Woebot – legendary blogger, sometime FACT contributor and recording artist of increasingly high renown – is soon to return with a new album.

Chunks is the follow-up to last year’s Moanad, Woebot’s debut full-length, and it finds the London-based artist once again using a sampler to explore and revive the idea of “groove” in the context of pre-rave rock music. We’ll let the man himself tell you more.

“Chunks picks up where I left off with Moanad – particularly ‘Rat Bat Mite Bite’. Made with an MPC it runs the ‘soul food’ programme of hip-hop over predominantly white hard rock, early metal, prog blues boogie and psych soul. The purpose isn’t to create a pastiche, but to try and reconnect rock music with groove. I always see post-punk as some weirdly twisted post-rationalisation of rock – outfits like Rip Rig And Panic and The Pop Group had this gambit: ‘We’re trying to make a rhythmic rock’ whereas actually at that stage rock had always been un-self-questioningly groovy.

“For some reason, maybe some mass psychological disconnection with the body in the west circa 1978, the emphasis in that music shifted towards distortion/feedback/melody/harmony and away from the rhythmic bass/drums configuration and a disavowal of the role of rhythm in guitar-playing. There’s this ridiculous over-fetishisation of the (wonderful – of course) krautrock groups Can and Neu! as though only they had a handle on groove.

“I have a pet theory that musically what punk represented, more than a revolt against progressive shapes, was a revolt against the blues. Blues rock, easily ridiculed, became the enemy, representing everything dated and compromised and (in the UK) faux-American. However, the (titanic) likes of Led Zeppelin, The Groundhogs, Captain Beefheart and The Stoogeswere singing as close to the blues as they could – but were producing new forms.

“Rave and dance music was rock performing the ultimate twisted body contortion as a means of reconnecting with rhythm. Let’s not forget Kraftwerk were a rock group – their favourite music being Detroit heavy metal.”

Chunks will be self-released very soon by Woebot, on vinyl and CD, through his Hollow Earth imprint. Click here for more information.


Tracklist:
A1. Roger
A2. Sludgie
A3. Blues
A4. Stagger
A5. Trans-Love Energies
A6. Rusticle
B1. Argos
B2. S.O.B.
B3. #SATTC
B4. Woman
B5. B612
B6. Cuckoo