Like the Outer Limits AK/DK control the vertical and horizontal whether it is the four on the floor energy they bring as dual drummers, the pulse-quickening electronics that fizz around the beat or their impeccable ability to know when to apply the drop. On ‘Nobody Shouts’ they have been joined by writer, performer and poet Thick Richard the self-labelled purveyor of “cynical, lyrical, jet-black humour, intelligent wordplay, well-crafted verse, and occasionally acerbic, well-targeted comic attacks”.
What you get is classic AK/DK: driving beats and fidget-spinning arpeggios over pulsing synth bass with the added bonus of Thick Richard’s ironic-not-ironic vocals which fit into the beat like a tailor-made suit:
“Somebody gave an anonymous tip, then a policeman raided my house.
He must have been a parttime ventriloquist
because he kept putting words into my mouth.
They threw me in the van, and then they threw me in the nick
and then they wrapped in a mattress and beat me with sticks.
Kicking the jams out against the pricks. Motherfuckers.
Nobody shouts anymore, nobody shouts”
The compressed vocals give the feeling of a phone call from prison and the lyrics come off as if Doctor John Cooper Clarke had swallowed the Profanisaurus. You are completely pulled into the story and it takes many listens to fully appreciate the semantic blow torch Thick Richard takes to the modern apathy towards protest, “What if Malcolm X, the Suffragettes and Gandhi were all too busy playing Candy Crush”.
The Bandcamp page also contains a remix of ‘Nobody Shouts’ by Sir Real which adds tighter, more syncopated drums which serve as a way of accenting Thick Richard’s delivery as if being poked with sharp sticks. With drums to the fore, the backing is muted but still sizzles with effects, bleeps, bloops, sirens, squeals and a nervy attitude that makes it feel like you’re at the centre of a riot in a drum circle.
The video has Thick Richard delivering his sweary invective wearing a straitjacket (made, according to his Facebook page, by Bob Moyler’s mum out of a pair of old curtains) while we keep cutting back to Ed Chivers and Graham Sowerby pounding out beats and operating the sci-fi-space-ship of electronics that surround their kits.
From a wet Monday in 2019 when they got The Lexington jumping to now, AK/DK bring me so much joy. They quicken the pulse, get normally recalcitrant feet moving and now with Thick Richard they have brought the world an apathy-busting anthem that is a call to arms, as long as those arms are waving in the air.
At the time of writing there were a few copies left of the limited edition blue vinyl 7” which you can also have hand-customised. Released by Kracktronic.
AK/DK: Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
Thick Richard: Website | Facebook | Instagram
Video directed by Mike Tudor with cameraman Camera: James Kendall and filmed at the Brighton Studio.
Review by Paul F Cook
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