The ambient experimental group Seefeel have returned with their first new music since 2011 on Warp Records.
‘Sky Hooks’ is the first song from Everything Squared, a one-off six-track mini-album to be released on August 30, and available digitally, on vinyl and CD. which presents a contemporary evolution of their trademark sound.
The new release was mainly composed and performed by the core duo of Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock, with bass on two tracks from Shigeru Ishihara.
The band also have three live dates in the UK as per below in August and September.
Listen to ‘Sky Hooks’:
Live dates:
Aug 28 – Cafe OTO, London (SOLD OUT)
Sep 20 – Strange Brew, Bristol
Sep 21 – Soup, Manchester
Tracklist:
- Sky Hooks
- Multifolds
- Lose The Minus
- Antiskeptic
- Hooked Paw
- End Of Here
About Seefeel:
Seefeel signed to Warp in 1994 after releasing a well-received debut album called Quique on Too Pure (then riding high with early releases from the likes of PJ Harvey and Stereolab). They were originally lumped in by the music press with the shoegaze sound of bands like My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and Slowdive, but their electronic tendencies and use of samplers led to them also being linked to the emerging IDM sound, reinforced when Aphex Twin (a big Seefeel fan) did two different remixes of the early track Time To Find Me for free, on the agreement they would make a record for his Rephlex label at some point.
Warp co-founder Steve Beckett commented in an interview; “Seefeel were the first band that Warp signed who had guitars…they were brave to sign to us because they became the ‘older siblings’ in the family and took all the flak by breaking the unwritten rules of an (up until then) purely dance label”.
Their second album Succour came out on Warp in March 1995 and moved away from the more melodic and guitar-led sound of their first album, exploring more rhythmic and quasi-industrial textures, trailed by two EPs from the previous year, Starethrough and Fracture/Tied.
The 6-track (Ch-Vox) mini-album followed in 1996 on Rephlex and showcased even more of an experimental direction, mostly made by Mark Clifford on his own, and presaging the records he would make for Warp under the names Woodenspoon and Disjecta. The band formed a close relationship with the Cocteau Twins; being invited to tour with them and use their studio, and Mark collaborating with them on the Otherness remix EP.
Seefeel went on hiatus in 1997. They returned with another self-titled album for Warp in 2011, after a live performance at the Warp20 celebrations (with a new line-up featuring DJ Scotch Egg and ex-Boredoms drummer Kazuhisa Iida) impressed Steve Beckett. Mark Clifford has also collaborated extensively with Mira Calix and recorded for Editions Mego amongst other labels.
In 2021 Warp anthologised their 1994 to 1996 material in the Rupt & Flex (1994 – 96) boxset, complete with unreleased tracks and a rare Autechre remix, also releasing the long-form mixtape Rapture To Rupt, featuring the material from the boxset arranged into a seamless mix by KMRU.
