Premiere: NUMBER - Crocodile Pyle

Music

It was a full moon tonight, its stark white light cascaded across the sky illuminating planet earth below. Upon the moon’s surface a band of merry men had set up their instruments, uniting amongst the stars for an otherworldly jam. From here they played to the entire solar system, each guitar strum or hit of percussion sending out transmissions into the atmos, communicating messages to beings in far off worlds and inviting them into their space with open arms.

Inspired by the likes of Talking Heads and A Certain Radio, NUMBER is the new project fronted by Ali Friend and Rich Thair previously of Red Snapper fame, an electronic fusion band signed to the mighty Warp Records and Lo Recordings. They began NUMBER as a means to dip back into the sounds they grew up with; disco bass lines, wonky percussion and jagged guitar melodies, alongside a full band of contributors they fuse sonics textures and found sound.

"Crocodile Pyle is the third release to be taken from NUMBER’s forthcoming album. Named after a former Tour Manager and friend, the piece celebrates a deeply percussive dark funk with showering conga slaps and driving bass groove, and features the masterful blowing of trumpeter Byron Wallen – a former collaborator with Ali and Rich in Red Snapper. Indeed this is the most Snapper-like of the Number releases and sounds like a meeting of Pigbag with the thundering percussiveness of Sons of Kemet; you somehow feel that it should have been the theme tune to Brian Cox’s Planets series. If mankind were ever to broadcast out into the space of the solar system from the surface of the moon, Crocodile Pyle would be the first tune out of the box and would be an enticement to any extra-terrestrial to come visit……..”