ALGIERS – SHOOK – 2LP – Gold Vinyl

2LP – Limited Edition Gold Vinyl with Printed InnerSleeves.

While community and collaboration has always been integral to Algiers ethos, SHOOK brings this to its fullest manifestation. The liner notes read like a whos who of ground-breaking and contemporary underground music, featuring Zack de la Rocha, Big Rube (The Dungeon Family), billy woods, Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands), Jae Matthews (Boy Harsher), LaToya Kent (Mourning [A] BLKstar), Backxwash, Nadah El Shazly, DeForrest Brown Jr. (Speaker Music), Patrick Shiroishi, Lee Bains III, and Mark Cisneros (The Make-Up, Kid Congo Powers). Their contributions throughout deftly reshape and recontextualize the notion of being Shook from a variety of perspectives, occupying shifting roles as oracles and narrators. It very much deepens and broadens the world of Algiers, says drummer Matt Tong.

Atlanta, where the genesis of this record took place, is ultimately at its heart. It opens with a robotic train announcement from Hartsfield Airporticonic to many Atlanta nativesthat used to frighten Fisher when he was a child. Field recordings and original samples created by the band emphasize throughout a sense of place, collectivity, imagined community and home, all building a world that evokes the elusive sensory experience of growing up in the urban South. We were working in an environment that we were used to, says guitarist Lee Tesche. It feels like the most Algiers record that we’ve ever made.

The accomplishment of this record is made all the more impressive by the fact it was made by a band who were falling apart and on the verge of breaking up. But instead they have produced an extraordinary, transformative record born from a shared sense of place and experience. I think this record is us finding home, says Mahan, with Fisher adding: It was a whole new positive experience having a renewed relationship with the city we’re from and having a pride in that. I like the idea that this record has taken you on a voyage but it begins and ends in Atlanta.

Tracklist:

1. Everybody Shatter (ft. Big Rube)
2. Irreversible Damage
3. 73%
4. Cleanse Your Guilt Here
5. As It Resounds (ft. Big Rube)
6. Bite Back (ft. billy woods & Backxwash)
7. Out of Style Tragedy (ft. Mark Cisneros)
8. Comment #2
9. A Good Man
10. I Cant Stand It! (ft. Samuel T. Herring & Jae Matthews)
11. All You See Is
12. Green Iris
13. Born (ft. LaToya Kent)
14. Cold World (ft. Nadah El Shazly)
15. Something Wrong
16. An Echophonic Soul (ft. DeForrest Brown Jr. & Patrick Shiroishi)
17. Momentary (ft. Lee Bains III)