ALGIERS
SHOOK - CD

UPC: 191401178426
Label: MATADOR RECORDS
Format: CD
Release Date: February 24, 2023
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Algiers have always been unflinching, but SHOOK is at the same time notably joyous and celebratory. It was born when Fisher and Mahan found themselves back in their native Atlanta for several months, reeling from growing pressures and burnout as touring musicians. This triggered an intense period of beatmaking, reconnecting as friends over hours immersed in episodes of Rhythm Roulette and Against the Clock and descending deep into alt-rap YouTube rabbit holes. A revisit of DJ Grand Wizard Theodore's 1970s punk-infused New York City rap masterpiece `Subway Theme' served as a spiritual moodboard for the album's cross-pollination of urban and counter-culture styles. Across the seamlessly flowing set, including spoken vignettes and ambient instrumental segues, the band pay respect to a sprawling lineage of rap and punk iconoclasts from DJ Premier, DJ Screw and Dead Boys to Lukah, Griselda and Dïat - chopping and screwing beats on a dusty SP-404 and a Sequential Circuits Tempest, building imagined sample libraries from scratch.

Atlanta, where the genesis of this record took place, is ultimately at its heart. It opens with a robotic train announcement from Hartsfield Airport-iconic to many Atlanta natives-that used to frighten Fisher when he was a child. Field recordings and original samples created by the band emphasize throughout a sense of place, collectivity, imagined community and home, all building a world that evokes the elusive sensory experience of growing up in the urban South. "We were working in an environment that we were used to", says guitarist Lee Tesche. "It feels like the most Algiers record that we've ever made."

The accomplishment of this record is made all the more impressive by the fact it was made by a band who were falling apart and on the verge of breaking up. But instead they have produced an extraordinary, transformative record born from a shared sense of place and experience. "I think this record is us finding home," says Mahan, with Fisher adding: "It was a whole new positive experience- having a renewed relationship with the city we're from and having a pride in that. I like the idea that this record has taken you on a voyage but it begins and ends in Atlanta."