Well this might just be the pleasant surprise of the year! Bill Direen's long-running and unpredictably brilliant band Bilders have just announced not one but two new albums! Dustbin of Empathy and Nictate are set to land on August 2nd on vinyl and cassette respectively. Dustbin of Empathy was recorded with Lambchop members Matt Swanson and Alex McManus, a gorgeous and intelligent new set of songs, sparsely arranged to emphasise Direen's one-of-a-kind poetic vocal. The cassette-only release Nictate takes sessions culled from the Dustbin recordings for side A, and side B offers up 15 mini-tunes from Direen and his local cohorts, pretty generous stuff we reckon! - Flying Out
The NZ-American Bilders brings Matt Swanson (Lambchop, My Dad Is Dead) and Alex McManus (Vic Chesnutt, Lambchop) into the fold, all with acclaimed albums in their saddlebags. Quality production and mature song themes reflect a lot of pure experience. Dustbin of Empathy opens with a voyage across Europe and down the generations, a tribute to the small people who survive massive events. One tune has an anti-war bias. Peace! Another is a trip of a kind — Angel (The Astronomer) is an eerie voyage into the “sinuses” of space. Most of the tunes were co-written, a couple were penned by Direen alone. High quality recordings, and the pedigree of the musicians, should make this unexpected album a pearl of 2024. It is hard to choose one stand-out track for campus radios, will it be the alluring “Lately Rain”, the epic Citizens of Nowhere that opens the album, the harder edge of Anvil Dark, the lap-steel engraved Scaribus or the already WFMU-blooded Custody of Love? Pure quality to take you from the Dustbin and all the way back to Empathy.
Tracklist
1. Citizens of Nowhere
2. Bad Night’s Sleep
3. Shapin’ East
4. Scaribus
5. Anvil Dark
6. Caprice and Nemesis
7. Lately Rain
8 Angel (The Astronomer)
9. My Father’s Enemy
10. Comrades
11. Obedience
12. The Weevil
13. The Third War
14. Statistics
