information broadcast transmission!

i've been on a weird suede trip all night, there's this quote from brett anderson that totally stood out amongst all his "im pretty gay, honest" posturing. he's talking about the thought processes of being in band and keeping shit together thru the peaks and troughs: "it's like you're a bull in a china shop, you keep going and eventually you just become a better bull in a china shop." It made me laugh but im not quite sure why. anyway, i put it here cos such a long post probably deserves some quotation as a preface. this is one of the most epic text heavy info post we've ever done, and, whilst its all desperately important and relevant, thats no excuse for slouchy posture, so plz ensure yr orthopaedically comfortable.

We have a new press guy! he's actually our old press guy, which is why i know he's going to forgive us for doing this stuff on a friday evening when everyone in teh industry knows you wait till monday to do announcings. HELLO JAMES! SORRY!

Item #1

i fucking hate press releases. vast deluded interchangeable wastelands of superlative; deluded promises of relevance, clichés recycled as tradition, and exaggerations so oft repeated as to make writing them again a waste of ink and electricity and oxygen. written by dinosaurs for other dinosaurs.

here is our press release then. i've kept some of the obnoxious exaggeration in for old times sake.

we chose to walk away from doing a third record with best before. the reasons you don't really need to know about, except to say they're probably identical to the arguements had by every righteous indie band of the 00s with their labels funded with money from the 90s, only magnified our need to overdramatise everything, guitars that just don't stay fixed, and trying to work out who we know from 'kill your friends' IRL.

we're really proud to say, our next couple of records will be released with alcopop. it's pretty rare to get a label that's genuinely excited by the increased need for creative and fun ways to sell records, and we're flattered that the one that has the bands we like also likes us. I heard that Jack who runs it won't deal with bands who don't want control over their artwork, and that he doesn't want to do a standard cd release ever again. We've found a pretty suitable home...
the internet hasn't killed the industry, its just split it into the big money players that have to recoup thru dwindling cd sales, and the genuinely independant side that never planned for a pension in the first place. we've been broke since ever, so we know which side we stand on, and you lovely people are going to receive better products as a result.

so, our first record on alcopop (and our first 12"!) is a schizoid collection of 6 songs that have no common theme apart from us thinking they fit together, like a photo scrapbook of summer adventures or some weird dream where the scenery changed and you didn't notice. there's 3 songs in drop-d, recorded by our long time friend and producer dom james. one of them is probably the loudest we've ever been. the other songs were made by us in bedrooms on long weekends off. one of them we still need to finish, ooops!

it has the provisional title of "there when you need it", tho we reserve the right to change that on a whim or chance misunderstanding. out at start of november is the plan, on 12" and digitals, and a postcard for each song drawn by famous Topshop designer lewes herriot.


we'll be celebrating in the traditional manner of a UK tour in november. A few dates have already leaked onto the interwebs and we're confirming the rest and will tell you all soon enough. Support for all dates will be super radical reading/leeds headliners (and labelmates, woot!) stagecoach, and we'll have a pretty awesome surprise for around then too, which you'll be hearing more about soon. we don't want to flood peoples brains with our band, even tho that would be awesome and we could control you all like in syndicate, and fit you with bionic limbs and laser pistol upgrades.

so yeh, that's the first part of this epic broadcast done. as background information, we've moved into the nicest and most colourful practise space in the world ever. It's called floodgate street CIC, tho we're going to call it candyland, and its a whole world away from the resident evil set we used to rehearse in a mile walk out of town. also, no stairs! PERFECT. and! our bank account was (briefly) in the black for literally the first time ever last week, and! today we sent an order off to get a set of "grace.." badges lewes designed for us ages ago made.

So, is everyone still reading? totally not done yet. I'm so used to coming on here and moaning i kind of worry people'll switch off if i'm too positive.

Item #2

its with a heavy heart that we've had to remove some paragraphs here whilst some Stuff is Sorted. lets just say, america news, public knowledge next week, massive fucking smiles all round. shit yes.



Item #3

or, better commerce through exorcism.

its become apparent to us that trying to make a living selling melody is a pretty bad idea for a quick ride to the gold plated swimming pools we covet so much. Top Gear still refuses to license our songs and apparently some of you people are copying our music digitally off the internet, which is the same as stealing our cars and helps fund pirates who rape babies for satan. so, behold our brand expansion into the world of collectible super random box plush toys. dammit if this were japan we'd be so minted by now. or sued by namco, but tbh we'd quite like the publicity. anyway scott pilgrim, get off our zeitgeist.

exorcism project!

please buy from us 20 of our ghosts, unique handmade kawaii physical manifestations of things that have haunted us over the last few years and should really be passed over. they were brought to plush toy form using love and soft materials by sarah graley and each one is about as big as her hand.

they come with an authenticationarisation certificate containing individual handmade & signed backstory and storage instructions, as well as a download & lyric sheet for '199x', a sad new song we made for especially for this project that you can't hear anywhere else.

here is our merch store where you can buy one.
and here is the gallery of available spirits.

successful applicants are encouraged to (liberally) follow storage instructions and send pictorial proof to us, which we'll include in said gallery.

we have no control over which ghost appears in yr mail. you can't choose a particular fear or regret, LIFE DOESNT WORK OUT LIKE THAT.

kcools, we hope you like thems. if this all goes swimmingly and we sell out superfast, we'll maybe do some more, and soon our lives will be cleansed without having to resort to scientology. everyone wins. k awesomes good luck!


okay, here ends epic transmission. stay close and next week we'll announce dates of things and that amazing thing we're bursting to tell you but have been politely asked to refrain. fsdujnba fjagnwije!!!!!!!!!!!!!

be excellent to each other

xx