MOUSES Unpick White Privilege, Nationalism, & Bigotry On New Single ‘Huckleberry’ Out Now
MOUSES Unpick White Privilege, Nationalism, & Bigotry On New Single ‘Huckleberry’ Released 30th June 2024
Stream and share - https://tinyurl.com/mouseshuckleberry
Billingham Lo-Fi Garage Queer-Punks’ New Album bwywtb Released 21st June 2024 via Butterfly Effect
Select Live Dates On Sale Now
Tickets - https://linktr.ee/mousestheband
Billingham, Teesside-based based lo-fi garage queer-punk duo Mouses have revealed their new single ‘Huckleberry’, released 30th June 2024.
The single is the latest track to be taken from their long-awaited second album bwywtb, set for release on 21st June 2024 via Butterfly Effect, and coincides with the band landing the cover feature on North East music bible NARC. Magazine’s June 2024 issue.
A song that delves into our collective past surrounding race, slavery, and emancipation, ‘Huckleberry’ examines how a number of very conscious decisions by powerful white men throughout history have created a culture of bigotry and racist rhetoric that paved the way for systemic racism to have such a stranglehold on society today, it’s a powerful and reflective new offering from the pair.
Commenting on the track, vocalist/guitarist Steven Bardgett says: “‘Huckleberry’ is a song I wrote about bigotry, white privilege, and really trying to understand and pick apart how we've got to where we are as a society and civilisation that still values racist and nationalist bullsh*t, whilst trying to be aware of my own privilege as a white person in Britain today. Am I doing everything I can?”
“Centuries of whitewashing, especially post-emancipation, have erased the importance and certainly the impact that non-white culture has had in Britain and created a backlash of horrific right wing nationalism and vile pseudo-patriotism. I think the point I was trying to make was that it's not an accident. If you trace things back, to Windrush, to the emancipation of slaves, to tensions throughout slavery; Britain’s stance varied immensely, and there was a definitive pattern of ‘take what we want from them and then throw them by the wayside’. Jim Crow propaganda permeated its way onto our shores and still remains today, it’s just so propped up by the traditions of everyday life that it’s too easy for some people to forget, or simply not make the link—but obviously that in itself is a huge f*cking privilege.”
bwywtb is the pair’s first new material in 7 years after the release of sensational 2016 debut The Mouses Album, during which time the pair have raised families, forged careers, and explored identities. The band recently revealed AA side single ‘Illusion’/‘Nostalgia’ as an introduction to the record, and followed up with latest single ‘Fiends’, both warmly received with open arms from fans and press alike.
Comprising guitarist and vocalist Steven Bardgett (he/they) and drummer Nathan Duff (he/him), Mouses are a lo-fi garage queer-punk duo from the North East of England renowned for their raw, energetic, and often chaotic live performances, and their willingness to tackle societal orthodoxies and injustices head on.
They have previously played Reading and Leeds Festival, after being hand-picked by BBC DJ and Introducing champion Huw Stephens, and built a fierce reputation off the back of two DIY EPs and their 2016 debut The Mouses Album, with support from the likes of DIY, Clash, Louder Than War, BBC R1, BBC6 Music and more.
Following the release of their critically-acclaimed debut, the band busied themselves creating their own festival showcasing marginalised talent, and became a huge part of launching the Rebel Rouser stage at Greenbelt Festival, before family and work commitments saw the band take a back seat.
Now re-energised, ready, and raring to go with their first new material in 7 years and further live plans TBA, the pair are once more bringing their lyrically-uncompromising, sunshine-filled, psychedelic fuzz to the world.
Mouses’ second album bwywtb is released 21st June 2024
Live Dates:
20/07 - NEWCASTLE - The Cumberland Arms
27/07 - MIDDLESBROUGH - Play Brew Co.
25/08 - GREENBELT FESTIVAL
bwywtb album tracklist:
Edison
Jackanory
Hawaii
Inigo
Fiends
Huckleberry
Doris
Equinox
Planet
Worm
untitled
Mouses are:
Steven Bardgett (he/they) - guitars/vocals
Nathan Duff (he/him) - drums
Mouses online:
https://www.facebook.com/mousestheband
https://www.instagram.com/mousestheband
https://twitter.com/mousestheband
More info on bwywtb:
bwywtb stands for “Be Who You Want To Be”, a phrase and ideology that runs right through the album as well as everything Mouses do—it has become a motto of sorts for the band, and a call for the freedom to express yourself however you want, as well as a way to instill this confidence in expressing your true self into the Mouses audience too.
A feeling of hope is central to the new record, much more so than on their debut. Yes, there’s criticism of institutions, of corruption and abuse of power, of political apathy, of privilege, but where the first album ended at that—picking apart the injustices of the world—bwywtb comes much closer to offering a solution, or at the very least a feeling of how to move forward.
Recorded in a bedroom in Bargett’s house between the summer of 2018 and the spring of 2019, and mixed by producer Rob Irish, bwywtb turns their experiences with The Mouses Album on its head.
“On the first album we felt like we spent a whole lot of time trying to make a studio recording sound like it was recorded in a bedroom,” laughs Bardgett of the band’s comparative studio sessions. “This time, we wanted to do just that.”
“There’s just something about DIY recording, especially in somewhere so homely, so familiar, that creates such a calmer environment. We felt we truly had time to experiment with different ideas, create more complex structures and compositions, all the while keeping that raw Mouses sound. There’s obviously drawbacks in the technology and space when doing something like this, but the ability to really take our time over writing parts, writing lyrics, and capturing a performance we were truly happy with hugely outweighed that.”
