Mamaleek

Mamaleek

Vida Blue

Flenser

Time is a slippery fish. Loss has inspired Mamaleek’s latest full-length album, titled Vida Blue. This marks the San Francisco Bay Area metal deconstructionists’ eighth album and their third as a full lineup. Tragedy struck in March of 2023 when the band lost a longtime friend and member, keyboardist Eric Livingston, leaving the group, which began as a duo of two brothers and later expanded to a five-piece, now with only four members. Despite this profound loss, Mamaleek persevered, performing as a quartet at various festivals, including the 2023 edition of Tilburg. The band returned to the studio to create new material that appropriately reflects their journey through loss and honors their fallen comrade. The resulting album draws inspiration from the legacy of Oakland A’s baseball legend Vida Blue, whose former team coincidentally announced its relocation to Las Vegas that same year. The band members themselves describe this poignant chapter in their own words: “Time is a slippery fish. Maybe only someone like Vida could grasp it. Although he’s left time behind, his image and that lefty heat remain in the memories of many. Eventually they’ll be forgotten, and hopefully replaced with even more exultant ones. This musical recording is a reflection on loss and its acceptance. We explore several examples for each song, including the loss of pride, of money, of glory, of country, of sanity, of a favorite sports team, of significant others, and, every day, one’s self. It also explores various associated moods—fear, panic, reverence, stoicism,...

Mamaleek

Diner Coffee

Flenser

Of all things, it’s laughter that pervades Mamaleek’s Diner Coffee, the San Francisco metal deconstructionists’ sonically crushing ode to the humor found within catastrophe, American diners, and “the little things.” Featuring a mix of live performances, samples, and field recordings, Diner Coffee laughs through its harsh songs in an attempt to reflect the camaraderie found at the heart of global calamities and changing personal situations. It’s an homage to the quotidian set to the backdrop of the mythologized, sanctuary-like properties of a diner, reveling in irony-less nostalgia. Mamaleek embodies this ethos on and off the record. Originally two anonymous brothers, the past few years have seen Mamaleek adding members and venturing into live performance. Diner Coffee, following in the footsteps of 2020’s Come & See, features new, unfamiliar, unknown voices—including expanded experiments with horns, woodwinds, and strings and a Bay Area-local blues harmonica player who improvised recorded selections during practices. The resulting tracks touch on signifiers from black metal, blues, ambient, and more. Diner Coffee simultaneously represents the band’s artistic progression and the state of the world. Taking a surprisingly optimistic perspective, Mamaleek once again puts forward a project of left-field, wholly unique compositions, eluding easy categorization and furthering their abstraction of genre. “The group cloaks its music in the kind of warm, hypnotic distortion that defines shoegaze, and underneath that haze is a style that’s conceptually abrasive yet altogether beautiful.” —Forbes

Mamaleek

Kurdaitcha

Flenser

Mamaleek’s Kurdaitcha is finally back in print! The San Francisco-based duo released their third album of weirdo black metal, Kurdaitcha, on the legendary cult label Enemies List Home Recordings (Have a Nice Life, Giles Corey), and it quickly sold out. For years the LP has been a hard to find collector’s item. Kurdaitcha finds the project in its initial period of creating music influenced by black metal, hip hop, jazz, and spirituals.  Founded in 2008 in the Bay Area by two anonymous brothers, Mamaleek has explored a vast sonic territory on the edge of a genre renown for its aversion to change. Their expert utilization of left-field samples and unconventional instrumentation, and their insistent drive to experiment continues to set the band apart from their peers.  This pressing of Kurdaitcha has been remastered and features a previously unreleased bonus track with a gold foil stamped jacket.  “Mamaleek are the great destroyers.” — Invisible Oranges   “An incredibly rich and rewarding experience.” —Heavy Blog Is Heavy “Is it good, though? It’s fucking mental. It’s amazing. It’s absolutely horrible. It’s barely listenable at times and yet you can’t turn it off. The music is perfect. Like broken glass is perfect.” —Echoes And Dust  “The group cloaks its music in the kind of warm, hypnotic distortion that defines shoegaze, and underneath that haze is a style that’s conceptually abrasive yet altogether beautiful.” — FORBES

Mamaleek

Come & See

Flenser

Mamaleek seeks to weaponize the tropes of blues, jazz and black metal through an understanding of their respective formal structures. Known for flouting genre conventions, the band’s newest album Come & See, marks yet another degree of separation from their black metal roots. Here Mamaleek draws inspiration from post-war public housing—specifically Chicago’s notorious Cabrini Green housing project—seeking to analyze the emotional impact of the spaces one occupies, the surreal forces behind the appearance of physical reality, and the residues they leave behind. This is the band’s third full-length album for The Flenser, and their first release written and recorded with a full band. Founded in 2008 in the Bay Area by two anonymous brothers, Mamaleek has explored a vast sonic territory on the edge of a genre often renown for its aversion to change. Their expert utilization of left-field samples and unconventional instrumentation, and their insistent drive to experiment continues to set the band apart from their peers. Mamaleek will be making a rare live appearance at the 2020 edition of the acclaimed Roadburn festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands.  “Is it good, though? It’s fucking mental. It’s amazing. It’s absolutely horrible. It’s barely listenable at times and yet you can’t turn it off. The music is perfect. Like broken glass is perfect.” —Echoes And Dust  “An incredibly rich and rewarding experience.”  —Heavy Blog Is Heavy “Mamaleek are the great destroyers.” —Invisible Oranges

Mamaleek

Out Of Time

Flenser

San Francisco Bay Area-based black metal weirdos Mamaleek are set to release Out Of Time, their fifth full-length album and second for The Flenser. Musically, Mamaleek stands apart from the Bay Area’s most well-known black metal exports (Weakling, Leviathan, et al), and their connection to the genre grows more abstract with each release. This is especially evident on this album, where the band has intensified their unique approach to heavy music with a variety of unusual samples, such as crooning from Turkish concerts, advertisements for items that long exist, and fragments of old pop songs.  The band consists of two mysterious brothers who, until now, have kept entirely to themselves about the project. Just recently the duo made their first live appearance, and this release can be considered the final chapter of this era of anonymity. Out Of Time was recorded by Jack Shirley at The Atomic Garden (Deafheaven, Bosse-de-Nage, Botanist, etc.). This is Mamaleek’s first double album and it is their most ambitious work to date.

Mamaleek

Via Dolorosa

Flenser

The fifth album from Bay Area weirdos Mamaleek, Via Dolorosa is the duo’s darkest and most experimental release, incorporating black metal, psychedelia and electronic music. It is also the first Mamaleek record featuring live drums. At once harsh, frightening and beautiful, Via Dolorosa is like an evening at the darkest jazz club as it might appear in the depths of a child’s fever dream. Though the group’s two anonymous brothers hail from the San Francisco Bay Area and their work is rife with themes of death and nihilism, musically they stand apart from the city’s most well-known black metal exports (Weakling, Leviathan, et al.). Via Dolorosa features track titles inspired by traditional slave songs and incorporates melodic, Middle Eastern aesthetics. Bask in sorrow and reflect on your pitiful existence.  “The duo—a pair of brothers who prefer to keep their identities a secret—mix Middle Eastern song structures and samples, atonal experimental and avant-garde accents, guttural black metal howls, accessible electronic breakbeats, sludgy doom metal guitar-work, nimble piano interludes, and plenty of pop panache to create an unrelenting, moving sound.” —Forbes  “Mamaleek present a strong argument for being the next California black metal export worth following in the future.” —Sputnikmusic  “This record is the best black metal I have heard in a long, long time. It’s one of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time, period. An absolute must-listen.” —Dan Barrett (Have a Nice Life)

Mamaleek

He Never Spoke A Mumblin’ Word

Flenser

He Never Spoke a Mumblin’ Word is the fourth full-length from electronic black metal band Mamaleek. Mixed by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Botanist, Wreck & Reference), the album follows sought-after releases on Furusiyya and Enemies List Home Recordings. The San Francisco-based duo is comprised of two anonymous brothers. “This record marks an end as much as a beginning. While much more was recorded during this time, these four spirituals seem to form a coherence lacking on previous escapades. We are grateful to have this released, casting off the burdens of the past that, try as we might to escape, haunt the soul in a strange fashion.”  “San Francisco-based Mamaleek achieved a tense hybrid of black-metal frenzy, industrial syncopation, shoegazing distortion and dark ambience on Mamaleek (2008), notably the 18-minute ‘Shout On Children,’ and on the jazzier and denser Fever Dream (Furusiyya Recordings, 2008).” —Piero Scaruffi  “The duo—a pair of brothers who prefer to keep their identities a secret—mix Middle Eastern song structures and samples, atonal experimental and avant-garde accents, guttural black metal howls, accessible electronic breakbeats, sludgy doom metal guitar-work, nimble piano interludes, and plenty of pop panache to create an unrelenting, moving sound.” —Forbes