GILGONGO RECORDS

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FOOT VILLAGE - "Friendship Nation" LP (GGGR-021).
to be released in March 2008. CD version on Tome in Europe.

FOOT VILLAGE.
NEW FULL LENGTH LP from Los Angeles "post apocalyptic / electricity free hardcore" band, consisting of four drummers / vocalists unleashing primal and brutally catchy scream-alongs. Members of destruction jam/van band FRIENDS FOREVER (Load), free noise unit GANG WIZARD (Load/Ecstatic Peace/Gilgongo) and DEATHBOMB ARC mastermind Brian Miller. CD version released in Europe on TOME. Alternate description: "Foot Village is the first nation built after the apocalypse. Foot Village have a duty to rebuild the world, a new nation out of the ruins of civilization atop the ruins of Hell, after the oceans have all evaporated. All we know so far is revealed on their first album World Fantasy, a collection of songs about other countries. Now Foot Village have created their own country and the songs on Friendship Nation, recorded by Jonathan Snipes of Captain Ahab". MP3: FOOT VILLAGE - "Bones".

select reviews:

Ear-Conditioned Nightmare:
Foot Village have been making quite a splash lately, so when I got this one in the mail from James over at Gilgongo, I was excited to finally get to hear what all the hype was about. As is to be expected, the hype is both warranted and perhaps a bit over ambitious at this point. Which isn't to say that Friendship Nation isn't totally great. It is.

A quartet made up of members from bands including Friends Forever, Gang Wizard and Deathbomb Arc head Brian Miller, Foot Village's unique niche in the experimental scene consists of no more than a stripping down of approach to perhaps the most primal noise makers of all: drums and voice. All four members are well versed in both of these tasks it seems, creating a full blown dervish of gutteral screams and pulse pummeling rhythms. Almost sounds like a quartet of Animals (the muppet, that is) as they rip through thirteen tracks of punk-encrusted hippie slam sessions. Like a drum circle gone terribly awry, the group fills in the blanks between Lightning Bolt, Deerhoof, Minor Threat and Olatunji. The difference is, this consciously light-hearted, despite its cries of protest throughout. This is playful, energy music, sometimes reverting to storms of drums while others relying on tightly crafted call and response themes that evoke something close to a pub chant only with lyrics as grimly provocative as "nothing is real, but still there are rules to follow."

It doesn't seem to make sense to discuss individual tracks here as the whole album essentially explores one highly distinctive sound through similar means. The opening "Urination" or "Erecting the Wall of Separation," the second side opener, move with a fervor of easy to recite lyrics more in line with Fugazi than Gang Wizard, but that seems to be what Foot Village are all about. Just kick out the jams and move. It doesn't surprise me at all that the group's from Los Angeles, nor that they are equally talked about in Brooklyn--it has the sound and kineticism that urban noise heads adore while sucking inspiration from the communal nature that such environments encourage.

By pulling all of this music back down to the beginning (of human consciousness?) and reinvigorating it with contemporary tactics, Foot Village have managed to carve out a specialized direction for themselves as well as opening the door a bit for similarly minded musicians who might be worried that their pedals and samplers aren't doing the trick anymore. Like a big "fuck you" to pedal collectors and the like, the group manages to create its own chaos with only skin and bone. Oh, and it's mastered by Yellow Swans' Pete Swanson too, so you can bet it sounds fucking great.

Tiny Mix-Tapes:
On Friendship Nation, the four drummers/vocalists of Foot Village — Citizen Miller, Citizen Taylor, Citizen Rowan, Citizen Lee — scream ideologies so loud you’ll think lyrics like "Fuck God/ It’s a government’s job to be nothing like Him" and "For the vengeance and the right/ To take your life I will now fight" are more threatening than didactic. Indeed, their lyrics aren’t poetic billets-doux; they’re indictments. They’re unabashed canons of commentary, letting loose on big targets like religion, culture, politics, even diet. While most artists shout for style, Foot Village shout to be heard. However, underneath the political baggage and below their towering, puffing-out-the-chest performances, you’ll find music that’s dangerously incisive and deceptively fun.

Friendship Nation is about the conceptual founding of a new nation, based on their research of other countries (see their debut album Fuck The Future). Concept albums get your goat? Thankfully, some of the lyrics are just as relevant and applicable to current capitalist critiques. But if you can embrace their silly, idiosyncratic approach and indulge in their fantasy world, you’ll find their clamor much more enjoyable. From the strange ("No light but the spark of your spin/ As I rip it from your skull") to the downright bizarre ("Where ever you want/ Whenever you want/ You have the right to go pee"), Foot Village’s furrowed foreheads extend into a sort of schizophrenic hyperreality, without delving too far into surrealism or softening its sharp edges.

Despite its actual complexity, the music sounds relatively basic. (Foot Village choose not to use electronics.) Sure, there are aesthetic sacrifices when relying on four drummers and vocals as a foundation — it obviously doesn’t lend well to variety, texture, or range, and any harmonies are either accidental or of the atonal variety — but what get emphasized instead are group dynamics and the kind of bluntness usually obscured by multi-layering, digital processing, or other hierarchical devices. Foot Village consequently thrive on their communal aspects, distancing themselves from naïve ritualism and working toward mutual catharsis. In fact, an audience member at one of Foot Village’s recent gigs broke down and started "uncontrollably crying" at the sheer cathartic energy of their performance. This music is painfully exposed.

With the illusion of regression one could glean from their lyrics and musical approach, it’s not surprising to see the word "primitive" tagged onto Foot Village’s music. But their sound is engaging, lively, and confrontational, reflecting a negotiation with culture, not a retreat. This ain’t music to hum to; this is music to purge to. Never mind the aggressive connotations of their music or its territorial lyrics; Foot Village sound celebratory and inclusive, and the attack of a drumstick against a drumskin is something that can more easily transcend borders than the harmonic totality with which Western music is typically obsessed. If you’re bored with the transparent artifice of the majority of songwriting, Foot Village will be a prolonged respite from your typical listening habits.

Foxy Digitalis:
Having read a bit about this four-piece from LA, I had an inkling what to expect when the needle hit the vinyl grooves. Word is they consist of members of Gang Wizard and Friends Forever, so you know right away the quality factor should be high, and there's certainly no shortage of hipster street cred either. But expectations aside, what's in this for the rest of us? It's the result of four innovative people, a couple of drum kits, and an absurd excess of enthusiastic energy. Taking a page from their other bands, there's an intensity and immediacy to everything on this record that makes it hard to fault. Nobody's phoning anything in, that's for sure. You can practically feel the sweat dripping off the record, and I'm sure their live sets quickly devolve into raucous parties lacking rock star ego. It's also nice to see someone move away from the standard instrumentation of rock records. All good things, yes. It's not a particularly experimental record – they know their niche and mine it as deeply as they can. Sonically and energy-wise it's a bit like the early Boredoms records if they'd discovered their passion for drums and ditched everything else except for the vocals. Yet the Bore vocals also seemed transcendent in ways these aren't. Instead, Foot Village delivers group chants and aggressively yelled slogans. Yet surprisingly, they make it work most of the time. There's an endurance phenomenon that happens though, where it can be tough to make it to the end of the record. Maybe it's the unidimensionality of the instrumentation, or the lyrics that make it challenging over the long haul. I prefer to see it as just a testament to the intensity of the proceedings however. When this record's on, you've got to embrace it or get out. There's no middle ground, and that's a success in my book. 7/10 -- Eric Hardiman (29 October, 2008)

Pitchfork / "Forkcast" album preview and MP3 stream:
Link to Article: New Music: Foot Village: "Protective Nourishment" [MP3/Stream]
As fad diets and food pyramids come and go, "you are what you eat" still sounds like a pretty decent ground rule. After nearly three minutes of tribal percussion smackdowns, jungle growls, and cuckoo-house ululations, Foot Village's "Protective Nourishment" lets us know what recipes the no-electricity Los Angeles drum freaks love most: "I like pee pee in my coke," the band's Grace Lee yowls, to which a robot voice supplements, "I'm not afraid to eat my greens." Lee and another Foot Village member, Brian Miller, are also bandmates in Load/Ecstatic Peace noise act Gang Wizard, and Miller's huge role in the local underground scene includes helping run art-punk hangout the Smell, organizing music festivals called Neon Hates You, and putting out music on his own Deathbomb Arc label. Along with Load band Friends Forever's Josh Taylor, Lee and Miller raise a controlled, communal racket on "Protective Nourishment", from forthcoming full-length Friendship Nation. "There lies the low-hanging fruit," Lee shouts later. That doesn't exactly describe Foot Village's music, but even if it turns out there's a snake involved, I'll bite.

Rotten Meats:
They’re dropping those beats like carpet bombs, screaming faces coming at you from all different directions like asbo Maori - primitive and burning multiple drum exposures slamming you into submission. Hurling yourself around is the only prescription for something this infectious, crippled and well, plain insane…no guitars, no keyboards, just heavy drumming and liberal sprinklings of hysterical shouting - I’d absolutely love to see this lot live – they’d be totally killer… oh and the re-mixes that end the album are how all remixes should be, powerful additions to the whole, definitely not piss poor dilutions of that fantastic vibe Foot Village have already tapped into. If I was giving out stars, I guess it would have to be a sky full.

(WFMU live set, recorded in the studio on tour, 5/14/08).
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/05/foot-village-an.html

(CMJ | (staff blog / live review).
“Hi, we’re No Age,” Brian Miller of Foot Village joked from the floor of Death By Audio in Brooklyn last night. While it’s true, the band’s peers such as No Age and Health have brought attention to the Los Angeles scene, groups like Foot Village maintain it.

Having just seen No Age last week at the comparatively fancy Bowery Ballroom, Foot Village at a DIY venue just seemed more apt. The stage, unable to contain the band’s four drummers set up in the middle of the floor while the crowd circled around. Despite the volume of four sets being pounded at the same time, the band screamed over the noise (occasionally with the assistance of megaphones), and members often jumped out from behind their drums to get a little closer to the audience.

Meanwhile, in the back of the room along with the band’s merchandise, Miller carries an array of material from his label, Deathbomb Arc. The label has released albums from many Los Angeles acts including Captain Ahab, Kevin Shields, and (of course) Foot Village. A while back I stated that the Los Angeles scene “will continue to explode,” and Foot Village not only aides the explosion but embodies it as well. For those wishing to see Foot Village on tour as they make their way back the west coast, the band have asked concert-goers to bring either a pair of drumsticks or a drum key to their shows (it’s not hard to imagine that they go through a lot of them). In exchange, they promise an exclusive tour CD-R. Trade your sticks and keys at any of the dates below!

(Critical Review | blog / live review).
Foot Village played Death By Audio a couple weeks ago (accompanied by Mincemeat and Aa, but I am going to focus on Foot Village bacause as far as I’m concerned they totes stole the show), and I was lucky enough to make it to the show despite traveling all day (long flight from South Carolina, straight to a noise show…exactly why I love this city).

Foot Village is a four piece from Los Angeles, and they blessed Brooklyn with their presence on May 12th. One of the members is Josh Taylor of Friends Forever (for more about Friends Forever watch the documentary), who I love but I didn’t know he was in the band until the day of the show. Foot Village set up in the middle of Death By Audio rather than on the stage. Their set up consisted of two full drum kits facing each other, and several toms and various other drums set up in between the kits creating an X formation. the four members were situated facing each other. Foot Village plays completely unamplified except for a Bull Horn which helps get a single persons voice over the loud thunder of the drums.

Their performance was really intense, and the drums and the chanting give them a tribal vibe while still being very experimental and noisy at the same time. When the four members sing/chant/scream in unison there is even a pop element, and while it wouldn’t go over in your typical mainstream fashion, I could see Foot Village gaining a slightly larger fanbase from some noisier acts out there (fans of old Animal Collective, ect.).

The band even joked introducing themselves by saying “Hi, we’re No Age.” It does feel like a barrage of LA bands have been hitting NYC lately (Health, Abe Vigoda, No Age, among others)…Foot Village is the most experimental of the crew, and seeing them really put me in the mood for No Fun Fest the following weekend. Although Foot Village isn’t your typical noise act, they definitely fall under that category, or experimental music best.

Foot Village give the vibe that they are just there to have fun, and it truely was. Turns were taken on the bull horn, and each member took breaks from drumming duties to dance and sing. After Foot Village played Aa took the stage. While I can appreciate their music, I was still in awe from the Village so I wondered back to the merch table to pick up some Foot Village records.

Brian, one of the members, was working the table. I don’t know what it is, but I have found it common for merch people in New York to be less friendly than other places, but Brian proved me wrong. He truely was genuinely nice, and very talkative. He talked to me about their records (I picked up Friendship Nation, and a 7? where Foot Village covers Alec Empires remix/cover of Bjork’s “Bachelorette”…I know how about that for a cover song). We talked about the South, and Brian even knew some people from Charleston, SC (I guess they played with Puke Attack before before out west). Overall talking to Brian was the icing on the cake of a great show. I wish these guys alot of luck…they have a great live performance, and lots of positive energy…come back to New York soon!