Rock duo The Kills have announced a new rarities album called Little Bastards, which is set to be released on December 11 via Domino. The group have also unveiled a new demo from the project called “Raise Me,” which was recorded between 2008 and 2009, around the time Midnight Boom was made.
The Kills’ Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince produced and directed a new music video for the track as well, which was shot in a mix of black and white and color. This horror-themed video shows Mosshart singing in a frame that was pulled straight out of a vintage low budget horror movie, while Hince is shown dressed as a crash test dummy jamming along. The song itself is very stripped back, featuring Mosshart’s powerful vocals, atop a garage rock laden sound with distorted lo-fi guitar riffs and an anthemic drum beat.
This project features an assortment of demos recorded since 2002, while the song title refers to an old drum machine/recorder that the band nicknamed Little Bastard. “It was a Roland 880,” says Jamie, “which isn’t strictly a drum machine – it’s a sequencer, and an eight-track recorder, with its own drum machine built in, and that’s what we’d record all our beats on.”
The band’s most recent studio album Ash & Ice came out back in 2016, which was quickly followed by a spring 2017 tour, an appearance at the Melt! Music Festival and Festival of Disruption and a 15th anniversary show at the Electric Lady studios. Mosshart released a stripped back video for “It Ain’t Water” earlier this year.
Little Bastards track list
1. SUPERPOWERLESS / Last Day Of Magic 7” (2008)
2. PASSION IS ACCURATE / Love Is A Deserter CD single (2005)
3. KISS THE WRONG SIDE / Cheap And Cheerful 7” (2008)
4. RAISE ME / Unreleased Demo (2009)
5. NIGHT TRAIN / Midnight Boom Digital Bonus Track (2008)
6. HALF OF US / No Wow 7” (2005)
7. LONDON HATES YOU / Tape Song 7” (2008)
8. I CALL IT ART / Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited Compilation (2006)
9. FORTY FOUR / Black Balloon 7” (2009)
10. LOVE IS A DESERTER / Recorded for XFM (2005)
11. THE SEARCH FOR CHERRY RED / Pull A U 7” Single (2003)
12. MAGAZINE / Love Is A Deserter 7” (2005)
13. BLUE MOON / Future Starts Slow 7” Single (2009)
14. JEWEL THIEF / Fried My Little Brains 7” Single (2002)
15. BABY’S EYES / The Good Ones 7” Single (2003)
16. I PUT A SPELL ON YOU / Screamin’ Jay Hawkins Cover (2009)
17. RUN HOME SLOW / The Good Ones CD Single (2005)
18. WEED KILLER / Black Balloon 10” (2009)
19. THE VOID / No Wow Expanded Edition CD (2005)
20. SUGAR BABY / Fried My Little Brains CD single (2003)
Photo Credit: Alyssa Fried