COMMUNIONS SHARE NEW TRACK ‘LEARN TO PRAY’
NEW ALBUM PURE FABRICATION
OUT APRIL 23RD VIA TAMBOURHINOCEROS
Copenhagen-based Communions will release their second album Pure Fabrication next Friday, April 23 on Tambourhinoceros. Described by the band as a “reverse coming of age story”, the album tackles themes of change, instability, freedom, love and identity. New album cut ‘Learn To Pray’ tells a story of cultural disintegration at the hands of narcissism, wealth and fame. The song offers a snapshot from the middle of the album, where the story’s protagonist undergoes a jaded and cynical battle with identity. ‘Learn To Pray’ follows on the heels of previous tracks ‘Cupid’, ‘Bird of Passage’ and ‘Splendour’, which ushered in a new era for the band as they moved from a four-piece to focus solely on the creative partnership between founders and brothers Mads and Martin Rehof.
Communions are bound for greatness, each track they’ve shared from their forthcoming album emits this electrifying essence whilst the pair dynamically showcase their broad range and stellar songwriting skills. With “Learn To Pray”, Communions build up this ominous ambiance from the darker tone and the crucial bass notes that weave through the atmosphere complimenting the ardent drum beats. The lyrics develop into this harrowing infliction into the release, you study each passage and quickly memorize the key line get on your knees, and learn to pray. Communions continue to create and craft critical atmospheres within their work, alluring and addictive. This new ensemble displays the outfit’s ability to slow down the tempo, to push the slower brooding intensity through their rhythms.
Lead singer Martin Rehof explains: ‘While Pure Fabrication gives a thematic portrayal of certain forces that allow one to freely fabricate one’s life, whether it be forces of love, independence, or freedom, ‘Learn To Pray’ deals rather with being tied to the fabric of the social world. Pertaining to this, it portrays a communal lapse into cultural decline.”
‘Learn To Pray’ also marks a new stylistic direction for Communions. With slow, steady broomstick-played drums and a repetitive, slightly jazzy bass line, it is a more restrained showing than their previous singles from the album. But ‘Learn to Pray’ also gains its power from its restraint, leaving space for Rehof’s sinister, stream-of-consciousness lyrics.
In a sea of transforming culture, what is an individual identity? This is one of the questions which Communions grapple with on Pure Fabrication, a 15 song, hour-long odyssey into self-understanding, it’s described as a “parody of a coming of age story”. Following the journey of a fictional protagonist, the record culminates in the eventual understanding that we’re not always as free as we would like to think – bound by culture and the forces that have shaped us. “As the album progresses, strong ironic overtones in whatever praise of freedom was besung are slowly unveiled,” the band shares. “While the opening songs represent a character with an—perhaps naive—assertiveness and unwillingness to be restrained or suppressed by the ways of the world, by the end of the record, the protagonist questions the entire notion of desire and freedom.”
After returning to Denmark, Mads and Martin attended the progressive Christianshavn High School and quickly became part of the burgeoning Mayhem scene (an alternative-punk scene in Copenhagen, based out of the infamous venue / practice room). Whilst the band’s style was recognized as a cut from the same post-punk cloth as many of their fellow Mayhem bands (i.e. Iceage, Pardans, Vår, and Lower), Communions stood out by embracing melody and pop songwriting, two elements that Mayhem’s noise and harsh punk-rock bands tended to abandon. Where their first EP Cobblestones, (released whilst still in high school) drew inspiration from the underground scene’s punk cynicism, the band steadily refined their craft across two following EPs and debut album Blue (2017), riding a wave of international attention and festival performances. Marked by sharp cultural criticism, self reflection, and artistic commentary of a grand scale, Communions’ new music takes the signature indie rock from the dark clubs of their youth and merges it with full-fleshed cerebral critique and symbolism.
A treatise on cultural inheritance and self-discovery, Pure Fabrication arrives as Communions’ most cohesive output to date. Martin reflects, “It’s a more mature realization of all of the experiments we have made, an album that, in my view, incorporates all of our best sides from each previous release.”
Pre-order Pure Fabrication here:
https://tambou.lnk.to/TAMB291ne
Pure Fabrication
Tracklist
01.Bird Of Passage
02. Humdrum
03. Cupid
04. My Little Planet
05. Learn To Pray
06. Signs Of Life
07. Splendour
08. History (The Siren Song)
09. Blunder In The Street
10. Is This How Love Should Feel?
11. Hymn
12. Androgyny
13. Here And Now
14. Celebration
15. The Gift Of Music
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