Algiers to headline Whelan’s in February

The politically conscious indie rock band is known for their unique sound that combines elements of post-punk and no wave with blues and gospel.

Algiers have recently released collaborative audiovisual piece, “Can the Sub_Bass Speak?”, a new work from the band and production duo Randall Dunn and Ben Greenberg.

The new piece pits charged language and free jazz collage by Algiers multi-instrumentalist Franklin James Fisher, saxophonics pioneer Skerik, and drummer D’Vonne Lewis against a maelstrom of visuals by award-winning filmmaker Sam Campbell and typographer Farbod Kokabi.

Inspired by a chance encounter with artists Moor Mother and Harrga at Wysing Polyphonic in 2018, “Can the Sub_Bass Speak?” contorts ALGIERS’ post-punk deconstruction of racial and class sonic politics into new collaborative directions.

“Can The Sub_Bass Speak?” is the centrepiece of a larger web installation thereisnoyear.com. The film recalls the ‘visual abstraction’ and political radicalism of Lis Rhodes and John Akomfrah, situating Fisher’s lyrical examination of structural racism within the disorienting resurgence of fascism across Europe and the United States.

According to Fisher, the work “is a frustrated regurgitation; a re-contextualisation; a re-appropriation; a shield and a mirror that projects back onto the world a lifetime of interpolating language rooted in weaponised ignorance and supremacist privilege.”

The improvised punctuation is provided by Skerik on the tenor saxophone and D’Vonne Lewis on drums and percussion. The underlying cacophony traces the evolution of African-American music, experience and identity.

“This is not for the mercenary architects: the Jacks and Queens of simulated experience,” says the band in a statement. “This is for anyone who has found themselves on the sharp end of insidious, rhetorical prying: ‘Where are you from? What are you?’ This is for anyone who has had their identity assigned and determined by the agents of patriarchy. This is for the Subaltern.”

Tickets are €15 and go on sale this Friday, 30 August here. The show will be 18+.