Name: Slags
Brand: The Umlauts

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

PRAH063LP

Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2023-10-13

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

State 51

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

5060918153019

Total Cap

Black LP

PRAH063CD

Artist

The Umlauts

Genre GB

Alternative / Modern

Label GB

Prah Recordings

The Umlauts are an art-rock band formed in Stroud, UK by Alfred Lear and Oliver Offord. They were later joined by Annabelle Mödlinger and Maria Vittoria Faldini at the Art College in London, UK.
With their unique blend of experimental sounds and thought-provoking lyrics, The Umlauts have gained a reputation for pushing boundaries and challenging conventions. Their music is a fusion of genres, incorporating elements of rock, electronic, and avant-garde styles.
Known for their captivating live performances, The Umlauts have built a loyal fanbase around the world. Their albums have received critical acclaim and they continue to evolve their sound with each release. Stay tuned for more innovative music from this groundbreaking band.

Newest Listed Items

There are few things in life quite as mesmerising or outrageously euphoric as the nine-strong Umlauts army effervescing in fulsome force. Rebelling against labels, transcending borders of land and time - packed with twin vocalists equally competent in their skewering south-London drawl as they are in German, Italian or French - as in touch with the nostalgias of First-Generation post-punk or 80s pop as they are with the techniks of contemporary pop or big beat dance - the Umlauts are paragons of trans-europe excess, dripping with inarguable edge; shambling wildly from chaotic cool to bombastically exquisite order; invested with unhinging, socio-political bite, dancing in a rave of their own.&nbsp;

Compiling the best of the Umlauts first two EPs -&nbsp;Ü (2021) and Another Fact (2022)&nbsp;- and appended with a clutch of new material -&nbsp;Slags&nbsp;offers the most comprehensive versioning of this Umlauts experience as yet extant on record; a salacious digest of wild experiments past and present.&nbsp;

Taking its title from the by-product of the smelting of metals - the not-so-subtle cheapness in wordplay is relevant too - the music of&nbsp;Slags&nbsp;also represents a work of immense amounts of energy and heat. From their breakthrough EP&nbsp;Ü, aptly opening the record is thunderous live staple ‘Energy Plan’, defined by quote from&nbsp;multi-disciplinary artist Joseph Beuys and charged with post-industrial foreboding. Also plucked from that record comes the puckish splatterpunk of ‘Um Politik’, and radio ‘hit’, ‘Boiler Suits and Combat Boots’, a mission-statement satire against cultural uniformity, and perhaps the ultimate epitome of the Umlauts disco war march, stylish as fuck.&nbsp;

And if their first EP was in their own words, basically an ‘accident’, its follow-up&nbsp;Another Fact&nbsp;is by all evidence a work of more immaculate designs. With the addition of Italo-disco influences, and of Caroline’s Magdalena McLean on violin duties, The Umlauts sound lifted towards more operatic and nuances heights - the tense violin bow sweeps on ‘Non&nbsp;è Ancora,’ or ‘Frightened’, or the delicious synth-popping sheen of ‘Sweat’&nbsp;adding yet further spikes of melodrama to their sound. Not forgetting the&nbsp;EP’s title track, which proffers an appropriately magnificent closer here. The slow burning, heavy hitting techno vision loaded with string stabs, balalaikas, and a bicycle pump is an epic in every sense.&nbsp;

The three new tunes included here are the ‘Slugs’ of the Umlauts’ Oeuvre.&nbsp;Like slugs, the band say, they are slippery,&nbsp;“maybe slipperiness describes our approach best, ideas glued together with plasmic sludge, searching for something, enjoying the search.” &nbsp;

Speaking out against “acts of harassment by those whose duty should be to protect”, ‘Dance and Go’ delivers a squelchy, undulating, irresistible dance-punk drive.&nbsp; ‘Mad Blue Love’ rants against relationships built on the sandy grounds of false expectations, while ‘Prédateur’s’ swaying Art-pop curiosities strings out one of the band’s most intricate arrangements to date.&nbsp;

The band describe the album as the end of a chapter. This brings hope of it also being the beginning of a new one. If it achieves nothing else,&nbsp;Slags&nbsp;stands pregnant with rich anticipation for whatever wanderings are yet to come from this most unique of bands. For sure, it’s already been a riveting ride.

Slags

Music GB

Discover Slags by The Umlauts - a mesmerizing and euphoric album transcending genres, packed with wild experiments. Available on Prah Recordings.