photo by john jr.
INTERESTING TIMES GANG – the solo project of Kowloon Walled City’s Ian Miller – is preparing to issue its captivating Beats, No Rhymes, No Life album this Friday through Pax Aeternum. Advancing its release, BrooklynVegan is hosting an exclusive advance stream of the entire record.
Over the course of the past thirty years, Ian Miller has provided bass for bands in nearly every corner of the heavy music universe. As part of acts like Kowloon Walled City, Puig Destroyer, Strangelight, and many others, he’s shown a rare degree of versatility that’s underscored by his work as INTERESTING TIMES GANG. Originally an outlet for interests that lay outside of his work in heavier, more aggressive music – with a particular emphasis on long-distance collaboration – Miller has self-released several albums featuring songs that often dart back and forth between styles as if each was a well-crafted mixtape.
Beats, No Rhymes, No Life, his upcoming release on Pax Aeternum, epitomizes his approach. As accessible as it is experimental, as danceable as it is dystopian, the album synthesizes dub, funk, industrial, ambient, and hip-hop components into a diverse yet conceptually cohesive whole that calls to mind a more contemporary take on Consolidated, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Material. Beats, No Rhymes, No Life was fully performed, recorded, and mixed by Ian Miller with additional contributions from Graham Scala – his collaborator in dub techno duo Collapse Culture – as well as Tron Jovi of Milwaukee hip hop duo Guerilla Ghost. Here, Miller’s ability to curate like-minded guests parallels his ability to combine disparate influences into a seamless whole. The album is completed with cover art by Kai Miller and photography by john jr.
Miller writes, “I’m usually in at least three bands, but that all came to a screeching halt with COVID. I started making records as INTERESTING TIMES GANG; I did a couple albums of weird pop, a couple ambient records, and Beats… which was neither. I don’t know what listeners are going to hear, but when I listen back, I hear the accrued impact, both on me and on the culture, of fifty years of electronic music: Kraftwerk, the Bomb Squad, John Carpenter, The Prodigy, and a ton more. But I’m also a bassist before anything else, so there’s always gonna be that backbone in anything I do, whether it’s bass guitar, synth bass, or (often) both.”
BrooklynVegan agrees, writing, “Ian’s description should give you a good idea of what to expect from this LP, which is pretty infectious from start to finish.”
Stream INTERESTING TIMES GANG’s entire Beats, No Rhymes, No Life first only through BrooklynVegan RIGHT HERE.
Pax Aeternum will issue Beats, No Rhymes, No Life this Friday, October 15th. Find preorders HERE.
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