Male Bonding / Endless Now - SP934

Male Bonding is a noise-pop trio from London’s Dalston neighborhood. Nothing Hurts, the band’s 2010 debut was described by Pitchfork as, “…the sound of a fast, fuzzy rock band racing from hook to hook, plowing happily through breakdowns and guitar blasts, springing through scrappy melodies with style. It’s one of the happiest surprises of the year so far.” This new Male Bonding album, Endless Now, was recorded at Dreamland Recording Studio in Woodstock, NY, the converted 19th century church that birthed such classics as The B-52s’ “Love Shack” and Dinosaur Jr.’s 1993 full-length Where You Been. The band worked with producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Thurston Moore, Dinosaur Jr.) installed behind the altar and came up with an album animated by an infectious, evangelical zeal that reflects their roots in the D.I.Y. indie rock community. Eleven tracks—plus a wee reprise—imbued with the fierce urgency of now, and catchy as all get-out, Endless Now is 36 minutes of songs tailor-made to anchor mix tapes and playlists—if you can stand to separate them from the whole album.

If you pre-order Endless Now on CD/LP by August 30th, you’ll receive a free Male Bonding patch! (limited to the first 400 pre-orders)

Released: August 30, 2011

Male Bonding / Nothing Hurts - SP854

Emerging from the fertile D.I.Y. rock scene in Dalston, a gentrification-proof London neighborhood with ample “lo-fi” bands and Turkish restaurants, noise-pop trio Male Bonding plays fast. Nothing Hurts, the band’s first full-length, gets it done in half an hour, and most songs clock in at around two minutes. But, there’s much more to Male Bonding than high-speed, high-impact punk. If you will know their velocity, you will remember their melodies. Every song on Nothing Hurts, whether a clipped, snarling rock anthem (“All Things This Way,” “Crooked Scene,” “Pumpkin”) or something more foggy and contemplative (“Franklin,” “Worse to Come”), carries a hook that’s immediate and permanent. Nothing Hurts was recorded in the fall of 2009 in New York and mixed and mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound.

Released: May 11, 2010