The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion has announced the release of a new album titled Freedom Tower – No Wave Dance Party 2015, which promises to be as noisy and dance-oriented as its name would suggest.
These claims are based on the advanced release “Do the Get Down,” which you can watch in full below. The track features detuned harmony guitars straight out of a Duane Allman coke-withdrawl nightmare over an old school hip hop beat. The shout-sung vocals even harken back to classic rap songs like “The Message” and “The King of Rock,” but are delivered with an ironic white-boy jive that is endearing over the track’s “greezy beat.” Throw in some left-field bleeps, and that pretty much sums up this JSBX track.
The video features classic NYC iconography (curated by director Allen Cordell), running the gamut from Jay Z to the Ramones to Al Pacino to Andy Warhol. To see it all at once–Studio 54 beside CBGB, John Travolta butting up against David Johansen–gives viewers a sense of the huge diversity to the city. Apparently, this “I Love New York” vibe permeates the whole album:
It’s all here: The Hustler and The Trust Fund Baby, the Mosh Pit Casualty, the Celebrity Chef, the Crooked Cop, the Struggling Artist, the Sucker MC, the forgotten Sex Workers and Last-Chance Cinderellas. Within these grooves are cold-water tenements, blue-chip galleries, dingy Avenue B studios, and the last real warrior poet whose dark magick brings garage rock ghosts back from the grave!
Freedom Tower – No Wave Dance Party 2015
01. Funeral
02. Wax Dummy
03. Do the Get Down
04. Betty vs. the NYPD
05. White Jesus
06. Born Bad
07. Down and Out
08. Crossroad Hop
09. The Ballad of Joe Buck
10. Dial Up Doll
11. Bellevue Baby
12. Tales of Old New York: The Rock Box
13. Cooking for Television
Pitchfork first reported on both the video and the album, the band’s first since 2012’s Meat and Bone. The group will also be heading out on the road soon, given their successful Coachella Sideshow and Festival performances last year.
Watch the video for “Do the Get Down” below.