Interviews
Basque

Nicolas Couture of Basque talks the band's debut album, 'Pain Without Hope of Healing'

In March Kitchener-based screamo band Basque released their excellent debut album Pain Without Hope of Healing. The seven tracks are filled to the brim with incredible riffs, mathy moments, wonderfully created noise, and heartfelt lyrics that are delivered with power, pain, and hope. It is astounding how much meaning and musicianship Basque are able to pack into eighteen minutes. Pain Without Hope of Healing is out everywhere now via No Funeral Records. Basque will be playing New Friends Fest in Toronto in August.

Punknews editor Em Moore caught up with bassist and vocalist Nicolas Couture to talk about the new album, Basque’s origin story, playing New Friends Fest, Nic Cage, and so much more. Read the interview below!

This interview between Em Moore and Nicolas Couture took place on April 16, 2024 over Zoom. This transcription documents their conversation and has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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Videos
Umbra Vitae

Umbra Vitae: “Velvet Black”

Umbra Vitae have released a video for their new song “Velvet Black”. The video was directed by John Bradburn. The song is off their upcoming album Light Of Death which will be out on June 7 via Deathwish Inc. Umbra Vitae released their album Shadow of Life in 2020. Check out the video below.

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Listen to SUBB and Mudie cover The Muffs!

Listen to SUBB and Mudie cover The Muffs!

Today we are super stoked to bring you the premiere of the new Muffs cover by Montreal-based bands SUBB and Mudie! The cover is for “Outer Space” which originally appeared on the Muffs’ 1997 album Happy Birthday to Me. Speaking about the decision to cover the Muffs and this track specifically, they said,

"Without The Muffs, there would be no pop punk. Deeply rooted in our DNAs, The Muffs 1997’s pop punk hit song ‘Outer Space’ was an obvious choice for the first electro upbeat single of our unlikely duo.”

Br>SUBB and Mudie’s “Outer Space” cover will be on their upcoming Cat Songs EP which is a tribute to the late Kim Shattuck of The Muffs. The EP will be out on June 21 via Thousand Island Records. Listen to the new track below!

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Videos
Suzie True

Suzie True: “Leeches (Play Dead!)”

Suzie True have released a new song called “Leeches (Play Dead!)”. The song was produced by Jon Siebels of Eve 6 and is appears to be a standalone single. The song is available digitally via Get Better Records and comes with a video that was directed, shot, and edited by Sophie Prettyman-Beaucahmp. Suzie True released their album Sentimental Scum in 2023. Check out the video and song below.

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Tours
Redd Kross

Redd Kross announce double album, share “Candy Coloured Catastrophe” video, to tour North America

Redd Kross have announced that they will be releasing a new album. It is self-titled and is a double album. Redd Kross will be out on June 28 via In The Red Records. The band has also released a video for their new song “Candy Coloured Catastrophe” which was directed by Gilbert Trejo. Redd Kross has also announced North American tour dates for this summer. Tickets for this run go on sale on May 3. A book about the band called Now You’re One Of Us will be out in October. It was written by Jeff and Steven McDonald along with Dan Epstein. Check out the video and dates below.

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Danbert Nobacon

Check out the new track by Danbert of Chumbawamba- it's about how much he hates Koch industries!

Today, we are ultra-psyched to debut the new tune by Danbert Nobacon, one of the founding members of Chumbawamba! his new album is out Wednesday!

You all know Danbert- he has been an anarcho-punk icon for years- Chumba had like 117 songs about corporate greed (mostly set to dance beats), Chumba supported the coal miners and fought back against Thatcher, during the massive 1984-5 strike, he dumped water on the head of the deputy Prime minister at an awards ceremony, and he is a nice guy. Well, his brand new, massive, double LP, Kochtopus's Garden—Now that's What I Call Capitalism—The Musical, might be his punkest record yet.

The record is set in the future and is about two robots running around an America, now controlled by “Dark Money Anon,” as they question the basic flawed premises and inherent contradictions of everyday capitalism that is eating the planet. It is also kind of funny. The new single, which is the album's title track, is heavy duty…

Danbert has a lot to say on the tune:"Long time, multi-billionaire Charles ‘dark money’ Koch, the 23rd richest man in the world is neither the first nor the last, in a long line of ‘dirty oil,’ ‘garbage crude,’ robber baron industrial extractivists who have benefitted from the pillage of the planet to the detriment of everyone else. Nor is he the only one who, by hook, or by hydrocarbon crook, to use a relatively tiny part of his exorbitant wealth, to concoct a version of American free market fundamentalism to justify and to protect the business privilege of the industrial scale dumping of greenhouse gases (and a whole host of other toxins) into the atmosphere, free of charge.

He is, however, the most adept at organizing his fellow centi-millionaires and billionaires, to join him in financing such ideologically toxic free malarketry. He is the Wichita dark wizard of dark money. And in so doing, whilst magnifying its reach many times over, he has added layers of libertarian economic extremism, embedding it as the dominant invasive species of narrative, that has become the cancer at the heart of the American condition. The tok-space has dubbed this process the ‘millions-into-billions’ koch-math. Not least, by hosting twice annual war-chest-filling-donor-summits, Koch has been able to redirect the ‘chump change,’ donations of his rich pals—chump change to them being a few hundred thousand dollars, or even a million or two, each—into an unprecedentedly weaponized and aggressive defense of business privilege. And in return, the donors can expect an ongoing war of attrition against taxes on the rich, against costly regulations on business, and against any money being spent by government to help ordinary Americans, generating savings and perks for them that can be measured in the billions of dollars.

The Cato Institute think-tank, one of many, co-founded and heavily sponsored down the years by Charles Koch, hosted what has since been recognized as the first climate denial conference back in 1991. Around this same time, and predating the rhetoric and town hall busting methods of the Tea Party by almost two decades, by deploying groups like Citizens for a Sound Economy, to agitate against taxes and government spending, Koch evolved what Lee Fang called “the cutthroat tactics … anything-goes approach,” that would infect the Republican party and voter base alike. Meanwhile, by pioneering newly vicious attack ads targeted at wavering Republicans and/or primarying them from the right, Koch would begin to exert a grip on the Republican party and seed the thru lines to the Trump MAGA extremism which dominates the GOP today. And when necessary the same tactics would be deployed against corporate Democrats. Not least, Koch has overseen the defeat of attempts by Clinton-Gore to tax carbon, and Obama-Biden to ‘cap and trade’ carbon, whilst flipping the entire Republican Party into the party of climate deniers.

Like a corporate Jekyll and Hyde, on the one invisible hand, Koch has outwardly projected a libertarian belief in the unadulterated free market as the natural and best mechanism for a healthy and free society. On the other invisible hand, the really invisible one, he has deployed his vast wherewithal to working away in the dark, to manipulate the market every which way and mold it to best serve the bottom line of Koch Industries, the well-being of everyone else, and the planet itself, be damned."

Danbert's new album is out on Wednesday. It's a masterpiece. You'll be able to pick it up here and you can check out the new single below, right now!

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Bootlicker

Bootlicker: “Red Serge”

Bootlicker have released a new song called “Red Serge”. The song is off their upcoming album 1000 Yd. Stare which will be out on May 17 via Neon Taste Records and Static Shock Records. Bootlicker related their collection of EPs Lick The Boot, Lose Your Teeth in 2022 and released their self-titled album in 2021. Check out the song below.

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Navel Gazing for April 28, 2024

Navel Gazing for April 28, 2024

Welcome to Navel Gazing, the Punknews.org commenter community's weekly symposium, therapy session, and back-alley knife-fight. Chime in below with your latest playlists, record store finds, online time wasters, and site feedback.

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