The Wytches announce new album ‘Talking Machine’ and share single ‘Black Ice’

The Wytches are set to release their new album, ‘Talking Machine’, on 10th October via Alcopop! Records, and have shared a new single, ‘Black Ice’.

Formed in 2011 after meeting at Brighton College, the four-piece – Kristian Bell (vocals/guitar), Daniel Rumsey (bass), Mark Breed (guitar/keyboard), and Bhav Thaker (drums) – frame the record against the backdrop of rapid technological change. Its title nods to Thomas Edison’s nickname for early gramophones and his ‘Tone Tests’, which showcased recorded sound by attempting to fool audiences into thinking they were hearing live performances, echoing contemporary debates around automation and AI.

Vocalist/guitarist Kristian Bell says of ‘Black Ice’, “Last year I started working a few shifts at a record shop. There’s so much 60’s music in there to play while I work. A lot of trashy 60’s revival bands from the 80’s too, like The Milkshakes and The Cannibals. I remember putting on a 7” of “Till The End Of The Day” by The Kinks. It sounded so heavy to me. Heavier than modern metal. I wanted to go down that route. Where the sound can blow your head off without using the usual sonic tricks we’ve used before. Black ice was the first experiment with that.”

“I’m especially excited to put this one out because it’s the first album since our debut where the whole thing was recorded live.” says Bell. “During the time I was writing the songs for the album, I started listening to all these really trashy sounding bands from the 80’s like The Milkshakes, The Cannibals, The Prisoners, Screaming Blues Messiahs and so on. I particularly liked The Milkshakes for this 50’s/60’s revival thing where they were borrowing certain sounds from those era’s, where things got particularly heavy. Heavy in a different way, almost like an accident or a technical issue or something. Everything’s overly distorted and powerful. Even Cliff Richard’s first album is really heavy in places. We tried to go for that with the production, gritty and heavy but trying to avoid the modern way that you make an album sound big and hyped, which is usually something that’s added afterwards. We tried to nail that big sound together in the room. Recording everything live instantly made me love what we were doing.”

The band’s upcoming dates read:

OCTOBER
7 HotBox, Chelmsford, UK
8 Where Else?, Margate, UK
9 The Joiners, Southampton, UK
10 Bunkhouse, Swansea, Wales
11 Cornish Bank, Falmouth, UK
14 Thekla, Bristol, UK
15 Hare and Hounds, Birmingham, UK
17 The Bodega, Nottingham, UK
18 Docks Academy, Grimsby, UK
22 Night and Day, Manchester, UK
23 Rough Trade, Liverpool (Instore)
24 FutureYard, Birkenhead, UK
25 The Fulford Arms, York, UK
28 Cluny, Newcastle, UK
29 Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow, UK
30 Sneaky Petes, Edinburgh, UK

NOVEMBER
5 Dust, Brighton, UK
6 The Garage, London, UK
7 Slachthuis, Haarlem, Netherlands
11 Point Ephemere, Paris, France
12 Buhmann&Sonn, Cologne, Germany
14 Merkeyn, Nijmegen, Netherlands
15 (Tough Enough Festival) Botanique, Brussels, Belgium
16 Molotow (Downstairs), Hamburg, Germany
18 Neue Zukunft, Berlin, Germany