Coming up in the NYC scene of the 2010s, the two-piece Washer have long been a beloved and consistent presence in East Coast DIY circles for most of the last decade. Sharing stages with people like Pile, Ovlov, Water From Your Eyes, Mannequin Pussy and Melkbelly, and even being name dropped in the lyrics to fellow NYC band Patio's track "Boy Scout", Washer have stayed remarkably active despite their relatively sparse recorded output. Today, 6 years after the release of their sophomore LP, the duo of Mike Quigley (vocals, guitars, bass) and Kieran McShane (drums) have returned to announce a new album entitled Improved Means To Deteriorated Ends (due out April 28th on longtime label home Exploding In Sound), and share a new single, "King Insignificant".
While the six-year delay between albums may suggest a stalled creative process, that couldn’t be further from the case, as the band had more than a full length ready to record at the start of 2020. When the pandemic stalled those plans, the band decided to commit themselves to making the record even better. Living in two different cities, Quigley and McShane would alternate taking a trip to either Brooklyn or Philadelphia, where they’d practice, write, and dig deeper into what they wanted the third Washer album to become. Of the 15 songs that populate Improved Means to Deteriorated Ends, only four were from that initial batch, and the result is an album that sees Washer retaining all the loose, ramshackle charms that have always been a core element of their sound, but finding a new level as songwriters.
This is exemplified by album opener “King Insignificant,” which lays out the album’s thematic arc, but also serves as an impassioned update on the classic Washer approach. The song builds slowly, feeling like it could unspool at any second, only to explode into a cathartic ending.
“We chose 'King Insignificant' as the opener because it features a few of the vibes found elsewhere on the record, and serves as a sort of overview thematically," Quigley explains. "It's this balancing act between acknowledging the many kindnesses that have been extended to me by people in my life, and this nagging, unshakable self-contempt partly in reaction to that good fortune. It's a sort of bristling at interdependence. Greased by vice and rolling forward."
Improved Means To Deteriorated Ends is due out April 28th on Exploding In Sound. It is available for preorder here.
Pile share a video for their dynamic new single “Lowered Rainbow,” the final preview of their anticipated new album, All Fiction, out next Friday, February 17th via Exploding In Sound.
“Musically, this one took a bunch of different shapes before it landed the way it did on the record,” Rick Maguire explains. “The structure of the song didn't really change much from when it was written so most of the alterations made were textural, and we pushed it further than a lot of other songs we have. Lyrically, it's about cults, conspiracy theories, and the trend toward increasingly imaginative beliefs about reality.”
All Fiction is an ornate, carefully paced study on the subjectivity of perception, the data-shaping despotism of big tech, and the connections between anxiety and death. In its most vital moments, it’s also a resolute recommitment to the restorative significance of art and imagination. Alongside the blistering drums and scorched-earth riffs that first galvanized Pile’s dedicated fanbase, the band has incorporated elegiac strings, mystifying vocal corrosions, and haunting synths.
Additionally, Pile have announced a fall tour in support of All Fiction, with more dates to be announced soon. The band is also playing 5 east coast record release shows starting late February and have an EU tour in the spring. All dates below.
2/27 - Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA 2/28 - Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA 3/1 - Ridgewood, NY @ TV Eye 3/2 - Ridgewood, NY @ TV Eye 3/3 - Somerville, MA @ Arts at the Armory 3/8 - Lille, FR @ La Bulle Café 3/10 - Paris, FR @ Supersonic 3/12 - Barcelona, ES @ Razzmatazz 3/13 - Madrid, ES @ Moby Dick 3/14 - Lisbon, PT @ ZDB 3/15 - Porto, PT @ Maus Hábitos 3/16 - San Sebastian, ES @ Dabadaba 3/19 - Bologna, IT @ Freakout club 3/20 - Milan, IT @ Circolo Arci Bellezza 3/21 - Zürich, CH @ Rote Fabrik 3/22 - Bochum, DE @ Die Trompete 3/23 - Amsterdam, NL @ Doka 3/24 - Antwerpen, BE @ Trix 3/26 - Malmö, SE @ Plan B 3/27 - Berlin, DE @ Badehaus 3/29 - Groningen, NL @ Vera 3/31 - London, UK @ 9294 4/1 - Birmingham, UK @ Castle and Falcon 4/2 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club 4/3 - Glasgow, UK @ Stereo 4/4 - Manchester, UK @ Soupkitchen 4/5 - Bristol, UK @ Exchange 4/6 - Brighton, UK @ Green Door Store 9/8 - Portland, ME @ SPACE Gallery 9/10 - Rochester, NY @ Big Jar 9/12 - Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern 9/13 - Detroit, MI @ El Club 9/17 - Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club 9/19 - Missoula, MT @ Zoo Town Arts 9/21 - Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern 9/22 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios 9/26 - San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord 10/1 - San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar 10/2 - Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge 10/6 - Denton, TX @ Andy’s Bar 10/9 - Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall 10/11 - New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa 10/16 - Richmond, VA @ Richmond Music Hall
Pile release a video for “Nude With A Suitcase,” the surreal and driving new single from their upcoming new album, All Fiction, out February 17th via Exploding In Sound. The album, which has been named one of the most anticipated albums of the year by Stereogum and Uproxx, finds the ambitious group assembling their most texturally complex material yet.
“This might be my favorite song that I've written,” says Rick Maguire. “Some songs feel maddeningly laborious to write, but this one was a pretty good time. I still pored over it and it took a while but I enjoyed the process. It started as an idea on an acoustic guitar and I ended up using a sample of my voice on a synthesizer for most of the song. The lyrics are kinda loose and abstract and while they mean something to me I don't know if I could plainly or coherently articulate what it is.”
All Fiction is an ornate, carefully paced study on the subjectivity of perception, the data-shaping despotism of big tech, and the connections between anxiety and death. In its most vital moments, it’s also a resolute recommitment to the restorative significance of art and imagination. Alongside the blistering drums and scorched-earth riffs that first galvanized Pile’s dedicated fanbase, the band has incorporated elegiac strings, mystifying vocal corrosions, and haunting synths.
Pile have also announced 5 east coast record release shows and an EU spring run.
As the name would promise, “Poisons,” the new single from Pile, is not subtle. With a drum kick that allows itself room to echo, the band assembles slowly but intriguingly, like an awkward machine bent on disaster. But it’s clear from the lyrics that, doom-filled as they sound, the band is in fact bent on change for the better. This song is just the alarm bell.
The structure of the song begins untraditionally fascinating and stays that way— the band never locks into a solid groove, but you find yourself headbanging anyways. Kris Kuss’s drums keep everything in place, providing the heavy leaning springboard for Rick Maguire’s vocals to push off. And push off they do—Maguire treats the words as toys to be played with, or perhaps dangerous objects to cough out as fast as possible. Either way, you get an impression of deep uncertainty, even as his voice stays deeply grounded. “It’s about trying to abstain from participating in things that aren’t really good for anybody but also feeling very unaware in general, and the frustration of trying to hold both of those sentiments,” Maguire comments. “Now heaven’s a place where no one else is,” he sings, but soon takes to screaming it, driving his point home. With the emphasis on the climate crisis, it places us squarely in front of the question: Is heaven a place so untouched by humans that we could never hope to exist there? If so, where do we go from here?
You can watch the video for the new single down below. This is the second single from their forthcoming album All Fiction, out Feb. 17 via Exploding In Sound.
A decade on from the release of their debut album ‘BLKLSTRS‘ – championed at the time by notable contemporaries from the likes of Biffy Clyro and Future of the Left – Leeds lot Blacklisters now look to the release of their brand new EP, ‘Leisure Centre‘, pencilled in as the first in a series of forthcoming EPs.
Recorded for the most part in Leeds with George Riley at The Penthouse Recording Studio, ‘Leisure Centre‘ is a proper rib-rattler, an EP you’ll want to press play on as soon as it’s over. By the time ‘The Wrong Way Home‘ rolls around you’re absolutely devoted to the cause – sucked in as “YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY HOME” is shouted at you over and over again. Elsewhere, the pummelling title track calls to mind Pissed Jeans, whilst ‘Why Deny It?‘ locks you into a stupidly catchy rhythm, before guitar and sax kick the door off its hinges and plunge the listener into a frantic, ear-splitting wig-out.
The US release comes via Exploding in Sound Records (Stuck, Thank, Pile), whilst Sad Tapes and the band themselves are handling the UK side of things.
Ahead of its release this week, we’re pleased as punch to have an exclusive stream of the EP in full. Alongside that, vocalist Billy Mason-Wood was kind enough to talk us through its production and equating the search for lyrics to being caught dogging.
“We recorded this record back in March… I say we, but actually it was only the three who play instruments. I, Billy, live in Berlin and for one reason or another, had to cancel coming over last minute. So Stobb, Steve and Dan went ahead without me.
We have got into this thing over the past few years, (partly because we all live in different places and partly because it’s fun) of writing and recording really quickly. Our last album ‘Fantastic Man‘, was written over a couple of weekends and then we recorded it live in two days. We’ve done a few tours where we have come in having not practiced and then got good by playing. Its added a fun element to being older and not having the same time we used to, to commit to the band.
This EP was all written and recorded in two days. They went in with no ideas on the Saturday and by the end of Sunday the songs were recorded. Which I think is cool. As I wasn’t around I had to record the vocals on my own, in sunny old Berlin… Now, March is a long way away now and that is because I took so fucking long to write the words and record them. I don’t know why, maybe because I’d never not written with the band or because I am out of practice, but I found it almost impossible to write the words. Every idea I had was terrible, every rhythm I could hear in the songs fucking sucked. The songs themselves sounded great but I was lost at sea.
By the summer it was getting a bit weird that I hadn’t done them yet and I’m sure that the band were getting impatient. The whole idea was to record a bunch of EP’s really quickly this year then release a full record. I kept trying to force anything out but it all sounded and felt like utter shit. There are about 50 versions in my phone of each song on this EP. Different configurations, verses, tunes, choruses. I’d never had this sort of block before. I’d walk around the woods, walking my dog, shouting different ideas at trees and occasionally getting caught by some poor fucker out for a Sunday stroll who had to come face to face with me acting like a mad man, shouting into my iPhone. It was like getting caught dogging or something. I’d shut up and slink away in shame, then start up again a little bit further down the lane, only to get caught again.
The first song to come was the title track, ‘Leisure Centre‘. And in the end it came relatively easily. I like how back in the day people had this utopian idea that we would all go to this place to experience leisure together, and that, that ideal was mainly badminton and doing lengths in a pool. If only we had those kind of societal aspirations today!
‘Why Deny it?‘ came shortly after. I feel like I was trudging over well warn territory with the lyrics to this one. I write a lot about the expectations of being an adult and that in someways I am stuck waiting to become one. But then something really cool happened. I recorded my vocals at the wrong bit rate accidentally or something, so when the vocals were laid over the track, they didn’t line up properly. As a result the song has this skewed off centreness to it which made it sound really cool and odd.
‘No Not At All‘ fell out of me after that. But ‘Wrong Way Home‘ just wouldn’t come. No matter how I tried to force it, it just wouldn’t. In the end I went to the band and asked if anyone could come up with anything for it. And Steve without hesitation sent through the main hook of the song. We then asked an old friend Rob Mitchell from Abstract Orchestra to put on some saxophone. He pretty much nailed it all in one too. Only the poor old struggling lead singer found it hard. Boo hoo. Wah wah. Buy me a present.“
