CRIKEY, eh? If ever a band there ever there was could reap the crop of a life in 2020 and use it as the richest, most fertile, dystopian source material, you’d maybe wish for Falkirk’s sharp studiers of the greyer side Arab Strap. If only, eh? Its actually 15 years they’ve been gone now. Malcolm? Oh he’s doing pretty well, carving away at the bones of life. Some great releases. Aidan? Lucky Pierre, L Pierre, Nyx Nótt, they’ve been lovely exercises in blurry, cinematic atmospherics. Maybe it’s all for the best though, eh?
Hang on, what’s this? They’ve arisen from the tomb …
Yep, Mogwai’s excellent Rock Action imprint have stitched the cadaver together, applied a jolt of the electricity fluid. There’s life there. Could consciousness have been preserved all this time? Moody guitars set the scene and are joined by that characteristic Arab Strap lofi drum machine.
Is this Aidan before us? “I don’t give a fuck about the past,” intones a rich Stirlingshire accent. The F-bomb in the first line; yep, that’s Aidan alright. Welcome back, guys. We missed you and we need you.
Aidan says: “‘The Turning of Our Bones’ is an incantation, a voodoo spell to raise the dead.
“[It’s] inspired by the Famadihana ritual of the Malagasy people of Madagascar, in which they dance with the corpses of loved ones; it’s all about resurrection and shagging.”
Arab Strap’s “The Turning Of Our Bones” is available to stream and download from a wealth of digital providers, here. For those of us who like a recording you can hold, Rock Action are taking pre-orders for a 7” of the track, b/w “The Jumper”, which will be released on October 23rd.
