(PR) Long revered for their exhilarating and unbridled performances, brakesbrakesbrakes have captured lightning in a bottle on their first-ever live album, Rock Is Dodelijk, due digitally via FatCat Records on October 6. U.S. audiences will have a chance to witness the band's notorious live show this October as the UK lads break a two+ year absence from the States for a support run with label mates The Twilight Sad and We Were Promised Jetpacks, followed by a co-headline tour with Ezra Furman and the Harpoons.
Brakes (as they are known outside of the U.S.) handpicked the tracks that comprise Rock Is Dodelijk (Dodelijk cheekily means "deadly" in Dutch), from two shows: a hometown Brighton, UK show at the Concorde in August 2008 and from a May 2009 show at Luxor in Cologne, Germany. Recorded live by drummer Alex White and mixed by Paul Savage (of Glasgow's Chem19 Studios, who also worked on Touchdown) and by Ric Peet, the live set captures the band's rambunctious energy and ear-splitting immediacy as they crash through choice cuts and singles from their acclaimed catalogue, including "Hey Hey," "Don't Take Me To Space (Man)," and "Why Tell The Truth (When It's Easier To Lie)?" from their third LP, Touchdown, released earlier this year on FatCat.
"The idea of this record was to try and capture both the essence of a classic live album and the roughness of a bootleg," explains frontman Eamon Hamilton. The first half of the album was recorded on the venue's in-house muti-track system, which allowed the band to mix instruments separately after the event. The second half however, as Hamilton puts it, "shows the band absolutely as raw as it can be, from the audience's point of view."
While the album's tracklisting closely resembles a "best of" compilation, it plays out as far more than a simple hits collection. The record both traces the band's development through song writing highlights in their musical career while also showcasing the passionate live versions and how they differentiate from their studio counterparts.
Brakesbrakesbrakes have always been two different beasts, live and recorded, a contrast that Rock Is Dodelijk fully underscores. "We like our records but there's a different side to the band that needed to be captured," Hamilton exclaims. "And for us, this is the closest it gets."
BRAKESBRAKESBRAKES WITH THE TWILIGHT SAD & WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS
October 1 - Chapel Hill, N.C. @ Local 506
October 3 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ North Star
October 5 - Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat Backstage
October 6 - New York, N.Y. @ Bowery Ballroom
October 7 - Allston, Mass. @ Great Scott
October 9 - Montreal, Quebec @ La Sala Rossa
October 10 - Toronto, Ontario @ El Mocambo
October 11 - Ann Arbor, Mich. @ Blind Pig
October 12 - Chicago, Ill. @ Empty Bottle
BRAKESBRAKESBRAKES HEADLINE TOUR
October 13 - Omaha, Neb. @ The Waiting Room
October 15 - Denver, Colo. @ Hi-Dive
October 16 - Salt Lake City, Utah @ Kilby Court
October 18 - Seattle, Wash. @ High Dive
October 19 - Portland, Ore. @ Doug Fir Lounge
October 21 - San Francisco, Calif. @ Rickshaw Stop
October 22 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ Spaceland