The Mu-Tones; Video Still courtesy of The Mu-Tones
Manchester, England-based noisy garage pop trio The Mu-Tones today reveal their new video for their debut single “Slab City Records” here at The Big Takeover. The track will be released on June 30th through Ugly Man Records and supported by a launch show at Jimmy’s Northern Quarter in Manchester on the same night.
“Slab City Records” is a bruising distillation of the Mu-Tones sound, filled with filthy bass lines, scorched riffing, and railroading drums, it flies across the rails into a sizzling crescendo. Think The Pixies or Husker Du reassembled through frontman Anthony Grantham’s imagination.
This urgent noise pop is laced with an insurgent ode to a forgotten area of the US. “Its an area in America not even on the map, run by solar power, apparently they have gigs on there, it’s something I’d love to do.” says Grantham “Also it DOES sound like the sort of thing you’d hear Lux Interior saying, which is kind of what the second verse is about.”
The Mu-Tones is a band forged of three talents and a desire for direct communication, led by Anthony Grantham and joined by Alex Redhead (bass), formerly of Amplifier, and Peter Gray (drums) who used to play with Letters to Fiesta. Grantham was the guitarist and one of the songwriters in revered 1990s band Marion until they disbanded. Grantham reveals, “When I left we had stopped writing, at least together, and writing has always been a great joy of mine.”
Grantham also divulges info about the accompanying video, explaining, “It’s a performance video intercut with footage of Wilderswood forest where I get all my best ideas, I wanted all the shots to look as much like security footage as possible to show how tied to the grid we all are, in direct juxtaposition to the songs message of a place (real, but also reimagined) that’s completely off the radar.”
Mu-Tones launch their debut single “Slab City Records” at Jimmy’s Northern Quarter on June 30th. Tickets for the show will be available here
Ugly Man Records was established in 1986 with the debut release of “Wonderful Life” by Liverpool band Black. Over the next 26 years, they have had the good fortune to release debuts by Elbow, I am Kloot, and Josephine Oniyama. They have published football fanzines and books by Frank Sidebottom. Best of all, they are still here now releasing great music and finding even more emerging talent.
