Relapse Records is proud to announce the reissue of the highly influential TECHNO ANIMAL album, The Brotherhood of the Bomb. The album, fully remastered by Broadrick, is available on LP for the first time ever!
Prior to The Brotherhood of the Bomb having even been conceived, TECHNO ANIMAL had already been championed/released by The Beastie Boys, collaborated with Alec Empire and the then-fledgeling Dälek, but still remained in almost total obscurity. TECHNO ANIMAL had barely found an audience, yet on The Brotherhood of the Bomb, the duo had definitely found their sound.
“The Brotherhood of the Bomb had a lot to do with myself and Justin’s obsession with Dillinja’s bass sound, and the love of playing No-U-Turn drum & bass records at the wrong, slower speed.” Kevin Martin comments. “It was also nourished by our addiction to the new breed of independent rap that had emerged, as we were paid up junkies for the likes of Company Flow, Anti Pop and Cannibal Ox’s consecutive classics. Hence why we had approached them all to guest on our album, and flatteringly. all of whom thankfully agreed to appear.”
The album was made by punishing studio speakers with overdriven synths through analogue hardware, and dub mixing the lot through Justin’s desk, which the two fought over who could get to the parametrics fastest, to do the bassline filter sweeps. “We were both just loving tweaking the fck out of the tunes and going mad on the aux sends/returns” Martin comments. “It was fueled on the atonality of mutating electro acoustic found sounds, and fcking with the stereo field as much as possible, whenever possible.”
Inspired by Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad to bring the noise, Jah Shaka/Aba-Shanti, to brutalise rigs, and filtered those indelible influences through their musical past notoriety. Whether they were known for pioneering industrial metal with Godflesh, or peddling grinding noise rock with GOD, the different aspects of TECHNO ANIMAL are palpable throughout The Brotherhood of the Bomb. The seeds for this album had been sown by making the transition from playing back rooms of pubs, and other dubious squalor venues into playing in sub heavy clubs with their monolithic, low end friendly sound systems.
Considered too noisy for hip hop heads and too hip hop for noise heads/metal fiends at that time, TECHNO ANIMAL were truly ahead of their time. Once dubbed “the future of Rock ‘n’ Roll!” by Alan Mcgee from Creation Records, TECHNO ANIMAL helped pave the way for contemporary, explosive, cutting edge groups like Death Grips, Backxwash, and Clipping, all of whom were inspired by the U.K. duo’s furious take on beats, bass and sonic weaponry, and all whom have cited The Brotherhood of the Bomb as an influence and a personal favorite.
December 7, 2023 - Hundreds of UK union workers blockaded companies who sell weapons or parts for fighter jets that Israel uses for its genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people. Four factories were blockaded in Bournemouth, Lancashire, Brighton and Glasgow.
Palestinian unions have asked for union workers across the world to use their power to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. Dock workers have recenty heeded this call for solidarity by blocking Israeli weapons shipments in several countries, inculding South Africa, Greece, Turkey, Belgium, and Italy. [video]
Discussing Skateboarding with Filmmaker Werner Herzog
