Third Culture Kings debut album due 19 August 2017
Album release: ‘Is That Light You Carry?’ by Third Culture Kings
Release date: 19 August 2017
Label: Weed Recordings
More info: Band Facebook
‘Is That Light You Carry?’ is the debut record from Third Culture Kings, a new project led by Jan Johansen (Glorybox) and Alap Momin (dälek). Filtering classic vibes through modern interpretation, 3CK reimagine The Velvet Underground or Leonard Cohen as if they had been mixed by King Tubby and Afrika Bambaataa, all the while incorporating influences as diverse as Indian drone, early 80’s synth pads and Miami booty bass.
Still, it’s worth noting that there’s nothing about these recordings that’s rooted in the past: nearly every sound on the record - sans lead vocals and guitar – was created or recorded directly to an iPhone. Momin created the beats, bass and majority of synth lines on his device, while Johansen then recorded backing vocals, second guitar, vibraphone, piano, horns, rhodes, and melodica as voice memos on his that were eventually dropped on top of the finished tracks.
Cuts like ‘Seven Slayers’ send you on an arcane descent into alien subterranea, while ‘Sunshine For Sadie’ floats you across a dreamy, space-like universe. Elsewhere in tracks like ‘Flamingo’ and ‘Higher’, rock and roll guitars are juxtaposed with rattlesnake drums, creating ambient desert soundscapes perfect for an imagined intergalactic western. Throughout the record, hypnotic layers of sound and ambient psychedelics grip you to an electric-folk universe in which slow bubbling beats are matched with woozy flourishes and gently propellant melodies.
There are few acts claiming to channel Vangelis and Suicide at the same time, and even fewer that also shout out their love of Doo Wop, UK Bass, and Chicago House in the same breath, but this international duo manage to strike all those notes and more. Veteran performers who’ve outlasted endless trends and toured the world for the better part of the last two Third Culture Kings aren’t afraid to stretch the boundaries of style. The eclectic, yet cohesive group of songs in their live shows complement bills featuring everything from shoegaze to commercial R&B.
Jan Johansen hails from Copenhagen and has toured all over Europe, the U.S., and Japan with his old band Glorybox sharing stages with acts including Iggy and The Stooges and Marilyn Manson. He's recorded and toured playing guitar, drums, sitar, percussion, keys, and vocals with Serena Maneesh, Neil Halstead (Slowdive/Mojave3), Sufjan Stevens, and many many more. He also currently performs in the Danish indie rock band Ring Them Bells.
Alap Momin, from New York City, better known as the Oktopus was a founding member and producer of the ground-breaking noise/hip-hop group dälek. Over the course of 15 years they released seven full-lengths worldwide while working with labels including Ipecac Recordings, Matador Records, Southern Records, and Tigerbeat 6. They performed alongside an incredible batch of artists, amongst them De La Soul, KRS-One, Tool, Fantomas, Isis, John Zorn, Mike Patton, The Melvins, Moby, Prince Paul, The Roots, Massive Attack, Kraftwerk, Amon Tobin, Sonic Youth, Mars Volta, Saul Williams, and Flying Lotus. Alap has also been a recording and mix engineer for the past 24 years working on music from The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Rye Coalition, Charles Hayward (This Heat), Faust, Will Oldham, David Byrne, Yann Tiersen, Alan Vega, Ted Leo, Eric Bachmann, and many more.