It’s been a long time coming…The Kills have compiled an extraordinary career spanning B-sides and rarities album titled Little Bastards to be released on Domino on December 11th 2020. The songs date back from the band’s first 7-inch singles in 2002 through to 2009. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2 x LP, CD & Digital and marks the first-ever vinyl pressing for some of these tracks.
The compilation includes the unreleased and never-before-heard demo “Raise Me” from the 2008-2009 Midnight Boom era. Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince produced and directed a striking new video for the recently excavated song – Watch BELOW:
Often raw, intimate and zero-budget spontaneous, the album’s title is a wry comment on these excellent recordings’ neglectful fate: in many cases birthed on the fly to fill bonus-track space on CD singles, they’d effectively vanished together with the release format that necessitated their creation. Also: Little Bastard was the affectionate nickname that the pair gave to the drum machine which enabled their initial existence as a band of only two members for the first half of their career. “It was a Roland 880,” says Jamie, “which isn’t strictly a drum machine – it’s a sequencer, and an eight-track recorder, with its own drum machine built-in, and that’s what we’d record all our beats on.”
Other LP highlights include “I Call It Art” from the Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited covers compilation, the brilliant Midnight Boom digital bonus track “Night Train”, a blistering performance of “Love Is A Deserter” from an XFM radio session and a handful of classic American roots songs performed with the kind of bruising delivery they’re famous for Howlin’ Wolfs’ “Forty Four,” Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell on You” and Dock Boggs’ “Sugar Baby”.
First ignited over trans-Atlantic mixtapes shared between two kindred spirits at the turn of the Millennium, the past two decades have seen The Kills master a savage balance, unleashing artful detonation and subtle vocal and guitar violence. That’s five albums and four EPs where Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince reimagined the possibilities of modern duality – alchemizing garage rock, punk, and blues into smoke clouds, psychic carnage, and a smouldering nocturnal slink into a northwest passage between Outkast and Suicide. Their last album, Ash & Ice (2016), was universally lauded, and their most recent release – a 2018 cover of Saul Williams’ “List Of Demands” b/w Peter Tosh’s “Stepping Razor” – marked 15 years since their first album as The Kills, 2003’s Keep On Your Mean Side.
As performers, their chemistry is unmatched and unfettered; magnetic and enthralling whether drenched in guitar feedback or delivering a piano-led torch song under a single spotlight. The Kills have transcended whatever genres first claimed them and inhabit an entirely unique place in music culture. They are themselves. Inimitable and unparalleled, Little Bastards is a musical refresher manifest as a shot of pure adrenaline. Enjoy the memories. Long may they blaze.
The Kills – Little Bastards – tracklist:
1. SUPERPOWERLESS / Last Day Of Magic 7” (2008)
2. PASSION IS ACCURATE / Love Is A Deserter CD single (2005)
3. KISS THE WRONG SIDE / Cheap And Cheerful 7” (2008)
4. RAISE ME / Unreleased Demo (2009)
5. NIGHT TRAIN / Midnight Boom Digital Bonus Track (2008)
6. HALF OF US / No Wow 7” (2005)
7. LONDON HATES YOU / Tape Song 7” (2008)
8. I CALL IT ART / Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited Compilation (2006)
9. FORTY FOUR / Black Balloon 7” (2009)
10. LOVE IS A DESERTER / Recorded for XFM (2005)
11. THE SEARCH FOR CHERRY RED / Pull A U 7” Single (2003)
12. MAGAZINE / Love Is A Deserter 7” (2005)
13. BLUE MOON / Future Starts Slow 7” Single (2009)
14. JEWEL THIEF / Fried My Little Brains 7” Single (2002)
15. BABY’S EYES / The Good Ones 7” Single (2003)
16. I PUT A SPELL ON YOU / Screamin’ Jay Hawkins Cover (2009)
17. RUN HOME SLOW / The Good Ones CD Single (2005)
18. WEED KILLER / Black Balloon 10” (2009)
19. THE VOID / No Wow Expanded Edition CD (2005)
20. SUGAR BABY / Fried My Little Brains CD single (2003)
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