‘In The Wake of Tyrants’ is the first single from IDKM‘s (I DON’T KNOW THIS MAN) EP ‘Turn Your Back To the Sun’ available worldwide now. Directed by Sheehy Visuals, you can watch the full visual above.
The new track was produced, mixed and mastered by Oz Craggs at Hidden Track Studios.
IDKM are a southern UK based melodic hardcore band, who enlisted some talented guest musicians (which included Joe Edwards who previously sang for a metalcore band called Shields) to perform on their new record. The EP is called ‘Turn your back to the sun’ (artowrk below) and was recorded at Hidden track studios in Folkestone by Oz Craggs (who has previously worked with bands like Gallows, Palm reader, Feed the Rhino and Rolo Tomassi).
Formed by and consisting of two close friends, Matt (guitarist) and James (bassist), the group aims to draw upon eclectic influences to produce a fresh take on melodic hardcore. Utilising talented session drummer Jay Swinstead (Small Mercy, Forlorn and Ghouls) and guest vocals from Joe Edwards (ex-Shields and Honeyflux) the pair were able to realise a longstanding dream of theirs to achieve a creative catharsis entitled “Turn Your Back To The Sun”.
When asked about how the band launched their project, IDKTM explained: “Matt and James have been writing music together on and off for nearly a decade before settling on a musical direction and finding the right people to help them produce something they were both proud of.”
“Unfortunately, the first Lockdown was in full swing during a large portion of the compositional stage meaning that the session drum and vocals were written remotely without any physical contact, hence how the band settled on its name IDKTM. Our session Drummer Jay started saving demo files as IDKTM (I don’t know this man) as he had never actually met Matt and the name sort of just stuck.”
“For us (Matt and James) this project is a long time coming and we’re so happy we found the right people to help us make the music we wanted to make and give us all something to work on during the height of the pandemic. It presented its own unique challenges writing the music like we did and recording in-between lockdowns, but I think it spurred a creative intensity and urgency which kept the process exciting from start finish.”
“We were fortunate enough to find a producer (Oz Craggs out of Hidden track studios in Folkestone) who got exactly what we wanted to do and made sure we had fun doing it.”
Inspirations wise, the bad admits that they both have quite far-reaching tastes including Metal, hardcore, alternative rock, Jazz and alternative Hip hop, to name some.
“Given how capricious an experience writing music can be, we find it quite helpful having a wide palate to draw influences from. We just set out to write music for music’s sake and didn’t set any creative boundaries. Just about the only thing we set out to do was to make the bass as audible as possible and take melodic centre point at times, as that’s something we both enjoy and don’t hear too often in heavier music.”
Commenting on their new single In The Wake of Tyrants, they continue: “We thought we’d start with this one as it was the last and therefore freshest song written. It has a high energy vibe to it which I think captures the excitement at the time when the project was finally seeming like it may see the light of day.”
“It’s the only track on the EP consisting of completely new riffs as having written music together for as long as we have, you invariably end up with an extensive back catalogue of material to ‘dip in to’ and mess about with. All the other songs have bits in them that are old, some of them are nearly ten years old.
