Emerging from the ethereal realms of sonic mastery, New Zealand’s most audacious experimental outfit, The Dead C, presents ‘Deux nuits à Paris’, two complete live sets that ensnares and exemplifies their ever-evolving sonic journey. From the pulsating metaphysical city of Dunedin, the band - Bruce Russell, Michael Morley, and Robbie Yeats - became a testament to the country’s under ground music scene, stirring the waters with their unorthodox sound landscapes since the late ‘80s. Profoundly philosophical and unapologetically experimental, The Dead C gracefully brush strokes onto the canvas of sound that are those recordings.
This double live album is not merely a recollection of a time and place but an exhibition of raw energy, spontaneous creativity, and the irreplaceable reverberations of improvisation and somehow, songs. The Dead C places the listener at the center of a spiraling vortex of fractured guitar notes, sprawling feedback, cathartic drums manipulations and enigmatic, submerged lyrics -- a complete immersion into their aural architecture. Each night is a journey towards the unknown, challenging the listener to embrace the implicit tension between the familiar and the strange. Experiencing this double live recording which happened in Paris at the iconic venue Les Instants Chavires, is wading through streams of consciousness, where every moment springs forth a new sensory revelation, the echoes of sonic experimentation ricocheting off the walls of reality.
The atmosphere thickens and lightens, enveloped in the three-piece’s enthralling ability to balance raw chaotic dissonance with a overwhelming overall flow of unfiltered expression.
There’s a reason why our relationship with The Dead C is Ba Da Bing’s longest running. It’s not because they are the hardest working band we’ve ever met. It’s not because they are the largest selling band we’ve ever released. It’s not because we’re inspired to support our local music scene.
Yes, there’s definitely a reason....please give me a minute...oh ok, I got it (just put on this record). Like every time I hear their recordings, I’m reminded that they are one of the greatest rock bands to ever pick up a guitar and attempt to play it wrong. Listening to The Dead C causes me to think differently. It brings up emotions of which I’m otherwise unfamiliar. It strikes to the essence of my being and reveals that which otherwise remains hidden. I take solace in knowing that one out of every thirty of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about.
On the spectrum of The Dead C’s sound output, Trouble could very well be seen as springing from the same realm as the massive “Driver UFO,” one of the band’s greatest tracks ever, off Harsh ‘70s Reality. There’s a youthful aggression here, a churning anger, deadened by pounding drone. Much like H70s, this record serves as a gateway drug - if you were ever looking for an album to play to a newbie curious about experimental rock, this would be it. The visceral strength of their performance trembles out of the speakers. The magnificence of their stamina survives each album side.
We are in a creative highpoint for the trio at the moment. Bruce Russell has just released a captivating solo album on Feeding Tube, while Michael Morley’s solo project Gate just put out a release on MIE. Robbie Yeats has been performing of recent as backup for Alastair Galbraith. The fact that there are still means to commute between Lyttelton and Port Chalmers on the South Island of New Zealand means these three can still find time to get together, and allows for what we have here today. And it’s fucking glorious.
LP version with free downloadable MP3s. “Patience is both appropriate and inappropriate as a title for the latest release by The Dead C. Inappropriate because its been only two years since the last album, which in Dead C Time is but the flicker of a candle; appropriate since the key to enjoying the Dead C is willingness to sit down, listen and let the music take over your mind. With an unforgiving and intense four tracks, Patience will not be confused with the work of any other band.” label info
“Max Harris captures the first recordings The Dead C ever made, back in January 1987. Each side displays a different and uniquely raw version of “Max Harris”-reinterpreted both times by a group who can truly say they have never played the same song in any form the same way twice. Anyone who doesn’t own one of the original 21 cassette tapes made of these recordings will be hearing them together for the first time. Yes, they’ve never been on vinyl before, so maybe one can even say this is the tracks first “real” release. You will be able to feel the slicing tension and drive right through your bones.” label info
LP version. “The elegance of howling guitar noise was fully realized when The Dead C appeared. For over twenty years now, the trio has continually redefined what rock music is and can sound like, and have inspired Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Wolf Eyes, and Comets On Fire, not to mention the current fertile underground noise scene. The Dead C is the ultimate blues band. But rather than departing from the heartfelt singing of the African-American South, they express the tenets of alienation in society with unrelenting force - a focused soundtrack to accompany Knut Hamsun novels, Samuel Beckett plays, and Ingmar Bergman films. Michael Morley’s monotonic vocal moan anchors the inherent isolation of our modern world - nothing is more earnest, nothing sounds so lost. In its career, The Dead C has oscillated between two poles. Recent albums explore drones, electronic loops, and musique concrete. However, their new album, Secret Earth, proselytizes oceanic feedback, catastrophic drumming, and a return to the cripple rock blasts of their early material. Along the axis of The Dead C’s recordings, Secret Earth sounds like it was created between Eusa Kills and Harsh ’70s Reality. It contains a straightforward (for them) expression of sound, while continually pushing their vast improvisational techniques into a realm of subconscious genius.”
Originally seeing the light of day in April of 1992, Harsh 70s Reality was not just a high water mark for that year, but for the ages. Technically this was the band’s fourth long-play outing, and as a double-album, it followed (and was ever so slightly informed by) two formidable juggernauts that preceeded it: Twin Infinitives and Lake. But it was Harsh 70s Reality that left the decade stronger and more resonant than it came in. People say that rock music died with the passing of Kurt Cobain. But The Dead C slaughtered it in its sleep with this tremendous set of grinding thud. It is in every sense the ultimate post-rock album. To hear it is to understand why one scribe back in the day referred to their sound as “a garbage truck backing over the abyss.” A legendary release from a legendary band on a legendary label.
There’s a reason why our relationship with The Dead C is Ba Da Bing’s longest running. It’s not because they are the hardest working band we’ve ever met. It’s not because they are the largest selling band we’ve ever released. It’s not because we’re inspired to support our local music scene. Yes, there’s definitely a reason....please give me a minute...oh ok, I got it (just put on this record). Like every time I hear their recordings, I’m reminded that they are one of the greatest rock bands to ever pick up a guitar and attempt to play it wrong. Listening to The Dead C causes me to think differently. It brings up emotions of which I’m otherwise unfamiliar. It strikes to the essence of my being and reveals that which otherwise remains hidden. I take solace in knowing that one out of every thirty of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about. On the spectrum of The Dead C’s sound output, Trouble could very well be seen as springing from the same realm as the massive “Driver UFO,” one of the band’s greatest tracks ever, off Harsh ‘70s Reality. There’s a youthful aggression here, a churning anger, deadened by pounding drone. Much like H70s, this record serves as a gateway drug - if you were ever looking for an album to play to a newbie curious about experimental rock, this would be it. The visceral strength of their performance trembles out of the speakers. The magnificence of their stamina survives each album side. We are in a creative highpoint for the trio at the moment. Bruce Russell has just released a captivating solo album on Feeding Tube, while Michael Morley’s solo project Gate just put out a release on MIE. Robbie Yeats has been performing of recent as backup for Alastair Galbraith. The fact that there are still means to commute between Lyttelton and Port Chalmers on the South Island of New Zealand means these three can still find time to get together, and allows for what we have here today. And it’s fucking glorious.
“Patience is both appropriate and inappropriate as a title for the latest release by The Dead C. Inappropriate because its been only two years since the last album, which in Dead C Time is but the flicker of a candle; appropriate since the key to enjoying the Dead C is willingness to sit down, listen and let the music take over your mind. With an unforgiving and intense four tracks, Patience will not be confused with the work of any other band.” label info
With nary a praising documentary, coffee table photo book or tribute band to their name, The Dead C are nonetheless one of the most respected, longest surviving groups in the history of rock. Still sporting the original band members (Michael Morley on guitar, vocals, Bruce Russell on guitar, Robbie Yeats on drums) from their first assemblage in 1987, The Dead C’s renown has a lot to do with their stubborn unwillingness to compromise in any form. With a varied and challenging discography, the band has never released an album requiring later apology. No The Elder. No Diabolus in Musica. No Trans. Each release demands appraisal on its own merits and exists separate from any temporal trends in underground music, save for whatever influence they’ve had on others. Armed Courage reaffirms their epochal career. With two side-long tracks, the record epitomizes the elements which elevate The Dead C to a level of worship. Compositions assemble and pivot, colliding new landscapes while undermining their very foundations. The Dead C exists on an intuitive sphere, with music never over-thought, yet rewarding when contemplated. 2013 marks the first time The Dead C has ever appeared on the cover of a magazine, and how appropriate that it was in The Wire, the only international music rag to celebrate anti-traditionalism. It is easy to view this as a highpoint of recognition, but the real achievement happens whenever that cognitive switch flips in the listener’s head, and they suddenly think, “I get it” - because from that point on, the promise of future satisfaction is guaranteed.