It’s not often that a website willingly directs you to the ‘weird side of Youtube’ (refer above). But these masked, crop top-wearing, pants-negating, etiquette-raping lunatics before your eyes are the duo that comprises Space Blood, and in 2015 they’re rolling out an exciting collaborative math rock project that you need to know about.
You see, Space Blood have recorded a shit tonne of material and, rather than release the songs as a coherent album, the band have got globalisation on their minds. This year, the boys will be releasing a whole goddamned series of splits with math rock bands in distant habitats of the world. The project, Math & Atlases, unites 19 bands from math rock scenes across the US and UK, and will attempt to unify the math rock world just a little bit more. “The idea for the series kind of started after Space Blood toured the UK last fall,” says drummer William Covert, “one of my favorite things about touring is immersing oneself in the different scenes in different cities, and touring the UK and being exposed to the contemporary math rock scene happening there was a real eye opening experience, and I just immediately wanted to share that experience with everyone I knew back in the states.”
Space Blood will be debuting a new song on each release and, retaining the theme of new music, each participating band will release brand new, previously unreleased, or alternate versions of songs. “The first release is focused on the math rock scene of a country – UK, the second release is focused on the math rock scene of a city – Chicago, and the third release is focused on the math rock scene of a multi-state geographical area – the Western US,” says William, “once we started reaching out to bands we wanted to get involved, the response we got was so much better than we could have ever anticipated that we went from thinking a series of splits each with 1-2 bands to doing compilation EPs with 6-8 bands on each one.” At the conclusion of the three Math & Atlases releases, Space Blood release their combined material as a full-length in 2016. But hey, if the Math And Atlases series kicks off, who’s saying it won’t continue? “There were scenes we wanted to do – Canada, France, Japan, South America, US East coast, but Space Blood being a two-man operation we didn’t have the time or logistics to organize more than three Math & Atlases releases this year.” Well, if y’all dig it, get behind it!
To give you a taster of the things to come, Space Blood have kindly allowed us to stream this exclusive live session filmed in Chicago. The three volumes of Math & Atlases, United Kingdom, Chicago, and Goin’ Out West; will be pressed on tape and digitally distributed by Wiener Records, with details to follow.
Math & Atlases: United Kingdom (August 15’ Release)
Space Blood
Alright the Captain
Bear Makes Ninja
Iran Iran
Kusanagi
Lambhorn
Vasa
Wot Gorilla?
Math & Atlases: Chicago (Oct 15’ Release)
Space Blood
Den (member of The Para-medics)
Evasive Backflip
MegaMaul (members of Bear Claw)
Paper Mice
Pisces at the Animal Fair (member of Monobody/The Para-medics)
Secret Means of Escape (Mark Shippy of U.S. Maple)
Snort
Math & Atlases: Goin’ Out West (December 15’)
Space Blood
100 Onces
Chipper Jones
CRTTRZ
NotLando
Stressed
Space Blood’s latest EP, a split with Hannibal Montana, can be purchased via their bandcamp page. Wreak some havoc.