SOLD OUT!
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
Side A is mostly Direen/McManus/Swanson spillovers from the Dustbin relay sessions, an alternative route from the LP. But this is no residuum. In 22 minutes, six tales of marginality pass by cafés of experimentalism and heresy, intersecting with psycho-acoustic secrets known only to the sound producers. Guests include distinctive piano from Tony Crow (The Thieves, Lambchop), grace from Hawk and a Hacksaw's Heather Trost (violin) and Jeremy Barnes' atmos-setting accordion (Hawk and A Hacksaw, Neutral Milk Hotel). Side B is no B Side. Fifteen micro-songs by the NZ Otago Bilders group made up of Direen, multi-performer Steve Cournane (Alpaca Brothers), William Henry Meung (found stuff, outlier circuit-bent synths) and long-time Dunedin denizen, expatriate American violinist Alan Starrett (also erhu). The music grew from a book published by Grapefruit in 2023 ('100 Years of Darkness'). The result was fifteen micro-tunes that fit together like an armadillo’s tiles. Separation, horror, war brutality, the mentally ill, the beauty of children … jagged and smooth fragments of an entire story-film, compact and committed as any Bilders project.
Tracklist
1. Custody of Love
2. Serpentine Tooth
3. Trip Slug
4. This Is Tomorrow
5. Good Guy Bad Guy
6. Cranky
7. Nocturne
8. The Wind
9. Cánh dồng hoang
10. How To Be Loved
5. Cargo 200
11. Donbass
12. La société du spectacle
13. Friend’s House
14. The Turin Horse
15. Ballando Ballando
16. Tous les matins du monde
17. Moro Naba
18. Jabberwocky
14. Greed
15. Walden