There Is No Year was recorded in New York throughout 2019 by childhood friends and Atlanta natives Franklin James Fisher, Ryan Mahan and Lee Tesche, as well as drummer Matt Tong, alongside producers Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Oren Ambarchi) and Ben Greenberg (Zs, Uniform, The Men). The album is titled after author and fellow Atlanta native Blake Butler's novel of the same name, a major inspiration to the band over the course of the album’s making.
“Even those aware of the ideals of this outspoken four-piece will find their latest direction on There Is No Year traversing unprecedented ground,” says Butler in his bio for the album. From the instant synth-pulse of the opening seconds of There is No Year, it’s clear that Algiers have set out to stake new ground, internally as much as sonically. At the forefront of this evolution is the centrality of power housed in Algiers' multi-instrumentalist lead vocalist, Franklin James Fisher, whose voice and words provide the backbone of the album, his lyrics sourced entirely from an epic poem, Misophonia, composed during his search for meaning amidst a protracted personal period of anxiety and lack.
There Is No Year encompasses future-minded post-punk R&B from the trapped heart of Atlanta, where they began; to industrial soundscapes à la 4AD-era Scott Walker or Iggy & Bowie’s Berlin period; to something like the synthetic son of Marvin Gaye and Fever Ray. The whip-tight rhythm section of Mahan and Tong moves back and forth from infectious menace to sci-fi soundtrack to big band fever dream. Mahan’s beat programming and synth constructions fill out the fibrous threshold, while Tesche’s sound-sleeves and aural-layering shapeshift into a richly polished means of exploration, revealing more and more the deeper you delve.
Release: Matador Records/Remote Control, January 17th, 2020
Words: Matador Records
“Even those aware of the ideals of this outspoken four-piece will find their latest direction on There Is No Year traversing unprecedented ground,” says Butler in his bio for the album. From the instant synth-pulse of the opening seconds of There is No Year, it’s clear that Algiers have set out to stake new ground, internally as much as sonically. At the forefront of this evolution is the centrality of power housed in Algiers' multi-instrumentalist lead vocalist, Franklin James Fisher, whose voice and words provide the backbone of the album, his lyrics sourced entirely from an epic poem, Misophonia, composed during his search for meaning amidst a protracted personal period of anxiety and lack.
There Is No Year encompasses future-minded post-punk R&B from the trapped heart of Atlanta, where they began; to industrial soundscapes à la 4AD-era Scott Walker or Iggy & Bowie’s Berlin period; to something like the synthetic son of Marvin Gaye and Fever Ray. The whip-tight rhythm section of Mahan and Tong moves back and forth from infectious menace to sci-fi soundtrack to big band fever dream. Mahan’s beat programming and synth constructions fill out the fibrous threshold, while Tesche’s sound-sleeves and aural-layering shapeshift into a richly polished means of exploration, revealing more and more the deeper you delve.
Release: Matador Records/Remote Control, January 17th, 2020
Words: Matador Records
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