Mumbles Announce Debut Album 'In The Pocket Of Big Sad' Released 29th March 2024 via Divine Schism
Mumbles Announce Debut Album In The Pocket Of Big Sad Released 29th March 2024 via Divine Schism
Preorder - https://linktr.ee/mumblesmuzak
Stream Manchester Experimental Power Trio’s New Single ‘Violence & Stupidity’ Out Now
Stream and share on - Spotify / Bandcamp
Private listen on Soundcloud - HERE
February 2024 UK Tour Dates On Sale Now
Tickets - https://linktr.ee/mumblesmuzak
Manchester experimental power trio Mumbles are delighted to announce that their cerebral and hugely exciting debut album, In The Pocket Of Big Sad, will be released on 29th March 2024 via Divine Schism.
Produced by the band and mastered by Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, In the Pocket of Big Sad is without a doubt the lushest, most scintillating, mid-frequency-heavy bedroom epic you’ll ever hear.
The album will be released on vinyl and tape, and will be available to stream and download on all good digital service providers.
Following on from previously-released album tracks ‘JD Sports’ and ‘How Do Happy’, expansive and sprawling new single ‘Violence & Stupidity’ will be released on 1st February 2024 and gives the perfect taste of their energetically-rich, layered, skittish, genre-melded music.
The final track penned for the album, ‘Violence & Stupidity’ is all about change—how all-consuming the structures and systems we live in are, and how impossible to escape they can feel. Toxic relationships, extractive late-stage capitalism, chronic health problems. “They’re all pretty overwhelming!” says vocalist Jacob Nicholas.
Taking influence from American anthropologist David Graeber’s latest book ‘The Dawn of Everything’, the track’s title is a nod to another of his books, ‘The Utopia of Rules’, and there are also references to Ursula K Le Guin (another great writer on hope, revolution, and internal/external transformation) and a badly translated Finnish weather report.
Commenting on the single, Nicholas continues: “If there’s one thing my life while making this record has taught me, it’s that better things come with time, hard work, and community. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t linear, but it all comes in time. I am (mostly) a functioning human being now, and I am surrounded by incredible people.”
“Musically, this one was written in part out of spite after I was told we just sound like ‘Bombay Bicycle Club with fuzz pedals’, by writing a song that was meant to actually sound like them (with some obligatory janky breakdowns). Annoyingly, it came out brilliantly. Other reference points were Knot, Horse Champion and Girlpool.”
Mumbles have been gaining a strong reputation for the 400mph chaos of their live shows, with dates supporting Deerhoof, Melt Banana, and Horse Lords. Their live performance throws their joyous, desperate, beautiful and chaotic music into a maelstrom of energy, with something for anyone who enjoys emo, noise rock, folk, ambient and/or free jazz.
Imagine an unhinged emo Deerhoof fronted by James Acaster, if Bill Orcutt inexplicably teamed up with Porridge Radio, or some insufferable collaboration between Sea Power and Xiu Xiu—all open-tuned guitars, major keys and bursts of noise—but also like none of those things, as Mumbles are ultimately entirely their own beast.
Debut album In The Pocket Of Big Sad is released 29th March 2024 via Divine Schism
Mumbles Live Dates:
2nd Feb - Manchester, Soup
3rd Feb - Oxford, Port Mahon
4th Feb - London, The Victoria
5th Feb - Brighton, The Pipeline
6th Feb - Cardiff, The Moon
7th Feb - York, The Fulford Arms
8th Feb - Nottingham, JT Soar
9th Feb - Rainham, The Oast Community Centre
Tickets on sale now: https://linktr.ee/mumblesmuzak
Mumbles online:
https://www.instagram.com/mumblesmuzak
https://www.facebook.com/mumblesmuzak
Mumbles are:
Oli Knight (he/him) - Drums
Jacob Nicholas (they/them) - Vocals, guitars, bass, keys, viola, saxophone, drum machines, samples, percussion, field recordings, programming, mixing
Tristan O’Leary (he/him) - Vocals, clarinet, bass clarinet, recorder
More info:
Diving headfirst into the chaos of late-capitalist life, Mancunian power-trio Mumbles ask the small questions: How do we be good people at the end of the world? How do we even survive? What the fuck is actually going on? Inner worlds and systems too big to see overwhelm all the time, but friendship, community, and the ecstatic joy lurking in the mundane can get us through.
Written after years of life-threatening/changing illness for frontperson Jacob Nicholas (they/them), In the Pocket of Big Sad is a sprawling attempt to chart re-entering a declining world. Alongside drummer Oli Knight (he/him) and clarinettist Tristan O’Leary (he/him), Mumbles emerge as a shred-heavy, turbocharged unit, powering through the agony, the ecstasy, and the more agony of learning how to be a human being in all of this.
Incorporating elements of emo, noise rock, folk, ambient and free jazz, In the Pocket of Big Sad defies easy categorisation, but is ultimately just double-time indie rock with ideas above its station. The record is joyous, desperate, intimate and widescreen, often at the same time.
Augmenting the 400mph chaos of their live shows with maximalist arrangements, the album is covered in Tristan’s woodwinds, and frequently triple-figure layers of keys, strings, trumpets and percussion from Jacob and a host of collaborators, including Cambridge best friends Tape Runs Out. This sense of community, collaboration and commitment to placing Mumbles in the wider world is best shown by the raft of extra vocalists, perhaps most notably Toronto’s Porridge (he/she/they), who rocks up on four tracks to steal the show.
Opener ‘How Do Happy?’ is the album’s mission statement; a skronky, brassy burst of confusion and longing for connection. Ragers like ‘JD Sports’ and ‘This Lamb Wants Attention’ keep up the yearning, channelling heroes Deerhoof into noodling, labyrinthine structures. Meanwhile, more tender tracks like ‘Everything Just Sprawls’ and ‘Violence & Stupidity’ take a more traditional sonic turn, echoing inspirations like Girlpool and Beirut.
The melancholy commitment to cardio and dissociation of ‘Sprawls’ is shattered by the optimism of the David Graeber and Urusla K Le Guin-referencing ‘Violence & Stupidity’. “A winter is not an ending, all will bloom again” – we may not know what a better world will look like, but it will come in time. All of this leads up to the set-ending one-two gut punch of ‘Skejbyparken 2, st.’ and ‘Talking to Plants’.
The former obliquely explores the origins of illness and trauma in barely a minute, while the monolithic latter maps the rising and falling nature of recovery (and bags of cans in the park) over nineteen. Moving from pastoral indie to complete chaos, collapsing into free jazz ambience before climbing out again to an overwhelming climax, it’s an entire record in a song. The final blowout is pure catharsis, with Jacob’s repeated declaration that “I am scared, but glad to be alive” taken up by three friends over layers of fuzz and trumpets. A fanfare for living through this. A commitment to friends, to community, to healing ourselves and the world we inhabit.
Written, recorded and mixed agonisingly over almost four years by the band, and inexplicably mastered by Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier (he/him), ‘In the Pocket of Big Sad’ is the lushest, most mid frequency-heavy bedroom epic you’ll ever hear.
In The Pocket Of Big Sad album tracklist:
How Do Happy
JD Sports
Poached Eggs, Chilli Flakes
Drunk In The Universe
Everything Just Sprawls
Towards A Universal Theory Of Gender
Violence And Stupidity
All Those Feathers
In My Garden
This Lamb Wants Attention
Skejbyparken 2, St.
Talking To Plants
Stop To Be
