TRAAMS Release ‘Flowers’ Video + Announce September UK Tour
Debut Album ‘Grin’ To Be Released 16th September Via FatCat
Sussex trio TRAAMS have released the video for current single ‘Flowers’, as premiered on NME.com. The band have also announced details of their September UK tour, which will follow swiftly from the release of their raucous post punk debut album ‘Grin’ on the 16th September via FatCat Records. Full details of the shows are below, including a London launch party at Shacklewell Arms on the 20th September with support from Theo Verney.
The grungy ‘Flowers’ video was directed by James Burgess (The History Of Apple Pie, Flamingods) this summer, featuring TRAAMS being drenched in psychedelic goo. Stu from the band elaborates on how the clip was made:
“We did the video on a sunny afternoon in my garden. We’d met James Burgess before when we played a show with his band, Boneyards, really liked the videos he’d done for them and Flamingods. He pitched this idea of pouring gunge all over us and green screening stuff onto it. Which we thought sounded cool. The closer we got to the shoot we realised that we couldn’t find any gunge so we ended up dying custard green and using that. We sat in a paddling pool with the custard being poured over us whilst singing. Our friends looked on and took the piss. It was a Fun day. Good times.”
Watch the video for ‘Flowers’ here:
Recorded throughout 2012 and 2013 with producers Rory Atwell and MJ from Hookworms, the aptly-titled ‘Grin’ is eleven tracks of pure distorted joy.
Starting off with ‘Swimming Pool”s sonorous, atmospheric welcome, ‘Grin’ twists and turns it’s way through shards of hooky indie pop on ‘Flowers’ and ‘Fibbist’, plunging into darker krautrock depths on ‘Klaus’ and the title track. The album successfully captures the raw energy of TRAAMS’ frenzied and sweaty live performances, as witnessed at The Great Escape, Tallin Music Week and gigging with Parquet Courts and Hookworms. The latter show lead The Fly to proclaim “we fell for their swirling White Denim-referencing tunes and brave experimentalism”, with the band enjoying support from early on from their adopted hometown bible The Brighton Source and into the pages of NME, Fake DIY, The Line of Best Fit and Pitchfork ever since.
listen to the juddering opening track ‘Low’ below:
Pre-order ‘Grin’: http://fatcat.sandbaghq.com/traams-grin-pre-order.html
More about TRAAMS
TRAAMS formed in summer 2011 in Chichester, West Sussex, meeting at a club night that vocalist and guitarist Stu Hopkins started as a reaction to the city’s limited nightlife. The only options previously available to him and his friends were “boring clubs and bars which only played boring club music”. “There was no incentive to be at these places other than to drink,” he explains, “we wanted to put something on where we could play the records we liked really loud and have fun”. That same restlessness can be heard in the propulsive rhythms that form the backbone of TRAAMS’ delightful krautrock squall. There’s a tellingly urgent way that Hopkins delivers his lyrics, especially in songs such as ‘Mexico’, in which he pleads “you’ve got to get me out of this house”. Frustration is obviously a familiar and shared sentiment for the trio and, as ‘Grin’ showcases, they pour it into their music to create something bristling and vital. Bassist Leigh Padley recently said in an interview that the three band members (completed by Adam Stock on drums) felt compelled towards music as the only means to escape the mundanity of their hometown; “We had to start a band. It was all we had.”
At his club night Hopkins would mainly play records by Wire, New Order and Le Tigre, supplemented with mainstream pop and hip hop. Similarly, there is a pop immediacy coexisting with an expansive, experimental element inside the music they make themselves. Incorporating the two sides are vital when writing a TRAAMS song, as Hopkins elaborates; “we really want to push both those areas as far as we can. We like seeing people dance and having fun but we also want to be noisy and aggressive. It’s fun trying to strike a balance and seeing how far we can push it.” The band claim Mclusky, Abe Vigoda, Pavement, Television, and Women as influences. Hopkins specifically cites Stephen Malkmus, Iggy Pop, and Tom Verlaine as songwriters he admires because they all make what he calls “skewed pop”, a term that fits TRAAMS’ sound snuggly.
TRAAMS work completely collaboratively, each member bringing different sections and parts to the songs which are gradually worked on in the practise space. The band recorded their first set of songs in November 2011 with Rory Attwell and continued to work with the producer throughout 2012 on the bulk of ‘Grin’. In February 2013 they recorded more songs with MJ Hookworms at his Suburban Home Studio in Leeds to complete the ‘Ladders’ EP, and a handful of tracks on ‘Grin’.
Having already shared stages with the likes of Fucked Up, Parquet Courts and FIDLAR, TRAAMS are rapidly leaving behind the sleepiness of their humble beginnings and hurtling towards an exciting future.
TRAAMS live dates
September
05 London @The Garage, supporting Beach Fossils
14 Southsea @ Pie & Vinyl Stage, Southsea Festival w/ Splashh, Cheatahs, Jaws & more
16 Chichester @ HMV instore
17 Sheffield @ Great Gat
http://traams.tumblr.com
www.fat-cat.co.uk
“for all of the English band’s moody Wire-like brooding, there’s a striking electric and surprisingly upbeat quality to the chorus, which hits with all the demented intensity of a great Modest Mouse hook (albeit far punkier)” SPIN
“distorted DIY for the people” Loud & Quiet
“precisely the kind of noisy kraut-tinged rattler you might suck from the brain of producer and Hookworms frontman, MJ” The Line of Best Fit
“Stu Hopkins’ flat, nasal honk is fetching enough from a melodic standpoint, yet it’s those brief pockets where the guitars go silent amidst the steady drums that are just as hooky.” Pitchfork
“There’s a pop intelligence at work… as much as a delight in flexibility and texture” The Brighton Source
sby w/ Cowtown & Five Leaf Nettles
18 Bristol @ Start the Bus, Theo Verney supporting
19 Cardiff @ Clwb Ifor Bach, Theo Verney supporting
20 London@ Shacklewell Arms, Theo Verney supporting
21 Bournemouth @ 60 Millions Postcards, FREE SHOW, Theo Verney supporting
23 Brighton @ Resident instore