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Mush

UK art-rock trio, Mush share new single, "Seven Trumpets" from new album Lines Redacted, out February 12. via Memphis Industries.

The BBC Radio 1 (Jack Saunders' "Next Wave" artist) and 6 Music-tipped art-rock trio, Mush, are sharing their fizzing new single, "Seven Trumpets". The new track is lifted from the Leeds-based band's clear-eyed second album, Lines Redacted, which is out via Memphis Industries on February 12 and comes mixed by Lee Smith (The Cribs, Pulled Apart By Horses).

The full-length release, which was announced recently with the tipped single, "Blunt Instruments" – currently on the BBC 6 Music playlist – arrives just under a year after their debut LP, 3D Routine, capping off what has been an obviously tumultuous, but remarkably prolific year for the band. With any prospect of live shows decimated, the group, led by songwriter, Dan Hyndman, has found the time to release two EPs (‘Great Artisanal Formats’ and ‘Yellow Sticker Hour’) and now a duo of full-length albums.


Whereas the band’s debut was very much a product of its time, something part-inspired by the political atmosphere of mid-2019 and a genuine moment of optimism when the prospect of a socialist government in the UK was on the cards, this new record uses tongue-in-cheek cynicism as a coping mechanism for the environment that we now find ourselves in.

Across twelve tracks, Lines Redacted introduces a string of different narrators with each providing a different reflection on the Armageddon scenario that we are slowly entering, whether that’s bemoaning it or gleefully willing it along.


"Seven Trumpets", a cranked-up, lurching cut from the new record, arrives as a buzz of prickly guitar lines knotted around a punctuating rhythm section. Whilst further mining the album's overarching theme of Armageddon, singer-songwriter, Dan Hyndman, provides a call for climate action with his urgent vocal foray, helping to achieve a sound that is in equal bouts celebratory and sarcastic, taking lyrical aim at complacency in the face of danger. Speaking about the track, Hyndman says:

"'Seven Trumpets" started as a climate change jaunt, but with the plethora of Armageddon scenarios currently on display, it became more about sleepwalking into disaster in a generalised sense. It has a Beefhearty breakdown in the middle."


Tipped previously by the likes of BBC 6 Music, and international media, Mush, comprised of Hyndman (guitar/vox), Nick Grant (bass/vox) and Phil Porter (drums), present their own sonic idiosyncrasy. It’s a sound that blurs the lines of abstract surrealism, existentialism and social commentary; utilising guitars as tools in 2020 to stave off malaise whilst simultaneously commenting on the nation’s ability to fall into such dire straits. It’s a sensory overload of wiry tones that zig-zag between punk, prog and sardonic-funk with a relentless ability to reflect society’s faults and apathy in a unique and acerbic manner.


Live shows alongside Girl Band, Shame, The Lovely Eggs, Stereolab, and more allowed tracks from 3D Routine to develop in the live capacity before becoming their fully-formed, recorded counterparts. Lines Redacted, on the other hand, is a product of supposed home-working and having more time to-hand; written at the tail end of an election cycle, in the midst of a pandemic and with a large-scale recession lingering like a dark blot on the edge of an ever-shrinking horizon.


Lines Redacted will be available on clear transparent vinyl plus an exclusive Rough Trade purple vinyl edition.


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