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The Kings of Frog Island Complete Year-Long Series of Single Releases

the kings of frog island xmas ball

Bands attempt this kind of thing all the time — labels too — and far, far fewer see it through to completion. At the start of the year, Leicester, UK’s underrated post-Elektrohasch psych wanderers The Kings of Frog Island set out to release a song every month across the entirety of 2019. And they did it. They’re a self-contained act in terms of recording — i.e. DIY — so assuming life allows them to get together at semi-regular intervals, it wouldn’t be impossible for each one of these tracks to have been put to tape (or, you know, hard drive) as it was created, but I don’t think that was the circumstance. Some of this stuff was recorded before and finalized or mixed down, or was from other sessions. One is a track reworked and one is a take on Monster Magnet‘s “Ozium” and so it’s not really all drawn from one source. It doesn’t seem to have been a case of, “It’s the first of the month — everybody back in the live room.”

And hey, that’s fair. However it’s done, even self-releasing 12 tracks — plus a bonus holiday song, no less! — in a single year is a massive undertaking, so right on. If you’re like me and have been wondering with The Kings of Frog Island might eventually get around to following up 2014’s V (review here), this project has offered a year-long listening experience that’s scratched the itch on multiple fronts. The even better news, though, is that in September, The Kings of Frog Island received the test pressings for VI, which they’ll release through Kozmik Artifactz at some point I guess in the New Year. I’m not sure how much or if any of these songs will be on that record, but if they are or aren’t, the more the merrier, as far as I’m concerned.

A note and then we can get to it: they’re on Spotify, and I probably could’ve just posted the whole thing as a playlist or whatever, but frankly that seems an injustice to me in terms of visually representing this as 13 separate releases from throughout 2019. As such, here are 13 separate YouTube embeds, which take up a more appropriate-feeling amount of space on the screen.

Enjoy:

The Kings of Frog Island, “We Wish You a Merry Xmas” (Dec.)

The Kings of Frog Island, “Rocket Ron (Head in My Hands)” (Dec.)

The Kings of Frog Island, “Heat Haze” (Nov.)

The Kings of Frog Island, “El Indio” (Oct.)

The Kings of Frog Island, “Descending Inferno” (Sept.)

The Kings of Frog Island, “Belvoir Felvoir” (Aug.)

The Kings of Frog Island, “Nebula” (July)

The Kings of Frog Island, “Pigs in Kaftans” (June)

The Kings of Frog Island, “Ozium” (Monster Magnet cover, May)

The Kings of Frog Island, “Supernova” (April)

The Kings of Frog Island, “Temporal Riff Vol. 1” (March)

The Kings of Frog Island, “White Dwarf” (Feb.)

The Kings of Frog Island, “The Birth of a Star”

The Kings of Frog Island on Thee Facebooks

The Kings of Frog Island on YouTube

The Kings of Frog Island on CDBaby

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