Giant Swan incoming on FuckPunk

The Bristol-based noise merchants loom large with Earn on the upstart label.

By now we’re well aware that FuckPunk is a place where some of the most rotten, gutter-dwelling ideas in the Bristol musical hive mind lurk, offering a halfway house for ill-intended ideas from the likes of Ossia, Vessel and many more. Operating in tandem with No Corner and other such Young Echo-affiliated concerns, it’s a place where ideas as rowdy as the Abba-baiting Gimme! Gimme! Gabba! can exist in a space as purposeful as it is irreverent. The ^____^ album from MXLX was a blistering finish to last year’s proceedings, accompanied by the Overdue cassette from local wordsmith Chester Giles, but now 2016 sees FuckPunk turning to a release which seems to leave the japery of the early releases behind altogether and get seriously serious.

Giant Swan have been loitering around the alternative underbelly of Bristol for some years, dropping their first self-titled, standalone record last year on Howling Owl. They formed as a spin-off from The Naturals (who you might remember featured in our story about a Young Echo radio broadcast many years ago), and have been busy gigging alongside the likes of Container and Adrian Sherwood. Such company sounds logical when you listen to their new record for FuckPunk. “Earn” is a hulking behemoth of a techno track dressed in doom-laden garments of the sort Stephen O’Malley might well consider fit for his wardrobe. B-Side “The Corridor” serves as an alternative mix of sorts, stripping out the percussive trysts and focusing on the drones.

You can stream the excellent video to “Earn” below, which features some great management-minded subliminal messaging, put together by Harry Wright and Max Kelan-Pearce. Keep an eye out for a special edition of the 12” that comes with a poster, rowdy FuckPunk info sheet and some ‘free money’. Meanwhile, rumours abound that next up on FuckPunk will be a limited run of 10” acetates and a new single from Vessel’s Ape alias.

FuckPunk will release Earn by Giant Swan on June 17.

Tracklisting:

A. Earn
B. The Corridor

FuckPunk on Juno

Header photo courtesy of Sofi Nowell