Kindred spirits from far across the globe, Brooklyn, NY quintet Clone and Aukland, NZ trio Swallow The Rat announce their forthcoming split LP today, sharing one track from each band via New Noise.
Hear and share both tracks HERE. (Or listen/share via Clone’s Bandcamp or STR’s Bandcamp.)
New Zealand’s Swallow the Rat (featuring ex-My Education guitarist Brian Purington) and New York’s Clone (ex-Dead Leaf Echo, Squad Car) shared a stage in Queens, NYC on perhaps the last day before the city shut down in 2020. A mutual appreciation society was formed over drinks later that night. Swallow the Rat were in town to play the New Colossus Festival, while Clone were playing what was to be the first date of their debut tour of the East Coast. There were plans to share the stage again in New Orleans and in Austin at SXSW.
A global pandemic put an end to this, but the bands kept talking. Both had recently recorded EPs, and so a plan was hatched: a split 12″ with songs from both bands. Four tunes apiece, about the irony of memory recall, the loss of friends by their own hand, frustrations of gender role psyche and the fear of looking back. Dissonant delayed guitars and martial drums abound, despite the oceans and continents separating the groups.
Swallow The Rat / Clone split LP will be available on LP and download on May 21st via Headbump Records. Pre-orders are available via Rough Trade in the US HERE and Golden Antenna in the EU HERE.
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]
