Description

The Bug Clubs second full-length album Rare Birds: Hour of Song caps off a year that has already seen the band put out a live album (of new, one-off tracks) and an EP. And, whats more: its a double LP which clocks in at an hour and four minutes. Now then, what could you possibly have to say that takes two records to spit out? Pay attention to this and learn. Its The Bug Clubs Hex Enduction Hour. South Wales Double Nickels On The Dime. Its The Faust Cycle for people with shorter attention spans. Their eighth release since joining forces with Bingo Records in summer 2020, Rare Birds is a culmination of a year spent relentlessly touring.

But its not one of those hackneyed road records. Its about birds, to an extent. Well, it is, and it isnt. And it is 47-songs long, featuring 23 Cutler-esque spoken-word tracks that weave through the music telling a surreal story to accompany the bands usual witty, taut garage rock. Oh, and it comes with a fully illustrated, 32-page book. Vocalist and guitarist Sam Willmett kind of attempts to explain: All the songs were written in our summer holiday lull before we went away to tour (debut album) Green Dream in F last year. Then we picked the lucky winners to go on the album when we got home around Christmas. We just wrote every day we were home, mostly in the garden. Thats probably why its vaguely about birds. All the songs are in the order they were written apart from the last two which we swapped around. I only actually remember writing one song. Passionflower, Paperbacks and Woodlice which came about as I was sat by a passionflower when a woodlouse crawled over my paperback. I thought it looked and sounded nice. We wrote the wordy bits in one hit around the songs once the record was nearly done. One big story. We think the record is like a fall asleep relaxation tape with the cartoon burd narrating and guiding you. Need to know more? Spare us an hour and four minutes. Thats what were asking of you here. Its a big ask, these days. But if you do, youll find yourself entrenched in an immersive world of The Bug Club. The other records with the sardonic and surreal, the riffs and the obsession with outer space were a run up. With Rare Birds Sam, Tilly and Dan have created an expansive environment in which we can all bask in a cocktail of garage rock, poetry, nonsense, wordplay, sentimentality and fuck-offs. Ivor Cutlers come round to play with Gordon Gano and Kimya Dawson in a semi-detached in Caldicot. Theyve made something youre going to really like.