Zach Hill of Death Grips and Nick Reinhart of Tera Melos Form New Band Undo K From Hot and Share New Song “750 Dispel”

Hella/Death Grips’ Zach Hill and Tera Melos’ frontman, Nick Reinhart, formed a new band called Undo K From Hot, along with The Advantage guitarist Robby Moncrief. Hill and Reinhart had last collaborated together as Bygones when they released an album called By- in 2009 and an EP called Spiritual Bankruptcy in 2010. 

Undo K From Hot announced full album called G.A.S. Get a Star for release this Friday, May 7, and shared a lead single called “750 Dispel.” In spite of Hill and Reinhart’s common history as talented math-rock instrumentalists, “750 Dispel” is more in line with the music Hill has been releasing with Death Grips, minus the experimental rapping from MC Ride. 

The song is an experimental electronic track, much different from the math-rock of their Bygones era. It’s loud and unpredictable, featuring drums that were likely produced by Hill, buried vocals, edited guitar blasts and a ton of electronic effects. The glitchy drums function as the song’s lead instrument, and the indistinguishable vocals like they’re just another melody line. There’s still some rock influence hidden behind the production, but it only comes through occasionally in loud bursts.

Death Grips’ latest album was Year of the Snitch in 2018. Like their previous albums Bottomless Pit and The Powers That B, it saw the band incorporating even more rock influence into their style, particularly drawing more from punk and noise-rock. Hill co-founded the band not long after the Bygones EP came out in 2010, with other members Stefan Burnett (aka MC Ride) and producer Andy Morin. Earlier this year, they officially released previously-shared improvisation they recorded back in 2015 called Gmail and the Restraining Orders.

Reinhart and bassist Nathan Latona have been the only permanent members of Tera Melos since the group first formed in 2004. Drummer John Clardy joined in 2008 and was unfortunately diagnosed last year with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, for which there’s still an active GoFundMe. Tera Melos has released four studio albums in total, including Tera Melos (2005), Patagonian Rats (2010), X’ed Out (2013) and their latest album, Trash Generator (2017). Reinhart also released an album last year called Disheveled Cuss with a group using that same name. Pinback frontman Rob Crow played bass on the album.

Photo credit: Owen Ela