A Place To Bury Strangers 'Exploding Head' album

A Place To Bury Strangers released their sophomore album, "Exploding Head" via Mute October 6, 2009. The band had one simple goal during the recording process: "The original idea," says vocalist/guitarist Oliver Ackermann, "was to create the craziest, most f'ed-up recording ever."

The result is 43 mesmerizing minutes of pain as pleasure. You'll be checking the levels on your living room stereo from the moment "It Is Nothing" pulls everyone in earshot through a vortex of groove-locked rhythms and back-spun power chords (hammered out by drummer Jay Space and bassist Jono MOFO).

You'll be sucked in and blown away by the paranoid android pop of the album's first single "In Your Heart," the gorgeous gate-crashing melodies of "Keep Slipping Away," the Chinese water torture chords of "Lost Feeling," the sputtering percussion of "Everything Always Goes Wrong," the apocalypse now effects of "Ego Death," the sinewy, slightly sinister overtones of the title track, and the firework finale flare-ups of "I Lived My Life To Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart." The collection makes up the band's most realized recording to date.

During the "Exploding Head" recording process engineer Andy Smith (Paul Simon, David Bowie) took the band to "a whole other level" says Ackermann. "I love the interplay and contrasts between something that's pretty and something that's scary," he explains. "Taking listeners to different places—even in one song—is so important, whether it makes them cry or pissed off. If you listen closely, some of the riffs on this record are actually like Ramones songs or '60s bubblegum pop."

Called "the most ear-shatteringly loud garage/shoegaze band you'll ever hear" by the Washington Post, A Place To Bury Strangers are now poised to blow minds and speakers alike. Says London's NME; "The pleasure pain threshold has rarely been more blurred, but rock this ferociously soulful is only good for you if it hurts," as they noted A Place To Bury Strangers as on of the Ten Best Bands of SXSW 2008. Their debut release earned them a "best new music" distinction and enduring support from Pitchfork, and they have toured with the likes of Nine Inch Nails, MGMT, Holy F**k, The Dandy Warhols and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Called "the most ear-shatteringly loud garage/shoegaze band you'll ever hear" by the Washington Post, A Place To Bury Strangers are Oliver Ackermann (vocals/guitar), Jono MOFO (bass) and Jay Space (drums). They are poised to blow minds and speakers alike with the release of "Exploding Head." Says London's NME; "The pleasure pain threshold has rarely been more blurred, but rock this ferociously soulful is only good for you if it hurts," as they noted A Place To Bury Strangers as one of the Ten Best Bands of SXSW 2008. Their debut release earned them a "Best New Music" distinction and enduring support from Pitchfork, and they have toured with the likes of Nine Inch Nails, MGMT, and Holy F**k.

They've now hit the road for a US tour supporting "Exploding Head's" release (with support from Darker My Love, Dead Confederate, All The Saints and These Are Powers.)

Village Voice calls them "pedal whiz kids," which should come as no surprise as Ackermann builds custom guitar pedals (see deathbyaudio.net). "Exploding Head" was recorded with Andy Smith (Paul Simon, David Bowie) in Brooklyn at the band's own Death By Audio studios. The album's first single "In Your Heart" is out now and includes remixes from Vince Clarke and Cereal Spiller as and the exclusive B-side "Strictly Looks."

A Place To Bury Strangers tour dates
7/18/09 Coney Island, NY @ Siren Festival
10/4/09 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda's^
10/5/09 Washington, DC @ Rock and Roll Hotel^
10/6/09 Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506^
10/7/09 Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn^
10/8/09 Tallahassee, FL @ Club Downunder^
10/9/09 New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks^
10/10/09 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada^
10/11/09 Austin, TX @ The Mohawk^
10/13/09 Tucson, AZ @ Plush^
10/15/09 San Diego, CA @ Casbah^
10/16/09 Los Angeles, CA @ Echo^
10/17/09 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent*
10/18/09 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge*
10/19/09 Seattle, WA @ Crocodile Café*
10/20/09 Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret*
10/22/09 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge*
10/23/09 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge*
10/25/09 St. Louis, MO @ Firebird*
10/26/09 Chicago, IL @ Double Door&
10/27/09 Toronto, ON @ The Mod Club&
10/28/09 Montreal, QC @ Il Motore&
10/29/09 New York, NYC @ Bowery Ballroom&
10/30/09 Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Upstairs&
^with Darker My Love & All the Saints
&with Dead Confederate & All the Saints
*with All the Saints

Oliver Ackermann's Track-By-Track Breakdown of Exploding Head:
1. It Is Nothing
This song reveals the original idea for the album. I started writing all of these really heavy songs and thought I was going to create a nonstop ride of fucked-up rock 'n' roll but the melodies of the songs grew stronger and stronger and gave the album a more accessible direction. I love the way the vocals sound like they are coming from nowhere.

2. In Your Heart
"In Your Heart" was written on our last North American tour. During a break in Canada, we went to record in a barn with our friend Graham from Holy Fuck. We started playing this song out of the blue and I thought it was just too damn good to not lay down on tape that day. Of course, that just turned out to be the demo but this is that song, written in one day. I feel like it is a great midpoint between the more melodic and rocking sides of this band.

3. Lost Feeling
This song was originally called "Tribal" because the drums have this really bass-y, overwhelming feel to them that keeps the song rolling. I love the way it builds like a monster running around that finally catches its prey.

4. Deadbeat
This is the song we crush most consistently live. It's built on a twangy surf riff, which is definitely out of the ordinary for us but somehow fits perfectly in with the rest of the songs. It's really nice to finally hear it recorded properly.

5. Keep Slipping Away
"Keep Slipping Away" was a lead line I had going through my head for a couple of days. It took me a while to figure out exactly how it was played, but the melody is pretty much the same as what I first heard in my head.

6. Ego Death
This song was an old jam we used to play back when Tim Gregorio was in the band, reworked into an actual song. It opens most of our shows. I am particularly happy with how smooth the vocal turned out. It is definitely another one of our “scary” songs.

7. Smile When You Smile
As with "In Your Heart," this song falls nicely between the more rocking and melodic sides of the band. It starts a really solid three song run of songs that more traditionally crush but retain a strong melodic sense.

8. Everything Always Goes Wrong
"Everything Always Goes Wrong": Somewhat unusual in that it's one of the oldest songs on the album and the band rarely keeps working on something if we don't feel it right away. However, in this case I think we all love this song and we always knew it was worth it. To me it feels as relevant as and segues perfectly into, one of the newest songs: "Exploding Head."

9. Exploding Head
"Exploding Head" was written when I was trying to rewrite bass parts for "In Your Heart." For three days, I painstakingly rewrote and recorded all sorts of different bass lines and on the last day I wrote this one and the rest of the song in the same night.

10. I Lived My Life To Stand In The Shadow Of Your Heart
This used to always be our "show stopper" and is one of the oldest A Place To Bury Strangers songs. It always ends differently and always takes us to someplace besides being on a stage and hopefully the audience as well. I always thought it would sound great in a horror movie.

A Place to Bury Strangers biography
A Place to Bury Strangers had a simple goal for their first proper studio album, the exquisitely-damaged Exploding Head: "The original idea," says vocalist / guitarist Oliver Ackermann, "was to create the craziest, most fucked-up recording ever."

How crazy, you ask? Enough to justify that Cronenberg-channeling title, for one, as dollops of distortion and flecks of feedback deliver enough controlled chaos to derail a turntable. And if vinyl isn't your thing, well, let's just say you'll be checking the levels on your living room stereo from the second "It Is Nothing" sucks everyone in earshot through a vortex of groove-locked rhythms (hammered out by drummer Jay Space and bassist Jono MOFO) and back-spun power chords.

Pain as pleasure, if you will, a beautiful feeling that's maintained for 43 mesmerizing minutes, from the paranoid android pop of "In Your Heart" and gorgeous gate-crashing melodies of "Keep Slipping Away" to the Chinese water torture chords of "Lost Feeling" and sputtering percussion of "Everything Always Goes Wrong" Not to mention the apocalypse now effects of "Ego Death" the sinewy, slightly sinister overtones of the title track, and the firework finale flare-ups of "I Lived My Life To Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart"

"I love the interplay and contrasts between something that's pretty and something that's scary," explains Ackerman. "Taking listeners to different places—even in one song - is so important, whether it makes them cry or pissed off. If you listen closely, some of the riffs on this record are actually like Ramones songs or '60s bubblegum pop."

While Phil Spector's Wall of Sound approach makes its presence known in the seared surf guitar lead of "Deadbeat" and the hazy harmonies of "Smile When You Smile," Exploding Head's recurring hey-ho-let's-go vibe stems in part from MOFO, Jono and Jay’s previous project, a perfect fit for the already-in-progress A Place To Bury Strangers, a power trio founded by Ackermann soon after the frontman moved from Virginia to Brooklyn in 2003.

Space joined APTBS the following spring, but two long years passed before his old friend/creative collaborator MOFO was tapped to replace founding member Tim Gregorio. With a reunited rhythm section providing their piston-like pulse and Ackermann pumping out a 21st-century strain of speaker-swallowing shoegaze, APTBS started hitting their stride and burning freshly-pressed EPs hours before packed shows at Mercury Lounge and barely-legal venues throughout Brooklyn. While no one seems to know just how many impromptu releases have landed in the collections of the group's longtime fans, they do remember discs in the shades of green, gray, red and blue, along with a Christmas album rounded out by a raucous rendition of "I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus"

"Because I come from a real DIY sort of background, I've always felt like you gotta eat and help out the band however you can," adds Ackermann. "One of the reasons A Place to Bury Strangers has been successful is we've always been there to fill in the gaps, whether it's booking our own tour or putting a CD out."

As happy as they would have been self-releasing a steady stream of limited CDRs year after year, the band was presented with a more alluring proposition in late 2006 when Jon Whitney—the founder of Brainwashed, a respected underground record label and Web site—said he wanted to release a remastered collection of early APTBS cuts on his Killer Pimp imprint. Sealed with a handshake and a scribbled napkin, the self-titled disc's first pressing (rolled out in August of 2007) was just 500 copies. It didn't last long; hell, it will soon eclipse 15 thousand.

But, since Ackermann prefers the peak/valley experience of listening to carefully-sequenced LPs, he couldn't wait to create APTBS' very own album. The only problem? A whirlwind of tour offers that included a full North American trek with Holy Fuck, hype-raking appearances at South by Southwest, and an opening act run for Nine Inch Nails in the summer of 2008—one that was handpicked by Trent Reznor himself.

In late 2008, shortly following a support slot on MGMT's UK tour, APTBS began tracking new songs at Death By Audio, the rehearsal/recording/living space that Ackermann helped build in 2005. (The DIY-or-die building is also an independent venue and the headquarters of Ackermann's Death By Audio company, a customized guitar pedal manufacturer that counts U2, TV on the Radio and My Bloody Valentine among its many happy customers.)

He's quick to say, "I think Hank Williams Sr. said it best—'If you don't write a song in 20 minutes, you just throw it away,'" but there's no denying the insomnia-inducing work that went into writing and recording Exploding Head. After all, finding a balance between nihilistic noise and brain-burrowing hooks isn't something you just stumble upon. It's a formula you refine to a Technicolor degree, where the nasty bits are freakier than a four-alarm fire and the pleasant parts are like eye-singeing rays of sunshine.

To do this, APTBS first laid all of their songs down at Death By Audio, where they could develop each track without the pressure of a ticking time clock. Soon after the completion of those ongoing sessions, Andy Smith (an engineer for such A-list artists as Paul Simon and David Bowie) was brought in to steamroll some edges and leave shards of glass strewn across the rest. He also pushed Ackermann's vocals to the front of the fray, where he could emerge as a real deal singer amid all the severed circuitry and flame-fueled wreckage.

"Andy comes from this really hi-fi world, so he was able to capture some sounds in ways I never could," admits Ackermann. "He really cleaned up the whole album, taking it to a whole other level."

"His approach to music is like a mathematical point of view," adds MOFO. "I listen to it now and sometimes think, 'Who are these guys?' It's just such a huge progression for us."

The thing about Exploding Head's sonic leaps, though, is that they were achieved without losing a sliver of the strobe-addled danger that accompanies their acclaimed shows (The Washington Post called them "the most ear-shatteringly loud garage/shoegaze band you'll ever hear") and the rather bad-ass album that got everyone excited about APTBS in the first place.

"The purest form of songwriting is when your subconscious speaks for you," explains Ackermann. "Our sound has nothing to do with a particular processor or setup. You could give us a trumpet, violin and keyboard, and we'd still come up with the same kind of energy."

MOFO is even more to the point: "Hype is only going to get you so far. If your music is shite, it isn't gonna last long."

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Tracklisting

A Place To Bury Strangers - Exploding Head