Crime & the City Solution

Release 6th Studio Album

CRIME & THE CITY SOLUTIONSIXTH STUDIO LP, THE KILLER, OUT NOW VIA MUTE

THEIR FIRST LP IN OVER A DECADE – INSPIRED BY WORK DELIVERING AID PROGRAMMES, THE ALBUM LOOKS AT THE WAYS CONFLICT MANIFESTS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

UK AND EUROPEAN TOUR DATES START IN NOVEMBER

Crime & the City Solution today release their sixth studio album, the killer, on vinyl, CD and download via Mute. 

Listen to the album’s opener, ‘Rivers of Blood’, which moves serenely on a sweep of Bronwyn’s strings, augmented by a gentle interplay between synth and piano:

The band’s first album release in over a decade will be followed by a UK and European tour that kicks off in November and includes three UK dates – London, Bristol and Colchester – full details below.

The album began life as a PhD application that came to life when the band’s core members, Simon Bonney and Bronwyn Adams, found themselves stuck in their native Australia under one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, their nomadic lifestyle put on pause by the pandemic. “Naturally”, says Simon, “I sat and I pieced together a PhD application about decision making in Afghanistan in the late 80s. But as it turned out, it was actually more of a record than it was a PhD.”

The PhD and, by turn, the album found inspiration from Bonney’s work delivering aid programmes across the Indo-Pacific region. Through that work, he visited places with high levels of violence and the album, in part, acted as a way in which to process the effect that turmoil has had on his psyche, of the “dead bodies in my dreams,” that he sings about in the title track. He explains, “There’s no mention of American decision making in Afghanistan on the album, but in terms of subject matter there’s a lot that’s pretty similar; a lot of the record is about loss of faith.”

Rather than a dramatic retelling – or even worse, a glorification – of the things that Simon has experienced, the killer focusses on the way they manifest in the everyday, and the way humans operate under their shadow. “There’s a veneer of normalcy and civilisation that people hold onto until they just can’t hold on anymore,” Simon says. “I’m interested in normalcy that exists within what we would consider to be extraordinary situations.”

Throughout the record Simon also weaves in recurring images of uncontrollable natural forces and a farmer who, rather than attempt in vain to control them, seeks to accept and work alongside them. “You can predict to some extent what nature is going to do, you can see the tornado coming, but you can’t predict which house it’s going to hit,” explains Simon.

Working briefly in post-invasion Ukraine following the album’s completion, he saw that uncertainty again: “There was a building that was absolutely destroyed by a missile that was half a mile off the actual target. The buildings on either side were perfectly intact, but in the middle was a crater. Yet, in the face of such uncertainty, there was this incredible resilience that seemed to be born of accepting life as it was at that moment, no matter how challenging and uncertain.” 

“Records, in my experience, seek to answer a question,” Bonney continues. “But they usually end up posing new ones too.” What questions, then, Crime & the City Solution’s the killer seek to answer? And what new unknowables does it summon?  As with all great art, the fine details are the listeners to bestow, but what emerges most of all is the vitality of stillness. Whether faced with the uncaring sublimity of nature, the tempestuous brilliance of a partner, or the everyday impact of human-made horrors, it is better to be a tree – accepting uncertainty – than a king. “Trauma isn’t like a rapier scar, it’s a festering sore that you’ve just got to let heal. Art can help with that”, Simon says.

the killer was recorded in Berlin by the second incarnation of the band to be based in the German capital. Core members Simon Bonney and Bronwyn Adams were joined by Frederic Lyenn (Piano, Bass, Synth), Donald Baldie (Guitar), Georgio Valentino (Synth, Guitar), Chris Hughes (Drums, Percussion) and Joshua Murphy (Piano, Guitar), and for the first time they worked with a producer, the legendary Martin J. Fiedler, who also added Synth and Mellotron to the album.

THE KILLER TRACKLISTING

1. Rivers of Blood
2. Hurt You, Hurt Me
3. River of God
4. Brave Hearted Woman
5. Killer
6. Witness
7. Peace in my Time

Buy / listen to the killer: https://mute.ffm.to/catcs_tk

CRIME & THE CITY SOLUTION LIVE DATES

23 Nov – Haacht (BE), Can’t Live In a Living-Room
24 Nov – London (UK), The Moth Club
25 Nov – Bristol (UK), The Cube Cinema
26 Nov – Colchester (UK), Colchester Arts Centre
29 Nov – Paris (FR), La Boule Noire
30 Nov – Geneva (CH), L’Usine
1 Dec – Karlsruhe (DE), P8
2 Dec – Ebensee (AT), Kino Ebensee
3 Dec – Zagreb (HR), Mochvara
4 Dec – Milano (IT), Arci Bellezza
5 Dec – Munich (DE), Muffatwerk
6 Dec – Prague (CZ), Fuchs2 
7 Dec – Budapest (HU), Instant
8 Dec – Linz (AT), Stadtwerkstatt 
9 Dec – Poznań (PL), 2Progi 
10 Dec – Warsaw (PL), Niebo
12 Dec – Dresden (DE), Chemiefabrik
13 Dec – Hamburg (DE), Hafenklang 
14 Dec – Copenhagen (DK), BETA
15 Dec – Oslo (NO), Salt 
16 Dec – Stockholm (SE), HUS7
17 Dec – Gothenburg (SE), Musikens Hus
19 Dec – Berlin (DE), Urban Spree

Tickets are on sale now – visit http://crimeandthecitysolution.org for up-to-date details 

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