saga spanning decades, delivering an allusive and chronologically scrambled story of depraved men and angelic women over music veering from dreamlike to nightmarish.
The album also traverses wide swaths of new sonic territory for Bambara, blending their customary serrated post-punk with influences like DJ Shadow, Cocteau Twins, Massive Attack and Portishead. “Letters From Sing Sing” makes for an interesting entry point, as it's both the track that hews closest to the dramatic, muscularity of their earlier albums, while incorporating a new textural depth in its arrangement that reveals just how far they've come.
Bambara are a once-in-a-generation band of intrepid experimentation and compulsive storytelling. For those who crave potent and electrifying music in the lineage of its most celebrated literarily-inclined auteurs - Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen et al - they are, without question, the real deal.
Bambara UK & EU Tour:
Weds 16 April – FR, Nantes – Stereolux
Fri 18 April – NL, Tilburg – Roadburn Festival
Sat 19 April - LU, Esche – Out Of The Crowd Festival
Tues 22 April – UK, Brighton – Komedia
Weds 23 April – UK, Birmingham – Hare & Hounds
Thurs 24 April – UK, Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
Fri 25 April – UK, Glasgow – Room 2
Sat 26 April – UK, Salford – The White Hotel
Mon 28 April – UK, Bristol – The Fleece
Tues 29 April – UK, London – The Garage
Thurs 01 May – BE, Brussels – AB Club
Fri 02 May – NL, Groningen – Vera
Sat 03 May – DE, Hamburg – Molotow
Tues 06 May – SE, Stockholm – Bar Brooklyn
Weds 07 May – NO, Oslo – Blä
Fri 09 May – DK, Copenhagen – Loppen
Sat 10 May – DE, Berlin – Lido
Mon 12 May – DE, Munich – Ampere
Tues 13 May – DE, Cologne – Helios 37
Weds 14 May – FR, Reims – La Cartonnerie
Thurs 15 May – FR, Paris – La Maroquinerie
Birthmarks tracklist:
1. Hiss
2. Letters From Sing Sing
3. Face Of Love
4. Pray To Me
5. Holy Bones
6. Elena’s Dream
7. Because You Asked
8. Dive Shrine
9. Smoke
10. Loretta
Ilaria
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