Al Karpenter "Greatest Heads" release July 4, 2025

1.We Are All Karpenters
2.Mundo Chabola
3.Izugarrizko Buruak (Greatest Heads)
4.A Brand New Astraphobia
5.The Most Grudgeful Lie
6.Tout Avant de Devenir Rien
7.Stop The Genocide!
8.Worm City
9.Death Song
10.Perfect Love


Released by Hegoa Diskak and Night School Records

Night School press release:

0 Greatest Heads is the fourth album by the radical Basque- Berlinesque group Al Karpenter. A deconstruction of structured “rock” music, here Al Karpenter re-imagine “the band” to explore the intersection between Free music, afro-beat, the avant garde and gonzo rock.

If Theodore Adorno wrote “To Write Poetry after Auschwitz is Barbaric” in 1949, Al Karpenter attempts to answer the difficult question today; what kind of music can be done in the face of a genocide? Álvaro Matilla, Marta Sainz, Enrique Zaccagnini & Mattin’s response to the planet’s slipping into a vortex of hate is to create a music ecstatic, a music of protest bursting with multiple musical languages and glossaries, full of overlapping histories and thrilling tensions.

Greatest Heads posits a plurality of musics both in opposition and intertwined: Al Karpenter play rock instruments pulled apart in the studio in post-production. Distorted rhythm chunks bit-crushed and dissipated, segments of freedom oppressed by waves of sound invading from every direction. The interplay between the chief instrumentalists and renowned, storied sound artist Mattin creates something akin to ESP freedom-seekers Cro Magnon playing in Miles Davis’ early 70s groups, The Los Angeles Free Music Society tightening up into a clenched fist of plunderphonics and runaway percussion.

We Are All Karpenters opens Greatest Heads with the most straight-forward song refrain of the record accompanied by a band that soon crash into eruption, imagining Sun City Girls in full free rock mode. The modulating synth sound soon sucks the band into its wake to create a spine-chilling climax of distorted sound, made fully orgasmic with mastering engineer Rashad Becker’s attention to detail. On Izugarrizko Buruak (Greatest Heads), Matilla intones in Basque over a mangled distorto-beat. A Brand New Astraphobia creates a black space for a heavily processed guitar to blow up before falling to earth at night, a gentle figure serenading the coming end.

On Side B, the band begins by being masticated by a brutal phaser, squelching and stretching the music into new territories. The overt message of Stop The Genocide! is besieged by violence before Worm City aggressively samples the ghosts of soul music, mixing in noise bursts, prepared piano and swiping, abstracted sound. Epic closer Perfect Love feels like a beat poetry performance on a burnt world, still grasping for community, for home, for some sort of human love. A Mad love, then; an angry love fuelled by solidarity and collaboration.

The band’s cascading layers of references and polyglottal musics attempt to create the perfect lover, alive with rage and disorientating ecstasy: Al Karpenter.



Hegoa Diskak press release:
Al Karpenter expands on their Post-Genre Punk approach reaching a new level of maturity. In fact, we can say that “Greatest Heads” is Al Karpenter’s “Remain in Light” from Talking Heads in the sense that it is also their fourth record, heavily based on production and is influenced by Afrobeat in distorted ways.

This record contains elaborated liner notes by Eoin Anderson and features very special guests: “ “ [sic] Goldie, Lisa Rosendahl, and Mikel Xedh — a deeply important musician from the Basque Country who collaborated with Al for over a decade and who recently passed away. This record is dedicated to him.

If Adorno wrote “To Write Poetry after Auschwitz is Barbaric” in 1949, Al attempts to answer the difficult question today; what kind of music can be done in the face of a genocide? Al Karpenter invites Brigitte Fontaine, Brecht & Artaud to improvise a protest song in a dark cellar in Berlin shouting against the current silencing in Germany of people who are pro-Palestine

The audience gets sucked by the layers of histories while hearing ethereal ethnic sounds, music from Saturn, beat poetry, spectralism, tones reminiscent of Robert Ashley, infinite melancholy and lamentations with echoes of 70s free jazz re-imagined as revolutionary potentials for a future to come. Álvaro Matilla, Marta Sainz, Enrique Zaccagnini & Mattin play with restrained intensity mixing electronics, noise, abstract beats and garage rock with a conceptual approach and desperate anger; African Head Charge meets Akauzazte.

A deeply emotional conglomerate of a thousandmusics, claiming a profound truth; we are all karpenters of life. Or as Jérôme Noetinger said after seeing the band live at the Ears We Are Festival in Biel/Bienne this year: “All Karpenters = all Joseph = all father of God = all God = no more God then. Freedom in the expression of one chord.”

A giant leap.

“There's a dub housing / new picnic time era Pere Ubu vibe (gone wrong) all over that I absolutely adore.” Hicham Chadly from Nashazphone Records





AL KARPENTER:
Álvaro Matilla: Voice, Guitar, Keyboards & Electronics, Zither
Marta Sainz: Voice, Bass & Guitar
Enrique Zaccagnini: Voice, Percussions, Korg MS20 & Daxophone
Mattin: Voice, Double Bass, Computer, Guitar, Drums, Harmonium & Layout Design

Special Guests:
Mikel Xedh (Electronics A2 & Keyboards A5)
Lisa Rosendahl (Vocals B4 & B5)
" " [sic] Tim Goldie (vocals B3)


Recorded and mixed from April to October 2024 at Abject Musik Studio,
Berlin
Artwork made with stills by a film from James Richards


Liner notes by Eoin Anderson
Mastered by Rashad Becker
Produced by Mattin
Dedicated to Mikel Xedh


Radio plays:
https://www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20250117-4/
https://brianturnershow.com/2025/04/10/brian-turner-show-on-east-village-radio-episode-154-april-9-2025/
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/imojp/episodes/2025-04-11T20_41_32-07_00
https://www.radiopanik.org/emissions/l-etranger/show-502-congeals-amargo-yawls/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0029rsr
https://spinitron.com/KSPC/pl/20519124/Bill-Chen-vs-Dennis-Callaci
https://x.com/Freeyourradio/status/1912825774572286160?t=x7n1ShIEr72xiLZE4CGO8Q&s=19
https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/151317


Reviews:

Nathan Roche (CIA Debutante & Le Villejuif Underground):

It is a WILD-WILD ride, the wildest of the Al Karpenters until now I would say. Anyway, shit! This record is such an exotic adventure. It goes many, many places… like a beatnik detective novel, like Burroughs/Ginsberg Yage Letters but while Brian Jones is Presenting the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka to mother/father aristocrates who later give birth to future post-punk-industrial being intellectuals following tea and speed in the local embassy to where they were conceived post hidden-expat swing bar.

It's like the walls behind the walls of the last records, it's more of a mix-tape collage, more like a theatre piece! An important next instalment in the collection. It sounds like you all went into a deep, deep jungle and got hypnotized, or cured by many rituals by an unknown prehistoric tribe, that oddly enough beyond our level of conscious. I love all the production work; it really takes you on a unique sonic journey. I love A Brand New Astraphobia, lots of standout moments actually! Worm City, JESUS; super Cyberpunk ramblings from the underground of smoke city, while the history of music, clubs and bars turn to rubble!

Another hit in my eyes!

Great job dear karpenters.



BeachSloth Substack (April 20th, 2025)

Al Karpenter’s Greatest Heads is the kind of album you could take home to your mother if your mother were really into the Nihilist Spasm Band. The lack of organization is deliberate – this is pure, unfettered chaos, though not distinctively pure noise. Oddly, noise would be easier on the senses than this – this is far more difficult, queasy, and unsettling. Perhaps the closest approximation would be free jazz, but even that feels incomplete. Sometimes they settle into something that appears organized, but these moments do not last long. Given that the universe is in flux, this is good protest music. I am also reminded of, as a tangential note, of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s complete and utter disregard for conventional tempos. When asked, Stockhausen replied that he wanted music that was as non-military based as possible, with no marches and no military allusions, as that had destroyed his childhood and the lives of tens of millions of people.

Protest music fits the sound quite well. Unlike previous iterations of protest music, of the historical Woody Gutherie who similarly was anti-fascist (wild how fascism came back, I guess time is a circle), the more recent iteration of the Fugs, and the most recent Ultra-Red. Al Karpenter’s approach has a Dadaist quality. Given how agitated and unsettled the world is, Al Karpenter’s Greatest Heads is the best version of that soundtrack, and it feels real. Nods to Suicide’s nihilism (there’s that word again) are currently in full swing, though there’s less consistency and more of this nebulous quality within the work. Mattin is well-versed in destroying music; he’s been doing it all his life, from Billy Bao to the current era. He’s always been a raw voice screaming into the void. Unlike before, though, the void seems like something it has needed for a while.

The highlight for me, at least, is the dramatic rush of the finale, the sprawling Perfect Love. For a moment, there are some hippie-like new age flourishes that recall Terry Riley’s In C. After that initial flourish, it sounds like In C after it bled to death. A burned-out, hollowed aspect takes shape. His experience alongside the furthest reaches of noise emerges, from occupying the same spaces as Russell Haswell (in Consumer Electronics) to the woozy avant-garde meanderings of 80s industrial, and is all there. The fact that he weaves together all these periods of sound without making it feel forced is doubly refreshing. His monotone, flat affect with the vocals perfectly fits the territory's harshness. I often like finales on albums, as it forces me to revisit everything I just heard before, and this is one of those moments. Once I finished this groove-laden non-groove, these noises that feel like they could have come out of a Tridex or similarly unmusical musical instrument, I felt the need to relisten to everything, to see everything that I might have missed during my first run through. I like the unevenness of the whole thing, like the song is stumbling around, hesitant at first, afraid of falling, and eventually gaining enough confidence in its footing.

As a society, we have gotten past the need for obvious protest music borrowed from pre-existing genres. Now we live in a world where the act of rebellion does not need to be couched in something comfortable, an old familiar genre. Instead, if it is going to be a rebellion against the status quo, against the way things are, doesn’t it make more sense to invent a new genre or language? Al Karpenter seems to think so. 0


Norman Records (UK, 9th of April 2025)

All sorts of avant-rock, post-punk, and noise rock styles meet with a certain improvisatory, freeform quality of jazz, all loaded with cut-up post-production. Starting out as a solo project but now an eponymously named band since 2022 led by vocalist Al Karpenter, this astonishing band answer the question of the value of creating art in the face of genocide and planetary decline with their fourth album Greatest Heads.
It’s a sprawling, rousing and celebratory deconstruction of rock animated by the spirit of Basque rebellion from Karpenter’s home city of Bilbao.


Bad Alchemy

AL KARPENTER Greatest Heads (Hegoa Records / Night School Records, LP): Mit was Musik verglichen und beworben wird, lässt mich oft genug auf Taubheit oder Frechheit schließen. Nicht so hier: Die ausgesuchten Hinweise auf die ESP-legendären Cro Magnon, die Los Angeles Free Music Society und Sun City Girls treffen halbwegs zu. ÁlvaroMatilla ist der Kopf dieser baskischen Reynols. Marta Sainz (von Minima Moralia, Un Coup De Dés), Enrique Zaccagnini & Mattin (von Billy Bao, Regler) bestärken ihn in seinem 'Riot & Roll!'. Gegen die neue und die alte Weltunordnung, die sie aufmischen mit 'Mundo Chabola' [Slumwelt], 'Izugarrizko Buruak' [Großköpfe], 'A Brand New Astrophobia', 'The Most Grudgeful Lie', 'Tout Avant de Devenir Rein', 'Stop the Genocide!', 'Worm City', 'Death Song' und dem Sehnen, to get out und nach 'Perfect Love'. Mit zuerst aber 'We Are All Karpenters' of Life, Karpenters of Sound, Karpenters of Love als Sammlungsruf, als wilde Jagd, als eskalierender Alarm. Dem folgt jedoch kein In-Yer-Face aus irgend einer Post­punk-, Doom-, Metal-, Noise-Box, sondern ein amorphes, anarchisches Dümpeln und Tau­meln in zerrüttet diffusen musikalischen Resten. Kaputt ins Leere klapperndem Beat und Echos von Funk und Soul vertraut Matilla mit krächzendem Sang, brüchigem Flüstern seine Beobachtungen, Ängste, Schmerzen an. Er reimt Love so madly / Hurts so badly. Selbst bei Let's fight the hatred zittert die Stimme. Und wozu taugen ein zarter Gitarren­loop oder elegisches Pizzicato in diesem Kampf? Das hat was entwaffnend Diffuses, als ein rührendes Eingeständnis von Schwäche. Nicht einmal eine mickrige Faust, sondern da gibt es nur eine leere, vage Flüchtigkeit, die an „Les furtifs“ denken lässt. „Being a carpen­ter is refusing to be a soldier", verdeutlicht Eoin Anderson dazu, der sich „Greatest Heads“ als Bombenentschärfer annähert. Und der für den Saboteur und für Sand im Getriebe wirbt. Doch sabotiert er selbst sein „Stop it... history's nightmare, its military-materialism, must cease“ mit einem Fragezeichen. Warum das Mantra „Stop killing children“? Warum ist „You shall not murder“ nicht genug? Dafür erkennt er in 'Worm City' Worms und sein Ju­dentum. Und das dennoch betonte 'Gaza, nicht Nova' hält weder Andersons„Volitile para­doxes carve out vacant space to move in“ noch der boden- und fassungslosen Musik stand. Das Ganze ist übrigens auch ein Memento für Miguel A. García alias "xedh", Sainz' Partner in Black Earth und Ab'bhau, der im Januar mit nur 44 Jahren am Lou-Gehrig-Syndrom (ALS) gestorben ist.
[BA 128 rbd]

AL KARPENTER Greatest Heads (Hegoa Records / Night School Records, LP): With what music is compared to and promoted often enough make me suspect deafness or impudence. Not so here: The references to ESP's legendary Cro Magnon, the Los Angeles Free Music Society, and Sun City Girls are halfway accurate. Álvaro Matilla is the mastermind of these Basque Reynols. Marta Sainz (of Minima Moralia, Un Coup De Dés), Enrique Zaccagnini & Mattin (of Billy Bao, Regler) reinforce his 'Riot & Roll!' Against the new and the old world disorder they stir up with 'Mundo Chabola' [Slum World], 'Izugarrizko Buruak' [Greatest Heads], 'A Brand New Astrophobia', 'The Most Grudgeful Lie', 'Tout Avant de Devenir Rein', 'Stop the Genocide!', 'Worm City', 'Death Song', and the longing to get out and for 'Perfect Love'. First, however, with 'We Are All Karpenters' of Life, Karpenters of Sound, Karpenters of Love as a rallying cry, a wild hunt, an escalating alarm. This, however, is not followed by an in-yer-face from some post-punk, doom, metal, or noise box, but rather an amorphous, anarchic stagnating and tumbling in shattered, diffuse musical debris. To a beat that clatters into the void, and echoes of funk and soul, Matilla confides his observations, fears and pain in croaky vocals and brittle whispers. He rhymes Love so madly / Hurts so badly. Even in „Let's fight the hatred“ his voice trembles. And what good is a delicate guitar loop or elegiac pizzicato in this fight? There's something disarmingly diffuse about it, like a touching admission of weakness. Not even a skinny fist, just an empty, vague fleetingness that brings to mind "Les furtifs". „Being a carpenter is refusing to be a soldier“, explains Eoin Anderson, who approaches "Greatest Heads" like a bomb disposal expert. And who advocates for the saboteur and for sand in the gears. But he sabotages his own „Stop it... history's nightmare, its military-materialism, must cease" with a question mark. Why the mantra „Stop killing children"? Why is „You shall not murder" not enow? On the other hand, he recognizes Worms and its Jewishness in "Worm City." And the nevertheless emphasized "Gaza, not Nova" neither stands up to Anderson's „Volitile paradoxes carve out vacant space to move in" nor to the groundless and bewildered music. The whole thing is also, incidentally, a memorial to Miguel A. García alias "xedh", Sainz's partner in Black Earth and Ab'bhau, who died of Lou Gehrig's Syndrome (ALS) in January at the age of just 44.
[BA 128 rbd]