Doomtree share new video for ‘Beastface’
DOOMTREE SHARE NEW VIDEO FOR ‘BEASTFACE’
NEW ALBUM ALL HANDS RELEASED 4TH MAY ON DOOMTREE RECORDS
SHOW AT BAFLY, LONDON NOW SOLD OUT – MORE DATES ADDED FOR JUNE
“…Once again [Doomtree have] emerged with a brace of densely impressionistic, explosive jams laced with rock-inflected electronics and besotted with virtuoso verbiage.” – Wondering Sound
Minneapolis hip-hop collective Doomtree has revealed their video for ‘Beastface’ from their new full-length All Hands, which will be released in the UK on 4th May via Doomtree Records. Premiered today by Clash Music, Doomtree member Lazerbeak described the distinctive visuals as “a slowly devolving desert mirage hallucination.”
He takes up the story of how the video came to be: “Living up in Minnesota and releasing albums in the dead of winter can pose quite the challenge when you’re trying to shoot outdoor music videos in below zero temperatures. For ‘Beastface’ we decided to send P.O.S, Mike Mictlan, Sims, and director Isaac Gale off to California to escape the frozen tundra and get a little bit of sunshine before heading out on Doomtree’s big two-month All Hands US tour.”
Check the video for ‘Beastface’
“Nobody wanted to be stuck shooting in the ice and snow in MPLS, and Stef was already going to be in LA,” continues video director Isaac Gale. “From there we improvised. Mike’s family lived outside of LA near some sweet desert views, and we found a place with all these cheap blow-up psychedelic flowers and animals, and it just made sense to go out to the middle of the desert to shoot at them and have a trippy time I guess.”
Doomtree are set to tour Europe in June, kicking off with some UK dates. Their show at The Barfly is already sold out. Dates as follows:
DOOMTREE LIVE
25 June – The Fleece – Bristol
26 June – The Garage – London
27 June – Barfly – London (SOLD OUT)
02 July – Roskilde Festival – Roskilde, Denmark
03 July – Molotow Club – Hamburg, Germany *
04 July – Woo Hah! Festival – Tilburg, Netherlands
06 July – Bi Nuu – Berlin, Germany *
07 July – Ampere – Munich, Germany *
08 July – C.B.E. – Cologne, Germany *
09 July – La Maroquinerie – Paris, France
* w/ Remi
The UK release of All Hands comes amid much anticipation. including a recent feature on NPR’s All Things Considered. To usher in its release, Doomtree revealed singles ‘.38 Airweight’, ‘Gray Duck’ before ‘Final Boss’. There has been substantial praise from all corners regarding the already-released tracks:Consequence of Sound noted that “over flickering beats and blitzing synths, Doomtree sound as confident as ever”, while The FADER praised ‘Gray Duck’ as a “hard-hitting track” and A.V. Club lauded ‘Final Boss’s “mentions of video game boss levels and cheat codes alongside inflammatory political texts.”
Doomtree started as a mess of friends, fooling around after school, trying to make music without reading the manual. The group had varied tastes – rap, punk, indie rock, pop – so the music they made together often bore the toolmarks of several styles. When they had enough songs, they booked some shows. They made friends with the dudes at Kinkos to print up flyers. They burned some CDs to sell. The shows got bigger. Of necessity, Doomtree’s seven members figured out how to run a small business. Lazerbeak’s garage became the merchandise warehouse; P.O.S’ mom’s basement became the webstore. A decade and fifty releases later, it’s all properly official-Doomtree is now a real, live label with international distribution-but not too much has changed. Doomtree still partners with people who aren’t jerks. If they can’t find something they need, they make it themselves. Although each member has a career as a solo artist, every so often the whole crew convenes to make a collaborative record as a group.
The most recent Doomtree record was called No Kings. A lot of people liked it. Happily, some of those people were writers at places like Vice, NPR,Rolling Stone, etc. According to the Village Voice, Doomtree is “one of the most talented and dedicated rap groups working today.” VH1 says the crew has“the aggressive energy of a punk act with just the right amount of hip-hop swagger.” In support of No Kings, Doomtree made laps around the US and hit Europe a couple times too. They played at festivals like Lollapalooza, SXSW, and Belgium’s Dour Festival.
The title of new album All Hands nods to the nautical rally cry, “All hands on deck,” and the album stands as the most collaborative and cohesive project the crew has yet produced. The production from Cecil Otter, Lazerbeak, Paper Tiger, and P.O.S twists through 13 booming tracks, building the raw and epic soundscapes that the group has become well known for, while adding more of-the-moment musical elements and techniques for a genre-spanning effect. This is the sound of old friends fine-tuning their craft, both together and individually, for over a decade, and it shows. Lyrically, All Hands sounds hungry as all hell. The three-year gap between Doomtree albums has given each of the five emcees substantial time to grow as solo artists, and the group’s return finds everyone tour-tested with plenty to prove. Sims, P.O.S, Mike Mictlan, Dessa, and Cecil Otter drive home razor-sharp cadences, hard-hitting punchlines, and monstrous choruses, passing the spotlight back and forth until the house lights come up.
To write All Hands, crew members sequestered themselves in a cabin with no cell reception to distract from the task at hand and no neighbors to be bothered by the music playing through the night. The process informed the product: the record creates and operates within its own sphere-a particular mix of menace, humor, beauty, and adrenaline. Though the Minneapolis sound is present on All Hands, the record is as much a product of seven friends, relying only on each other, working in international waters. Both the catchiest and densest album in the group’s catalog, All Hands adeptly walks a tightrope of immediately memorable hooks and in-depth lyricism that rewards repeated listens. The result is equally worthy of up-to-11 trunk-rattling drives as it is late-night headphone sessions.
DOOMTREE ALL HANDS TRACKLISTING
Final Boss
My Own Nation
.38 Airweight
Gray Duck
Heavy Rescue
80 on 80
Mini Brute
Cabin Killer
Beastface
The Bends
Generator
Off In The Deep
Marathon
‘Final Boss’ video http://youtu.be/5PTHFL63sTQ
‘.38 Airweight’ video http://youtu.be/pgphUvorY54
‘Gray Duck’ video http://youtu.be/MCJJ5aR5vwA
https://twitter.com/doomtree
https://www.facebook.com/doomtree
http://www.doomtree.net/
http://doomtree.bandcamp.com/
