The Wolfgang Press Share “Sad Surfer,” First New Song In 29 Years
Sample-heavy UK post-punkers the Wolfgang Press were a big part of the 4AD Records roster in the ’80s and ’90s, and they broke up shortly after the release of their 1995 album Funky Little Demons. Last month, the reunited Wolfgang Press — OG members members Michael Allen and Andrew Gray, along with Andrew’s brother Stephen — announced a new album called A 2nd Shape. Now, they’ve shared its first single.
“Sad Surfer,” the first new Wolfgang Press track in 28 years, is built on an off-kilter drum-machine beat, and it’s got smears of guitar and a vocal that implies barely-contained fury. As someone with absolutely no expertise in this band’s history, I hear a bit of Nine Inch Nails, especially in that vocal. Here’s what the band says about the track:
“Sad Surfer” is one of the first songs written for the album and references the Victorian painter Richard Dadd, who painted imagined landscapes populated by fairies and supernatural beings. Dadd killed his father, convinced he was the devil, and thereafter spent most of his life painting in Bethlem and Broadmoor hospitals.
Listen below.
A 2nd Shape is out 9/27 on Downwards Records.