Just two days ahead of its official release on Make That A Take Records and Black Lake Records, we’re thrilled to give you the early stream of “What World Was Still?“, the third LP from Dundee, Scotland’s emotive post hardcore act KADDISH, certainly proving themselves worthy, decade old torchbearers of the ecossemo (Scottish screamo influenced emo hardcore) scene.
Recorded and mixed by Ross Middlemiss at a freezing cold studio in Milton Street, Dundee, and mastered by Robin Sutherland from a freezing cold studio somewhere in Finland, “What World Was Still?” harness the alternative perspective of emotive post hardcore and successfully explores the band’s signature, organic sound on a deeper level.
The studio in Milton Street is no longer there, having been replaced by a security company…. Time moves fast under the thuggish conditions of advanced capitalism, we have surmised (although all the surrounding streets are still named after romantic poets, which is kind of cool).
Owen McLaughlin and John put together the art for the cover and insert.
Robin Sutherland mastered the record from a freezing cold studio somewhere in Finland, which we find fitting. Many years ago, Robin was the first to record us, in a bungalow outside Broughty Ferry, east of Dundee.
Here’s what the band had to say about their foundations, ethics, the new record, its concept and influences:
We have been a band for many years. Our philosophy has always been that we play music to give a focus to our friendship, and as a way of making friends. Everything else has always been a bonus, for which we are very grateful. We remain ardent fans of metaphysics, Scottish football, black metal, long dead emo and screamo bands, internationalism and expanding cultural horizons. We are very far from being fans of Brexit or the Tory party (a sustained plague upon them, if you please).
‘What World Was Still?’ is our third album. Previously, we released a self-titled album in 2010, and an album called ‘Thick Letters To Friends’ in 2014. We won’t lie, it has been a struggle to get ‘What World’ over the finish line, and we wouldn’t have made it at all without the love and support shown to us by those in the Scottish music scene (all those mentioned above, for a start, but so many others as well). Getting older has been part of the problem, along with the attendant commitments it brings (joyful ones like family and periods of meaningful work, but also joyless ones like periods of dispiriting work and the anxieties and inertia it brings).
The record was influenced by reading a lot of Walter Benjamin and Mark Fisher. Change is a big theme: How can we be less terrified going to bed at night, thinking of the kind of world that our children will have to live in? How can we lose recalcitrant desires we might harbour to consume, or to be hateful towards ourselves or others? What kind of world is still after hard questions have been faced?
The record release show for this beauty will take place this weekend during the annual BOOK YER ANE FEST! The 12th edition of the gathering is just around the corner and will bring a bunch of great performances and evets to Dundee, Scotland. GO HERE to get more details about the event and pre-order he new KADDISH LP HERE. The band’s previous album “Thick Letters To Friends” was released over 4 years ago and was presented through an exclusive IDIOTEQ feature alongside a full interview. GO HERE to check it out, but first, taste their newest tunes below.
KADDISH are Chris Mylles (drums), John Cumiskey (bass) and Dom Smith (guitar/vocals).
1.) Four Categories
What’s a moment, stolen, to the years worn out?
What’s a heartbeat, frozen, to a life thought out?
Enough of your reasons.
Enough of what you know.
Enough of your answers.
Now say what you show.
I’m holding back the answers I need you to know.
2.) Affect Effective
In the sudden, silent, sadness, of feeling’s conceit,
You’ll be a witness,
You have an interest,
A mind to set to speech.
Be silent, then set it to words.
To have a mind to speak.
An affect, effective.
A sign that we have to speak.
To have a mind to speak.
3.) Withstood, Withstanding
The vague designs of safety,
That box, embitter, ensnare me.
A thought too fast to speak,
Will it slow?
I aim too hard to see,
What it shows me.
For every move withstood, withstanding,
Our lives are steps that take.
4.) Wear a Name
Wear a name, born of place.
The worst waste of a life you’d see.
Bear with the pain,
Outlive the fear,
Of sighs that long to sing.
So be the answer,
So break the image,
So bear the traces,
Let the sighs become song.
5.) Scattered Islands of a Shattered Idea
So say, all that there’s left to say.
All that you could not place.
With the eloquence of falling apart.
For a word, unworn.
For a sign, unshown.
We’re scattered islands of a shattered idea.
And this its silence, become resolve to speak
Who’ll take the parts for much more than the sum?
A shattered idea. A shattered idea.
6.) A Dream to Sleep
Sleep, my life’s honest sigh.
A dream to stop where you lie.
A dream to sleep.
Arrested time, who takes tonight, to weigh the world’s fate, to dream for always?
7.) Past Present Habits
To exalt the haunted feelings, fool,
Is to exhaust,
To play the ghost,
To a loss assumed.
A past present habit,
As old as is new.
What future could stand it?
To live with the past, with the ghosts it assumes.
No more haunted hopes.
No more ghosts assumed.
8.) For Solatium
A thought that settles it all.
A timeworn hard truth, falls.
The thinking through, a lie,
That aspires to….
As sum, sign, as fraction.
Be costed, be fractured.
For solatium.
A salve to save, for want of answers.
A song to break the frame, of fracture’s greed.
You’ll stay, static.
I’ll keep, moving.
9.) Throw out Thoughts
How to meet them through the years?
How to speak what they thought?
No more abject thoughts on the words just said,
Only joys thrown through time.
No more abject denials.
Hearts bound to bone, our blood to breathe,
Given a lifetime, our thrown thoughts should meet.
Could I make a harder test?
Enough to break a heart today?
A detail of a thrown out thought,
Enough to think the world away.
As if it’s to sing.
As if it’s to say.
10.) The Weary Debts
Of the weary debts betrayed us,
Our better thoughts will break them.
Find the words that break,
The eloquence,
Of that fated sigh.
Deep breaths, see straight through the eloquence of the pain.
Not a claim.
No default.
But a break.
