(Links above lead to the DDBH website.) DEAD DAYS BEYOND HELP: "IV" (Copepod POD12 CD/digital download: release date October 22nd 2018. EAN: 0700461483960)  Dead Days Beyond Help is the duo of Alex Ward and Jem Doulton. Starting with their debut album “ACCESS DENIED!” they have honed a unique compositional style melding delirious intricacy with powerful visceral impact, and their latest album “IV” takes their music to a new level of ambition and sonic range. Whilst the duo’s previous release “SEVERANCE PAY” (described by The Wire Magazine as "a reminder that there are still thrills aplenty to be gained from the pursuit of complexity... as playful as it is heavy, as atmospheric as it is cerebral”) contained 8 compositions ranging from under two minutes to over ten in length, “IV” comprises just two extended pieces. The first, “IVPT1”, is a 17-minute guitar-and-drums epic, expanding on the approach displayed on their previous albums and presented here in a vividly recorded performance which captures the energy of the band’s live sets. By contrast, “IVPT2”, which takes up the album’s second half, is an elaborate studio creation which moves far beyond the duo’s live sound, summoning textures ranging from the electro-acoustic to the orchestral. Themes and motifs recur between the album’s two pieces, sometimes overtly stated and at other points disguised in cryptic transformations, giving rise to a whole which is both tightly coherent and evocatively ungraspable, a dense and dreamlike puzzle which reveals more and more with every listen. | Track listing: 1. IVPT0+1 (17:09) 2. IVPT2 (19:11) All music written by Dead Days Beyond Help (PRS) ALEX WARD: Guitar JEM DOULTON: Drums All additional instruments performed by Jem Doulton and Alex Ward, except: Violin/Viola on “IVPT2”: Benedict Taylor Cello on “IVPT2”: Hannah Marshall Double Bass on “IVPT2”: Santiago Horro Engineered by Alex Ward Produced by Dead Days Beyond Help Cover by Jem Doulton Stream a preview excerpt below: PRESS QUOTES ABOUT DDBH: "formidably knotty, complex music which avoids the dry geekiness of US math rock while beating it hands down in terms of intensity and fluidity... Ward’s guitar work leaps between metallic crunch, Fripp-esque tangle and Chadbourne choogle with astounding energy and precision, while Doulton’s drumming swings with commensurate joy and fury" - Joseph Stannard, The Wire. "Dead Days Beyond Help are just the job after a hard day at the void machine, their precise and frenetic compositions blowing away the debris and cleansing the mind." - Simon Lewis, Terrascope Online. | DEAD DAYS BEYOND HELP ALEX WARD: guitar, vocals JEM DOULTON: drums Dead Days Beyond Help have performed live with bands including Poino, Nøught, Cellular Chaos, Zea, Child Abuse, Sal Mineo (Eugene Robinson/Xiu Xiu), Dial and The Devil, and also in improvised collaborations with musicians such as Steve Beresford, Shabaka Hutchings and Alan Wilkinson. Jem and Alex also recently performed together as part of Thurston Moore’s New Noise Guitar Explorations ensemble, giving the premiere of his extended work “LONDON JUNE AMJ” at Cafe Oto in London. |