The Device Release EAST on Limited Tape; “Front” Video Posted
As to why only 42 tapes? Well aside from the fact that it’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything, I don’t really know. But at least it’s that.
Today, Ukrainian sludgethrowers The Device release their new three-songer, titled EAST in all-caps as though to emphasize the other-ness of Eastern Europe from the perspective of the western portion of the continent, on limited cassette through Galactic SmokeHouse, which honors the outing’s live recorded, harsh, dense-toned chaos with handmade art, poems, and exclusive tracks on the B-side that aren’t available in the DL version.
Proceedings from the release — also streaming in full as of today — go to benefit the war effort in Ukraine, which now has the rest of Europe and beyond fortifying itself for who the hell knows what will happen in the next couple years as it drags on, the Ukrainian people running point in a proxy war between my home country of the US and Russia which reaffirms that America learned nothing from wasting 20 years and I don’t even know how many lives in Afghanistan and Iraq — that’s before you get to the money — and reminds once again that humans, primarily, don’t deserve a planet this beautiful. Nonetheless, we’re here and we’re wrecking up the place.
How does this war end? And when? I don’t know. Think Russia won’t just throw hundreds of thousands of its ‘soldiers’ under the treads of US and European tanks? Think America is going to bankrupt itself again without sending ground troops in? And when NATO goes to war with Russia, and that’s basically WWIII, what does China have to say about it? I think about these things, and then my head starts to hurt when I think it could be my kid’s generation fighting this war in another 10-plus years, and having seen my own generation pulled apart by needless conflict in a war of aggression — that the US started, I’ll note — to watch the cycle start up all over, with nuclear threat looming, is all the more disheartening. So yeah.
I’m not saying it’s not worth supporting Ukraine. I’m saying it’s not worth betting on humanity.
And on that happy note, I’ll turn you over to the PR wire info for The Device‘s EAST — which was recorded in 2021 when all Eastern Europe had to worry about was a fucking plague like everyone else at the time — and the war-themed video that accompanies the 13-minute “Front” from it. Alongside “Work” (10:24) and the interlude “Crawl” (2:44), “Front” is duly raw and biting, and if you actually make it through watching the clip and feel nothing, just a heads up, you might be a sociopath.
Here you go:
The Device – EAST
Available to buy here: https://thedevice.bandcamp.com/album/east
The Device rises again. From the ashes of the ruined buildings. From the tears of the forsaken ones. From the blood of the dead.
‘Front’ is a single promoting the new album of the ancient brotherhood. ‘EAST’ is to be released on a DIY TAPE the 31st of March, 2023. By buying this album, you are helping in the fight for freedom of Ukraine and its people. Money from this tape is being sent to those who need it in the UA. Right now we are raising money for a thermal viewfinder for our friend Ivan, fighting in Donbas.
Fundraiser:
https://send.monobank.ua/jar/P4iKAquJg
This album is dedicated to all Easterners in Europe.
Stay strong, brothers and sister. We will see better times. The power of change is within us.
Eastern Europe. War. Regime. Propaganda. Gov-Party police. Inhumane working conditions in modern day slavery – minimum wage jobs. This is an album touching on all of those topics so vivid in everyday life of the Easterners today. With this music, we are fighting against all of those as much as we can. To help our Ukrainian brothers and sisters win the most important of all fights, the fight for freedom of the whole East against the muscovite invasion, we are sending all the profits from this record to the Ukrainian army.
East is an album that is a pure expression of anger, anguish and grief of living in Eastern Europe. Raw, disgusting sounds full of saturation and distortion. Sludge in the most real form. DIY live recorded on one day in a basement in Poland during summer 2021.
Credits:
Recording / Mix / Master – Cebula
Video: Maciej Niemczyk
Tracklisting:
1. Work
2. Crawl
3. Front
Side A recorded live in one day, in a basement somewhere in the heart of Poland, in much calmer and safer times, during the summer 2021.
Recording Side A – Cebula
Mix – Cebula (except B1,3)
Cover art and B1 mix – Wiktor Kozak
Video: Maciej Niemczyk
Contains TAPE ONLY B SIDES:
1. Unsleeping – Unsleeping
2. Aргос – BCD
3. RAQAL – the beauty of the bad trip
Tape mastered, hand numbered, hand copied and crafted by Cebula. MC tape in a handmade cardboard box. Hand numbered, limited to 42 copies. Made from 100% recycled materials. Additionally, there is an insert with tracklist and two poems. One in Ukrainian, one in Polish. Both full of darkness and sorrow. Just like the music.
https://thedevice.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/GalacticSmokeHouse
https://www.instagram.com/galacticsmokehouse/
https://linktr.ee/GalacticSmokeHouse
