We’re a little proud to have survived in this music industry for 20 years now and please don’t take the compilation title „Tired Like Dirt“ too literally. Even though there is some truth in it we stole it from a Gunner & Smith song and it has been in my brain for quite a couple of years so now it was the perfect time to get it out….. don’t know if people out there are interested in label compilations but I love it and for those who don’t we’ll also have some new shirts soonish but meanwhile enjoy and give some DevilDuck music a listen.…talking about Gunner & Smith there is a brand new song called ‚Edge Of The Water‘ on our compilation and it’s beautiful.

DevilDuck Records is turning 20 years in 2024 and some might say this has to be celebrated in whatever way……which might be true.

Even though we did a label compilation a while ago for our 15th anniversary what makes more sense than coming up with another one as it’s the artists who define the label and not the other way around, right?

When sitting down and thinking about a possible tracklist semi-creative people like me do have a bunch of ideas e.g. one artist is doing a cover of another or just putting rare tracks & demos on it and things like that. But I thought why shouldn’t it just be our current artists with some of their songs I like the most.

And that’s what „20 Years – Tired Like Dirt“ is delivering now with 13 artists and bands incl. only one cover and still a lot of newish stuff as we signed 6 (!) of these only last year.

We still do love Canadian artists (Marissa Burwell, Gunner & Smith, The Dead South) and some German ones are always obvious (Scotch & Water, Palila, Would, Wisent, Merlin Hydes, Kommando Kant) but after quite some time we have started to work with a British band (Conscious Pilot) and some U.S. Americans (The Macks, The Fourth Wall, Timesbold) again.

The running order came up a bit spontaneously which I always like because in the end it all makes sense…so kind of by accident all three bands & artists from Canada are from Saskatchewan and in a row here. Some new stuff is at the beginning of the album and for obvious reasons Timesbold had to close it.

‚The Long Run‘ from Palila is a newly recorded track and something like the single of the compilation as well as ‚Edge Of The Water‘ by Gunner & Smith so both can not be found anywhere else and of course „20 Years – Tired Like Dirt“ will be released on vinyl as well – who can live without?

Cheers & Love from Hamburg,

Jörg Tresp

Emerging with phoenix-like resilience from the ashes of the vibrant theatrical punk powerhouse Cheap Teeth, the newly formed Conscious Pilot takes the stage. Following the release of their debut single ‘Halfway To Hockney’, Conscious Pilot are back with their latest offering ‘Modern Religion’ on 19th January 2024. 

Crafted by Joe Laycock and Jack Sharp, both former Cheap Teeth members, the dynamic duo has joined forces with musicians from Catholic Action and Pressure Retreat, birthing a post-punk revival supergroup. Rooted in Laycock and Sharp’s shared passion for immersive, beat-driven soundscapes, this newly forged ensemble pledges to urge the listener’s ear into progressively choppy waters whilst simultaneously grounding them in firm lyrical soil. 

Being the inaugural track Conscious Pilot wrote for their debut EP, ‘Modern Religion’ signals a departure from their prior penchant for critical jabs at religion. Instead, the song acknowledges and appreciates the various means by which individuals validate their existence, whether through organised religion, music, exercise, or even seemingly unconventional activities like fishing. Carried by Sharp’s pulsing bass line reminiscent of a quirky rendition of Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Want to Be with You”, ‘Modern Religion’ mirrors Conscious Pilot’s quest for meaning as they venture into a fresh musical direction.

Of the single, Joe Laycock said “Modern Religion was the first song we wrote. It formed the conceptual foundation for this EP and indeed the project as a whole. Written about a lost individual in a perpetual struggle to find meaning, (pushed towards a sense of collective faith in an atypical religious ideology), the song is a symbolic reflection of our formative period. After choosing to move on from our former band, Cheap Teeth, which had been our predominant focus for the past seven years, we were ourselves experiencing such a struggle.” 

We’re proud to announce The Fourth Wall’s single Never A Part is out now! Read what Stephen Agustin from the band has to say:

Never A Part was inspired by a visit from my grandmother. During the writing of this upcoming record, I was trying to learn more about my family’s history. It took me an embarrassingly long time to become curious about the story behind my family and how they ended up in the States. The discovery of some of the past traumas they endured prompted me to also question why the silences surrounding their history became the status quo. 

During her visit, my grandmother and I exchanged a few obligatory phrases in each other’s language (I am as unfamiliar with her language as she is with mine) and the absence of knowledge about each other was palpable. It brought to the surface this question about what the driving force behind the family relationship is and how affection is maintained even in the absence of a means of communicating with each other. Do the gaps preserve and maintain the love even?  

Never A Part is sort of a fictionalized monologue by a person who has fled their place of origin to have children in a new world, knowing that they would acquire new and unfamiliar cultural norms. The logic of exchange is at work here. “For my grandchildren’s prosperity, I give up the means to know them (and for them to know me).” This gift of self-erasure for the sake of a loved one is at the heart of the song. 

With the music video, we wanted to play with the difficulty of representation more broadly. In the video, memory is created then destroyed in one continuous shot. The people in the video act as if they are fulfilling a duty to create images of a certain kind and they comply just as obediently to the order of destroying images that don’t meet the criteria. The video attempts to bring forth the theme of self-erasure in the song.

Hey Guys! Last weekend was the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg – and just like every year we did a showcase at Langbrett Store! It was a blast as we had 5 great performances from Would, Dump Babes, Kommando Kant, Marissa Burwell & Wisent!

There were a lot of you there (so many that we ran out of beer! Shame on us…).

Here are a few impressions:

Palila released their new album “Mind My Mind” today! Be sure to check it out!

Palila’s tour has started and is going really great so far! We are looking forward to some great shows coming up!
Here’s an overview of the dates:

Also a little reminder: On Friday the band will release their album “Mind My Mind” via DevilDuck! So be sure to check it out!

With “Circles”, Hamburg’s finest indie rockers Palila release the third advance single from their new album “Mind My Mind”, which will be released on May 19 via DevilDuck. After the punchy and compact “Restless” and the rather relaxed grooving “Try to Fail Again”, “Circles” once again shows a completely different facet of Palila’s new album: It is the fastest and at the same time longest song the Hamburg trio has recorded in the studio so far. It is driven by a repetitive motorik that is rather atypical for Palila, while being held together by a melodic – and above all vocal – density that again characterizes the core of Palila’s songwriting. And this release has even more special features, but more on that in a moment.

First, about the song itself, “‘Circles’ is about the thoughts you’re stuck in, the emotions you thought you’d overcome – yet can strike back with full force,” the band says of the song’s content. “All of us know those spirals of thought that you just can’t get out of and that can haunt you day and night. That can drive you sheer insane. ‘Runnin’ round in circles’ – both inside and out.”

It’s a thematic concept that every creatively gifted person has their own unique vision on – and that’s exactly what Palila wanted other artist friends to be able to do. That’s why the song – which will be available once in an over six-minute original version as well as a significantly shortened radio edit – was in a sense outsourced to others. On the one hand, there is the young director and camera duo Alisa Sizyhk and Daria Penkova from the Ukraine, who shot their very own visualization of the circle of thoughts for “Circles” completely independently with the help of the two Ukrainian actors Oleksandr Koval and Alenka Konovalchuk – at numerous locations that are just as typical for Hamburg as they stand for man’s being lost in urban anonymity.

Secondly – and this was really a brave step because it was very unusual for a rock band – Palila handed over the raw tracks of the song to the renowned DJ and house producer Nils Kreffter aka Le Renard Rhythmique and gave him a free hand to create his very own version of “Circles”. The result is a fantastic minimal techhouse tune that is as far away from the original as possible, although he draws most of his ingredients from the original tracks. For instance, most of the sounds in his remix are based on the original vocals, artfully alienated and transferred into a radically different genre. 

For Palila, both of these experiences and results were a big, thoroughly positive surprise. “It’s totally exciting what results when you just let other talented creatives have your material and see what they do with it,” the band finds. With the subtext of encouraging others to simply let things happen – and thus arrive at a result that is more than the sum of the individual parts.

SHRED KELLY – DISARM
NEW SINGLE OUT NOW!

Not only will Shred Kelly be on tour with The Dead South in the next weeks all over Europe and will kick-off that with a solo-show in our little venue “Jolly Jumper” here in Hamburg, but they also released a single today!
‘Disarm’ is a cover of the The Smashing Pumpkins classic and you’ll love it!
Here are a few words of Shred Kelly’s singer Tim:

“The Smashing Pumpkins have been a hugely influential band to me since I first heard the album Siamese Dream released in 1993. From stacked guitars to trippy riffs, the contrast of dreamscape ambience to thick fuzzed out agony, frenetic solos, and poetic genius, the Pumpkins were the band that my young self wanted to be.

In the first few weeks of the lockdown in 2020 I did a cover of ‘Disarm’ on my banjo in my bedroom to keep busy and keep smiling.

Throughout this past summer we played the song at our live shows and festivals and our audiences loved it. Playing it live is what inspired us to record a full band version and release it to the world.”