Free shipping for orders over €40.00 in Greece with BOX NOW & €15.00 flat rate for EU (ex. Cyprus & Malta) with DHL · You can always Pick up and Pay your order at the store
Dirty Noise | Buy Vinyl Records and CDs
Stray
Bambara Stray
Format: CD Type: Album
Release Year: 2020
EAN/UPC: 0843563122211
1 Copy Left
Available for immediate delivery
€12.90

One thing you won’t be able to avoid on Bambara’s 'Stray' is death. It’s everywhere and inescapable, abstract and personified – perhaps the key to the whole record. Death, however, won’t be the first thing that strikes you about the group’s fourth – and greatest – album to date. That instead will be its pulverising soundscape; by turns, vast, atmospheric, cool, broiling and at times – on stand out tracks like “Sing Me To The Street” and “Serafina” – simply overwhelming Bambara – twin brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh, singer/guitarist and drummer respectively, and bassist William Brookshire – have been evolving their midnight-black noise into something more subtle and expansive ever since the release of their 2013 debut 'Dreamviolence.' That process greatly accelerated on 2018’s 'Shadow On Everything,' their first on New York’s Wharf Cat Records and a huge stride forward for the band both lyrically and sonically.

The album was rapturously received by the press, listeners and their peers. NPR called it a “mesmerising...western, gothic opus" and Bandcamp called the "horror-house rampage" "one of the year's most gripping listens." Shadow also garnered much acclaim on the other side of the Atlantic. Influential British Music DJ Steve Lamacq, dubbed them the best band of 2019’s SXSW, and Joe Talbot of the UK band IDLES said, "The best thing I heard last year was easily Bambara and their album Shadow On Everything." The question was though, how to follow it?

To start, the band did what they always do: they locked themselves in their windowless Brooklyn basement to write. Decisions were made early on to try and experiment with new instrumentation and song structures, even if the resulting compositions would force the band to adapt their storied live set, known for its tenacity and technical prowess. Throughout the songwriting process, the band pulled from their deep well of creative references, drawing on the likes of Leonard Cohen, Ennio Morricone, Sade, classic French noir L’Ascenseur Pour L’Echafraud, as well as Southern Gothic stalwarts Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews.

Once the building blocks were set in place, they met with producer Drew Vandenberg, who mixed 'Shadow On Everything,' in Athens, GA to record the foundation of Stray. After recruiting friends Adam Markiewicz (The Dreebs) on violin, Sean Smith (Klavenauts) on trumpet and a crucial blend of backing vocals by Drew Citron (Public Practice) and Anina Ivry-Block (Palberta) Bambara convened in a remote cabin in rural Georgia, where Reid laid down his vocals.

The finished product represents both the band's most experimental and accessible work to date. The addition of Citron and Ivory-Block’s vocals create a hauntingly beautiful contrast to Bateh’s drunken baritone on tracks like “Sing Me to the Street”, “Death Croons” and “Stay Cruel," while the Dick Dale inspired guitar riffs on “Serafina” and "Heat Lightning" and the call-and-response choruses throughout the album showcase Bambara’s ability to write songs that immediately demand repeat listens.

While the music itself is evocative and propulsive, a fever dream all of its own, the lyrical content pushes the record even further into its own darkly thrilling realm. If the songs on Shadow On Everything were like chapters in a novel, then this time they’re short stories. Short stories connected by death and its effect on the characters in contact with it. “Death is what you make it” runs a lyric in “Sweat,” a line which may very well be the glue that binds the pages of these stories together.

But it would be wrong to characterize 'Stray' as simply the sound of the graveyard. Light frequently streams through and, whether refracted through the love and longing found on songs like “Made for Me” or the fantastical nihilism on display in tracks like the anthemic “Serafina,” reveals this album to be the monumental step forward that it is. Here Bambara sound like they’ve locked into what they were always destined to achieve, and the effect is nothing short of electrifying.

From Same Artist

Dreamviolence
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€24.90
Swarm (Red Vinyl)
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€24.90
Love On My Mind
12" | EP
In Stock 1 Copy Left
Available for immediate delivery
€18.90
Love On My Mind (Green Vinyl)
12" | EP
In Stock 1 Copy Left
Available for immediate delivery
€20.90
Shadow On Everything
LP | Album
In Stock
Available for immediate delivery
€19.90€15.90

From Same Label

Wideass Highway
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€24.90
Hard Light (Crystal Vinyl)
LP | Album
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€26.90
They Live In My Head
LP | Album
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€23.90
They Live In My Head (Red Vinyl)
LP | Album
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€24.90
Better Off Dead (Red Vinyl)
In Stock 1 Copy Left
Available for immediate delivery
€9.90
Better Off Dead (Red Vinyl)
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€9.90
L.a. Shit (Red Vinyl)
LP | Album
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€26.90
L.A. Shit
LP | Album
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€24.90
The Rainbow Wheel Of Death (Forest Vinyl)
LP | Album
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€26.90
The Rainbow Wheel Of Death
LP | Album
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€23.90
The Rainbow Wheel Of Death (Purple Vinyl)
LP | Album
Supplier Stock
Available in 7 - 14 days after you place your order
€24.90
The Leather Lemon (Pink Vinyl)
LP | Album
In Stock 1 Copy Left
Available for immediate delivery
€21.90
Structure (White Vinyl)
LP | Album
In Stock
Available for immediate delivery
€22.90€19.90
Structure
LP | Album
In Stock
Available for immediate delivery
€19.90€15.90
Rhythm And Paranoia: The Best Of Bush Tetras
2xCD | Compilation
In Stock 1 Copy Left
Available for immediate delivery
€28.90
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and get all the records added to our catalog in your inbox.