The Membranes

Event information

After a 20 year break the legendary, influential british post punk band the Membranes have returned after being asked to play All Tomorrows Parties by former support band My Bloody Valentine.

A key part of the UK underground scene in the eighties the band, along with contemporaries like the Birthday Barty, The Fall, Einsturzende Neubauten, Killing Joke reshaped music on their own terms.

They have already played several festival across Europe to a great reaction and now have a new album Dark Matter/Dark Energy to be released on Cherry Red Records spring 2015.
The new music weaves noise, drones, found percussion, feedback, discord, melody, free jazz, dub, dark- dub, free punk, heavy rhythms, classical music, orchestras, percussion, near silence, death to trad rock noise and freedom into a unique whole of beauty and noise and enjoys all the contrasts.

There is also a remix album to be released later in the with several key artists who were influenced by or championed like the bands mentioned above and many others doing reinterpretations of the new songs.

The Membranes formed out of punk and DIY culture and then went on their own path. Reforming after a 20 year break, their name is currently quoted by many young bands as well as classic bands as a key influence.

The legendary influential UK band were firm John Peel favourites and released several critically acclaimed albums and singles in the eighties. Their death to trad rock, discordant music was part of the anti rock music with contemporaries like the Birthday party, Einsturzende Neubauten, Swans, The Ex and The Fall as well as fringe darker band like Bauhaus and Killing Joke and were a direct influence and precursors to the American wave of bands like Big Black, Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, the Butthole Surfers who they knew well and toured with when they were signed to Homestead Records in America- in the USA many bands have quoted them as a key influence like Mercury Rev and Lambchop and UK bands like My Bloody Valentine and The Horrors and European bands like Iceage whose earlier records sound very similar to the Membranes earlier records.


Not only were they were championed by John Peel and the music press but they also had several front covers and top ten indie albums and singles. They were original and ahead of their times with their idiosyncratic music and brilliantly twisted lyrics.

They toured the world and were released by Homestead Records in the USA and were the first band that Steve Albini worked with outside Big Black.

Dinosaur Jnr recorded the iconic video for Freak Scene in the Membranes back garden and they made several TV appearances of their own in the UK like the Tube.

They were the first signing to Alan Mcgee’s Creation Records, toured the world and were instrumental in setting up the key DIY underground scene in the UK termed the Death To Trad Rock scene and written about in John Robb’s book of the same name.

They reformed in 2010 at the request of their former support band My Bloody Valentine to play the ATP festival, this was followed up by a request from Shellac to play the same festival a couple of years later.

Inspired by the revival of interest in their original music they are working on a new album that will be released early 2015 and and have been playing wildly received gigs and festivals across Europe. The gigs have gone so well that the band are working on an album built around the Universe Explained gig they did last year where they got Higgs Boson scientists to explain the universe before the Membranes played a set to finish in a sellout show.


They also played the highest ever gig over the summer at the top of Blackpool tower and have several more special event gigs planned.

They are still inspired by punk rock but believe music has no boundaries.


The band are also currently being filmed for a documentary.

Frontman John Robb also runs the key music website louderthanwar, writes music books and is a famous UK music journalist and TV pundit.

http://www.facebook.com/themembranes

http://www.themembranes.co.uk


Membranes youtube

Membranes ‘If You Enter The Arena You Got To Be Prepared To Deal With Lions'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj-qk7W4FME

Membranes ‘The Universe Explodes Into A Billion protons Of Pure White Light’ (live at the top of Blackpool tower)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SM-9xvCur0