New Entry: Detachments Release New Single "Human Being Watched"

London based post punk/minimal wave/cold wave band Detachments have released their new single "Human Being Watched".

The song is the opening track on the new 'Young & Cold Records Vol.5' compilation, out now. Grab your copy here.

Take a listen below.

(facebook.com/Detachmentsmusic)

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Watch: Detachments Premiere Music Video For "Chain of Secrets"

London based post punk/minimal wave/cold wave band Detachments have premiered the video for their addictive track "Chain of Secrets".

The song is part of our current playlist and is taken from their recent EP 'Chain of Command', (out September 7) through Young and Cold Records. Grab your copy here.

The  video was film by Nicola Beccu. Watch it below.

(facebook.com/Detachmentsmusic)

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Watch: Detachments Air Music Video For "High Command"

London based post punk/minimal wave/cold wave band Detachments have aired the video for their new track "High Command".

The song is taken from their brand new EP 'Chain of Command', out today (September 7) through Young and Cold Records. Grab your copy here.

The  video was directed by  Antonis Morgan Konstantoudakis. Watch it below.

(facebook.com/Detachmentsmusic)

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Watch: Detachments Reveal Music Video For New Song "Guilty Party"

London based post punk/minimal wave/cold wave band Detachments have revealed the video for their new track "Guilty Party".

The song is taken from their upcoming new EP 'Chain of Command', which will be out on September 15 through Young and Cold Records. Pre-order your copy here.

Watch it below.

(facebook.com/Detachmentsmusic)

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Detachments Announce New EP 'Chain of Command' Share Teaser Clip

London based post punk/minimal wave/cold wave band Detachments have announced the release of their long-awaited new EP 'Chain of Command'.

The five-track EP will be out on September 15th through Young and Cold Records.

Founded by vocalist/song-writer/producer Bastien Marshal (born Manchester), with co-producer and synth expert Ed Casula (hails from Italy and joined in 2014), Detachments is one of our favourite bands and have caused waves of excitement on the more discerning dancefloors and clubs with singles such as "I Don't Want To Play", "Circles", "Audio/Video", "H.A.L." and "Holiday Romance".

Tracklist:
01. Chain of Master
02. Guilty Party
03. Immersing
04. High Command
05. Thieves of Time
06. The Artimetric of Guilt

The teaser features 25 seconds of new promising and catchy music. Watch it below.

(facebook.com/Detachmentsmusic)

Tags: Detachments

Watch: Detachments Share Music Video For New Single "The Promenade"

London based post punk band Detachments have shared the video for their excellent new single "The Promenade".

We've been playing a demo version of the song since 2012, now the band is officially releasing the studio version of the single today April 14 via Polvo Records. They're currently in the studio working on new material, and will release a new EP titled 'EndGame' by the end of May.

In a recent interview talking about the track, frontman Bastien Marshal said: "It was actually in response to a film that I had watched set in L.A. Which is weird because then the song led me there…Some weird cosmic order stuff ha!"

"It was almost a stream of consciousness- the lyrical points. I’m from a seaside town in the UK so I have a strong connection with the sea and the promenade and there was a parallel with that in L.A too. Some North East coastal references, but also American culture." He added.

Take a look at the video below.

Website: detachments.co.uk

Detachments Unveil Two New Tracks

Detachments have unveiled two new tracks, "Mistaken I.D." and "Living With the Enemy". Both tracks have been added to our current playlist www.koolrockradio.com.

"Mistaken I.D." is taken from their from forthcoming limited edition album 'From The Chamber', which features a collection of hidden jems procured from the Detachments studio vaults.

"Living With the Enemy" is going to also be released sometime in spring 2013 on "Until the sun grows cold volume 3" via Vocoder Tapes.

*UPDATE (17/02): "Mistaken I.D." was featured as Single of the Week on Kool Rock Radio on February 11.

Listen "Mistaken I.D." and "Living With the Enemy" below.

We will keep you posted with more details.

Detachments Announce New EP 'Fade'

Detachments have released details for their brand new EP entitled 'Fade'. This will be the band's first new material since their self titled debut album in 2010, which was 'Album of the Year 2010' here on Kool Rock Radio.

'Fade' will officially be out on September 3rd on Haçienda Records before hitting all the major stores and download sites. The EP mixes Detachment's trademark style across indie and electronic veins, taking in an early Eighties, post punk, coldwave sound and matching this to songcraft and a poised, nonchalant sense of hip and classic production.

Recent live dates for Detachments included dates across Europe, with a mainstage slot at Exit, Serbia as well as dates in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Scandinavia and performances at the better side of London venues, Cargo, Proud, The Old Blue Last and The Macbeth. 

Detachments have given us the exclusive premiere and you can listen to the tracks in our regular rotation.

Check out the artwork and tracklisting for 'Fade' below.

Trackisting:

1. Nothing You Can Do
2. The Morning Light
3. Until You Fadeaway

UPDATE 02/09: And here's the new video for 'Nothing You Can Do'.

Detachments 'The Promenade' - Single of the Week 27/2

DETACHMENTS  'The Promenade'

Detachments, our best new act of 2009, are working on a new studio album set to be released in 2012.

'The Promenade' is the demo version of a forthcoming track from that album and it's our new Single of the Week exclusive only for Kool Rock Radio.

Detachments Best Album Of 2010

After 12 months of excellent tunes, new bands, exciting releases and long hours of debating, Kool Rock Radio has finally collated their '2010 Albums Of The Year' list and is proud to announce the winner: The self-titled debut album by DETACHMENTS.

To us, Detachments was a big surprise from the very first played. It is an amazing record that transports you to the best part of 80s' decade, with a particular flavour of late 70s' new wave bands (specifically the times of cold wave, minimal wave and new wave) where the music was pure inspiration, creativity and most of all 'emotion'. Their music takes over the work left by The Normal, Gary Numan, Cabaret Voltaire, and other great bans from that time.

Their obscure sound is also at times reminiscent of New Order and Joy Division and it had to be that way because the creative force behind Detachments, Sebastien Marshal comes from Manchester, the drummer Pete Dawson comes from Leeds, once the center of gothic music and Mark Three from London. The creative works of these talented musicians along with the producer James Ford is so powerful (with only one album and a few EPs) that we believe they can receive cult status if they remain productive. 

In summary, this album surfs over  electronic computer riffs, vocal effects, spacey synths, drum beats, screeching guitar and bass lines as those that sounded in the new wave clubs of the 80's, in addition to melancholic pieces of romanticism with a dark background which gives strength to each track.

It is a dance-rock album, with vital touches of bright electro pop, a record for exquisite ears that moves more than your feet, it moves your emotions.

Their single 'I Don't Want To Play' is also listed as the No.1 in KRR's BEST TRACKS OF 2010. 

Plus, Detachments was the BEST NEW BAND for Kool Rock Radio in 2009 and their singles 'Circles' and 'The Flowers That Fell' were both number 1 in our Annual Chart the same year.

Our countdown of the albums we have loved the most in 2010 concludes with this top 10:

1. DETACHMENTS - Detachments (Thisisnotanexit Records)
2. O. CHILDREN - O. Children
3. DELPHIC - Acolyte
4. CARIBOU - Swim
5. TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB – Tourist History
6. GOLDFRAPP - Head First
7. ARCADE FIRE - Suburbs
8. THE DRUMS - The Drums
9. WILD NOTHING - Gemini
10. TEARS RUN RINGS - Distance

Detachments Album Launch Party

Detachments album launch party! Signed copies of the CD and the bands latest single Holiday Romance will be available on the night. 

Expect Wartime RAF battlejackets, graceful to brutal divebombing synths, award-winning live drums, royal ballet, divine melodies to murder for, weird astral glimpses into the future... it's all flitting in and out of existence here. Electronic/darkwave/synthpop/indie/new Minimal Wave at it's best.

"The love-child of Fad Gadget and early OMD raised by Cabaret Voltaire has finally descended on us. Their debut album blends early industrial, coldwave and a tinge of synthpop to create an opaque masterpiece. Consider this to be the Yang to…let’s say Hurts’ or Monarchy’s Yin."

Support will come from:

Flash Fiktion

Savage Nomads

Plus Andy Blake (World Unknown / Dissident / Cave Paintings) who remixed Holiday Romance will be DJing inbetween bands. 

The date:

Tuesday, 05 October 2010 at 19:30

CAMP (City Arts and Music Project) London, United Kingdom

Don't miss it!

DETACHMENTS Band Of The Month for September on Kool Rock Radio

September is the month for our special guests 'DETACHMENTS'. Their album debut will be released on October 4th, preceded by the single 'Holiday Romance' which will be released on Sept 4th.

Detachments was the BEST NEW BAND for Kool Rock Radio in 2009 and their singles 'Circles' and 'The Flowers That Fell' were both number 1 in our Annual Chart the same year. And now this album debut could also be The Album Of The Year for 2010, an amazing record that transports you to the best part of 80s' decade, with this particular touch of new wave bands of late 70s'.

Detachments appear to be focused in the sounds of 1979 to 1982 to create this album, they have taken the best of Simple Minds, Kraftwerk, Joy Division, Devo, Blancmange, Mi Sex, Cabaret Voltaire, Gary Numan, New Order, Heaven 17, John Foxx, Ultravox, Wire, The Human League among many others.

The Album is ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT 9/10, the more you listen it, the more you fall in love with... This is how the new Cold Wave should sound.

DJ Relax/ Kool Rock Radio

________________________________________

More about Detachments:

This enigmatic debut album of synth pop noir from Detachments, some two years in the making, more than distinguishes the band from their contemporaries. The promise and intrigue in the potent jagged Detachments sound that drew such creative luminaries as Andrew Weatherall, Trevor Jackson and Tim Goldsworthy to work with the band has been fully realised here.

Working in tandem with Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford, the bands creative force Bastien Marshal has delivered an album of eleven tracks that belie any comparison with contemporary artists or bands. The eleven tracks included illustrate the Detachments ascendance to a pure synth group.

Culled from almost 40 songs, Bastien and Ford worked day and night over a ten-day period at Ford’s Hackney studio in the bitter snow-dusted cold of late February 2010 (our coldest in some 40 years) an experience which brought to mind the bleakness of Berlin in the midst of winter, a well trodden destination of Bastien’s. It was this punishing schedule, a hallmark of any album produced by James Ford, which inspired Bastien creative vision for Detachments.

The mutual love Minimal Wave and also the sonic experiments that emanated from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop informed the decision to fully utilise the vast array of Ford’s vintage synth gear. This direction finessed the sound that seeps through every pore of their album.

This is a sound that always seemed deep lying in the Detachments DNA but is only fully realised here. During Bastien’s time in the critically acclaimed, post electro clash group R3mote, Andy Weatherall would pick out random tracks from the Cold Wave era and point out the similarities. Later Trevor Jackson would brand Detachments as “Cold Wave” a telling portent given where the band has sonically arrived. And how did they finally arrive at this cold wave sound? Eschewing the digital studio processes that plague modern music and seeking inspiration in the 80s analogue synth experiments – taking their cue from Minimal Wave and personal, all-time favourite European bands from the late 70s early 80s, whose influences were aligned with the Detachments – namely Human League, Fad Gadget and Cabaret Voltaire.

Other studio techniques used during the recording process included tape manipulation, on tracks such as “Sometimes” which achieve a sheer density of sound last heard on Gavin Russom’s superlative Black Meteoric Star album. Whilst on the subject of contemporary musical allies, Ford’s distrust of digital technology when knee deep in production can be likened to ex Dissident visionary Andy Blake and his passionate disregard for the mp3 format. Recognizing him as a kindred spirit, Blake was asked to provide a remix of “Holiday Romance” with the resulting 18-minute reinterpretation nothing short of stunning. Iconic producer Martyn, another contemporary figure to have brilliantly reimagined Detachments (“Circles” as featured on his Fabric mix) can be viewed as a further modern day influence with Bastien recognizing the Dutchman’s refusal to stick with the parameters of dubstep.

It’s not only the music of Cold Wave that struck a chord with the band though. Anyone who has heard Detachments’ ‘H.A.L.’ will have sensed unrest in the Orwellian themes that course through the lyrical veins. Thus it’s no surprise that Detachments could also relate to the socio political undertones that characterised the main groups of the cold wave movement.

Of course there’s plenty of other influence at play in the lyrics. “Audio Video” a celebration of technology and the limitless freedom of the internet, with furtive sideways glances to those masters of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe and Irvine Welsh in glimpsing the vacuum of cyberspace and the reliance on sanctuary in technology.

Beneath the staid kick drums and gurgling synths of “I Don’t Want To Play” lie black humoured, Mike Leigh and Pinter-esque asides on status anxiety and the vulgarity of people disregarding their beliefs in the crude aspiration to impress the neighbours. Examples such as these demonstrate Bastien’s ability to lyrically draw on his own experiences and add substance via cultural references that resonate with his way of thinking.

The fear of being institutionalised into the 9 – 5 grind that unfolds on “Circles” relates to Bastien’s own experience in the marketing team for a high end London surveyor. The desire to escape the rat race, this descent into passively forgoing any sense of identity could be classed as social suicide -- leaving the sanctity and safety of the nine to five for the sake of his creative self – but how many of us have the strength of conviction to take that step? The track itself grooves with an edgy intensity before suddenly pausing. The sudden break and ascension towards the sonic unknown in the tracks closing moments makes for a powerful, transcendental refrain – conjuring a sheer intensity and textural sublimity that is reminiscent of the mighty My Bloody Valentine.

Elsewhere you can point to the feelings of bleakness Bastien endured as a youth in hometown Blackpool, in winter - a ghost town by any other name, as another point of lyrical influence. That coupled with the disappointment at old friends’ acceptance of being sucked into the rising dominant class, the parochial, often slightly uncomfortably right-wing, conformist, workers that litter the offices of Anytown or indeed The City as demonstrated on “You Never Knew Me” which pulsates with a venomous energy.

Deeper into the album lurks “Fear No Fear” as the dark, throbbing heart of this record, a black hole at the core of a galaxy - sucking in all light whilst in parallel – hurtling through the extremities of deep space. It’s certainly not all heavy though, you can contrast the simmering Orwellian themes that play out in “HAL” with “Art Of Viewing” as Bastien muses about appropriating Cold War psychic spying technology for his own romantic means. It’s this perversely black approach to humour that runs through quite a few of the album’s tracks.

This dark humour translates to the strikingly retro album artwork, naturally composed by Bastien. Closer inspection unveils the presence of eleven skull-faced cheerleaders – perhaps one for each song – a sly nod to German philosopher Herbert Marcuse whose ethos that intellectual and economic creativity and productivity are channelled through the consumption of largely irrational and wasteful leisure pursuits is intrinsic to the Detachments worldview. There are moments that touch on gleaming pop too, with lead single “Holiday Romance” detailing the internal, mini-drama of pondering your recent ex’s vacation activities. The accompanying video from respected director Stephen Agnew displays the bands penchant for the odd pop culture references by paying homage to French new wave classic A Bout De Souffle – coincidentally the 50th anniversary of the film.

It’s worth noting that “Tread Along” the albums most hauntingly beautiful moment should be the bitter sweetness of anaesthetizing the pain of lost love, escaping into an opiate haze deep in the unidentified countryside of the imagination. “Words Alone” is the closing moment of release and atonement with its soaring symphony of synth strings soulfully imbued with positive vibes.

Ultimately, the 45 minutes that documents the eponymous ascendance of Detachments as a pure synth group brilliantly exposes your senses to themes of romanticism; nihilistic tendencies; lost love; opiates; Cold War psychic spying; Orwellian paranoia; transcendentalism; the garishness of social climbing and mundanity of office politics. That the majority of these songs sweep through such matters in less than four minutes only serves to demonstrate the raw power of the Detachments vision.