BUÑUEL SHARES NEW TRACK “FIXER”
(FEATURING MEGAN OSZTROSITS OF COUCH SLUT)
APPEARING ON THEIR FOURTH FULL-LENGTH ALBUM MANSUETUDE
ARRIVING VIA SKiN GRAFT & OVERDRIVE
ON 25TH OCTOBER
Buñuel recently announced their fourth full-length album Mansuetude, and first release outside their outlandish trilogy of albums. Today, they share a second preview of the album in the form of “Fixer”, a track featuring the snarls of Couch Slut vocalist Megan Osztrosits.
Mansuetude is a co-release between SKiN GRAFT and Overdrive, arriving 25th October 2024.
The music on Mansuetude warps and buckles with complexity, freedom, tenderness and primaeval energy all at once. The album includes a handful of exciting collaborations, with “Fixer” being the first taster of this combined energy. About the track the band comments;
“Following a Breaking Bad trajectory and owing this account largely to a friend of his who had been called The Crystal Meth King of Oklahoma by the FBI, the FIXER follows a drug czar’s Man Friday as he cleans up that which inevitably needs cleaning up when you’re living a life of crime.”
Megan Osztrosits of Couch Slut adds;
“When Eugene hit me up to ask if I wanted to do vocals for a track, I said yes without even hearing it. He rules and I am psyched for this absolute ripper of an album.”
LISTEN TO “FIXER” BELOW
BUÑUEL boasts the singular vocals and razor sharp lyrics of Eugene S. Robinson (ex-Oxbow) and a powerhouse Italian trio comprised of guitarist Xabier Iriondo (Afterhours, A Short Apnea), bassist Andrea Lombardini (The Framers) and drummer Franz Valente (Il Teatro Degli Orrori). Mansuetude was produced by Timo Ellis, and features guests including Jacob Bannon (lead singer of Converge), guitarist Duane Denison (the Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk,The Denison Kimball Trio), vocalist Megan Osztrosits (Couch Slut), cellist Andrea Beninati and David Binney on alto saxophone and vocals.
The title, Mansuetude – meaning “meekness” or “gentleness” – might seem like a juxtaposition when listening to the record that is, in Eugene’s words, “extreme but articulate”, however the record aims to convey a balancing of different forces and shades of being which make up the human experience. Throughout Mansuetude, Buñuel take every given opportunity to stretch out their musical tendrils towards discomfort, surrealism, and the deconstruction of tradition, as they reach absolute abandon. They go well beyond the realm of noise rock, encompassing many moods from post-hardcore to avant-noise, hard-blues to post-industrial, symphonic to trash metal and even free-jazz.
Drummer Franz comments that “Buñuel is a name that embodies a certain cultural and literary reference, which evokes an entire world. Like his films, our Buñuel is surrealism. We take the listeners into a place that’s suspended between dream and reality.”
“What we’re doing with Buñuel is to carve out a very specific glimpse… partly into hearts of darkness, but more specifically into the depth of our secrets,” says Eugene. “Secrets we keep from each other, ourselves and whatever futures we’ve imagined for ourselves. We are ultimately trying to communicate something direct and deadly about the human condition.”
Buñuel makes music for those of us willing to take a closer, unflinching look at the depths of human instinct, and on Mansuetude the band extend their reach farther than before, creating an album that is akin to a powerful impulse, or perhaps even an exorcism.
(cover art for Mansuetude
MANSUETUDE TRACK LISTING:
01 Who Missed Me
02 Drug Burn
03 Class
04 Movement No. 201
05 Bleat (with Jacob Bannon of Converge)
06 A Killing On The Beach
07 Leather Bar
08 High.Speed.Chase.
09 American Steel (with Duane Dension of the Jesus Lizard)
10 Fixer (with Megan Osztrosits of Couch Slut)
11 Trash
12 Pimp
13 A Room In Berlin
Mansuetude is a double album with three sides. A balancing act performed for and by the unbalanced.
“A visceral journey into the dark heart of the self” – ECHOES AND DUST
“Remember when noise rock felt like it meant you actual harm?” – THE QUIETUS
“A coaster-ride through a conflicted, manic spectrum of expression” – MYSTIFICATION ZINE
“A no-nonsense beast of a rock band” – VEIL OF SOUND
“Harsh buzzes, waves of Crazy Horse-level distortion and drum thunder… sculpted into something truly beautiful – towering but never overpowering” – THE WIRE