HAAL

Today, Four-piece Bristol outfit HAAL have released their debut EP “Back To Shilmarine” via Babka Records. The EP release comes on the heels of their recent singles “Platform 1, 18:19” and “Vinculum”, as well as a short run of live dates across the UK.

Combining elements of post-rock, trip-hop, and industrial music, HAAL have quickly become cult favourites in the UK live scene. Their psychotropic blend of samples, DIY pedals, and monolithic instrumentation, has seen the band play and tour alongside the likes of Butch Kassidy, Cowboyy, Deliluh, Treeboy & Arc, Ditz, Gurriers, and Pet Shimmers, as well as appearing festivals such as ArcTanGent, Dot to Dot, and Wanderlust.

Following their recent singles “Janus” and “Judy” (and subsequent remixes by Water From Your Eyes and Crimewave), the new EP “Back To Shilmarine” arrives as a blistering snapshot of the band’s protean dynamism. The band celebrate their late-90s / early-00s influences in a caustic yet melodic blend of tracks that nod as much to the output of labels such as Dischord, Touch & Go, and Nothing Records, as they do their contemporaries in the UK scene such as SCALER, Famous, deathcrash, and LICE. The EP sees them bring all these touchstones together to create a unique and uninhibited maelstrom of sound that spans everything from intricate math-inflected guitar lines and pensive vocals to propulsive drumming, totemic riffing, and warped synths.

Speaking on the new EP, frontman Alfie Hay, says: "this EP encapsulates the last 4 years of being a band and being creatively involved, with many of the ideas starting off in 2020 with around 4 years of development, experimenting with them by playing them live and seeing what still excited us. This is why we held off recording for so long, as we didn’t want to commit to something we didn’t fully believe in.

The longer we played together, the more important we realised that atmosphere and feeling was to the music, as well as having melody and hooks. Negative space can play as much a part in a song, as can filling it with pure noise and with this EP we sought to embody this idea in the most potent form we could, utilising both the heaviest noise with the most tender of space.

Much of the sound of the EP was dictated by our bassist Joe’s handmade pedals. Rather than being sonically boxed in by the gear we’d have to buy from shops, any of us can quite literally conceive of a sound that we want to hear and Joe can made it happen. Joe said the main influence for doing this was so that we didn’t fall into the trap of sounding like anybody else and could synthesise a more unique sound and carve out our own unique sonic identity, rather than relying on other people to do so for us."

In the run up to release, the band gave fans a first taste of the EP with what was arguably their heaviest song to date, “Platform 1, 18:19”, melding motorik rhythms and hypnotic riffs with sudden explosions of noise and power. This was then followed by “Vinculum”, which showcased a more stripped back facet of the band’s sound, cycling in an almost jam-like fashion, whilst the vocals twist and corrupt around glitchy guitar lines.

To mark the EP’s release, the band have released a new video for “To Be A Machine”.

Lyrically, the EP explores themes of cosmic existentialism, absurdism, meaning, inner reflection, science, history, and general philosophy. “All the lyrics are musings or verses that I wrote to myself; various mantras to repeat or ideas to reflect on solitarily,” says Hay       . “I then found them to fit our music, despite all being written at wildly different times. I like to draw inspiration from things naturally abstracted from music, such as video games, books and paintings and utilise the feelings they imbued into me. 

I enjoy imagining that we’re soundtracking those certain pieces of art, whether that’s a soundtrack to a book that never became a film, or sonically matching the narrative of a certain painting. This EP is a loveletter to that idea.

 I even included a statement on 'To Be A Machine' that the actor William Shatner gave a journalist on when actually going up into space for the first time: “they should’ve brought a poet up here”. Ironically, I think that line is inadvertently beautiful and poetic, summing up an experience that only a select few will ever have, yet it weirdly reverberates with my own reflections on the universe and therefore, I felt compelled to immortalise it on this EP and for myself.”

The record was once again recorded with long-time collaborator Alfie Tyson Brown (Katy J Pearson, LICE, Lazarus Kane) at The Louisiana in Bristol. The band also have a tight knit collaborative circle around them in the Bristol scene, this is particularly notable around the band’s imagery. The entire art direction – all the EP artwork, photography, and video work – has been a process between the band’s friends.

“I think having good imagery and art can only continue to serve what you’re trying to achieve,” Hay continues. “We’re not very interesting to look at when we play live, so if we can have artists accompany our music projecting their visuals behind us, it gives the audience a more engaging experience.

We’re also very lucky to have a talented group of friends who are all photographers, graphic designers, film makers and more, so it was very fun to work on this EP collaboratively. We’re not personally a fan of taking press photos too much, as we feel it can really only satisfy a vague sense of narcissism that we don’t have, so to do a shoot that showcases our friend’s art and talent by wearing the costumes they made for us felt more embodying for us as a band and people.

Particularly, I’d like to highlight Ivy Upjohn of Bristol based Clump Collective, who hand crafted the ‘relic’ seen on the front cover in the main image and the TBAM music video, an absolute genius who we are indebted to.”

HAAL’s use of visuals is intrinsically tied to their music and is a focal point of their live shows with them performing in front of visceral, carefully curated images and animations. The band will be heading out on the road to play a number of shows to celebrate new EP’s release, including a return to ArcTanGent Festival in August. Full dates are as follows:

13/05/24 – The Lab, Northampton w/ Thistle +  sadplanet
18/05/24 - Rough Trade, Bristol w/ Jerome + GravyTrain + Ekhidna
06/06/24 - The George Tavern, London w/ Unlucky + Sulk
13/06/24 – The Hope And Ruin, Brighton
02/08/24 – The Flapper, Birmingham w/ Graywave + Vertigo Flowers
16/08/24 - ArcTanGent Festival, Bristol