Press Releases

'Up' is the 3rd International Peoples Gang album, following 1995’s '3395' (voted in The Wire’s top ten albums of the year) and 'Action Painting' in 2006. Having previously released on the highly respected Em:t, this is the bands first album on Amsterdam based Hi-Phi Music and sees the gang expand their kaleidoscopic house, funk, folk, downtempo and pop hybrid sound even further into the unknown.

International Peoples Gang are Nottingham residents Martyn Watson and Ric Peet who have created their own sublime sound through their IPG albums and masses of production work and remixes. After fighting the punk wars and tasting pop success with Pookah Makes Three, Martyn Watson produced bands in Paris, A&R’d for Arista in London and co-founded the uber-hip house label T:me Records in 1991, fired by the Balearic hedonism of Nottingham’s legendary Venus club. Ric was thrust into the limelight as one half of ‘baggy rave duo’ Candyflip with their 1990 reworking of “Strawberry Fields” whilst as a producer/engineer he has worked on studio albums with John Leckie and Muse, The Charlatans, Six By Seven and Bent as well as doing live sound for V2’s fantastic Amusement Parks on Fire and Nottingham’s own Crazy P amongst others.

Together, as IPG, Martyn and Ric use concepts of sound as their material, throwing them at blank spaces and watching abstract images and audio-visual beauty take shape. The result combines warm, organic dub soudscapes with classical stylings, elements of folk with fuzzed guitars, creating a manipulation of language with electronic experimentation. This anything goes approach fits with the original concept behind the group; The International Peoples Gang (inspired by a lyric from David Bowie's Panic In Detroit) which one is born into; a kind of collective consciousness.

Up kicks off with the anthemic and uplifting "Second“ (featuring elements of The Who’s "Blue, Red and Grey") showing off the pair’s impeccable taste for beautiful sound but as the name also suggests, this album was produced by Martyn & Ric with much valued contributions from their gang. The pair have brought out fantastic vocal performances from Jay Thomas (daughter of house producer Tony Thomas) on "Angel Delight“ and Katty Heath (who has also sung for Mylo, Bent and breakbeat duo Slyde among others) on the tracks "Caught Up In Something“ which features Crazy P producer Jim Baron on Trombone and "271 The Trencherman“, with upright bass by Arwel Hughes.

From the shimmering and hypnotic "Son of Still“ to the more upbeat stance of "Instant Sideways“ and Chika Woodward’s spoken word diatribe on the sparsely beautiful "Nascent“, International Peoples Gang continue their musical ascendency with Up.

www.internationalpeoplesgang.co.uk

www.myspace.com/internationalpeoplesgang