{"product_id":"bambara_birthmarks_2025_bel","title":"Birthmarks","description":"An extraordinary modernist rock band with nocturnal undertones, steeped in Southern Gothic, Brooklyn trio Bambara have honed their macabre vision to perfection with their brilliantly adventurous fifth album, \"Birthmarks\".\n\nCreated in collaboration with co-producer Graham Sutton of British post-rock pioneers Bark Psychosis (also responsible for These New Puritans' groundbreaking albums), this is not so much a concept album as an astonishingly complex work of narrative fiction, featuring memorable characters; not all of these characters are exactly set to music, but rather born out of the music itself.\n\nBambara’s three members - singer-guitarist Reid Bateh, his twin brother Blaze Bateh (drums) and bassist William Brookshire - first started playing together in middle school in Atlanta, Georgia, and since then they have relentlessly refined their sound and vision, first moving to Athens, Georgia, before settling in Brooklyn, where they established their long-term base.\n\nTheir story really picks up after 2020’s breakthrough album, Stray – a record whose volatile and often explosive wall of sound provided a sinister backdrop to Reid’s typically twisted midnight tales. Having toured with Idles and Gilla Band pre-pandemic (both big fans), it was that album – propelled by their propulsive single Serafina and widespread 6Music support – that truly put them on the map on both sides of the Atlantic.\n\nThey were then signed by Bella Union (Wharf Cat in the US), who for the first time granted them a budget that allowed them to hire a producer for what would become \"Birthmarks.\" They traveled to Ramsgate in Kent to record with Sutton in June 2023, seeking to revolutionize their sound beyond what many considered their “post-punk” leaning.\n\n\"Birthmarks\" undoubtedly represents Reid's most sophisticated writing to date. Even Bambara’s chaotic early albums, “Dreamviolence” (2013) and “Swarm” (2016), had a kind of through-line, and “Shadow of Everything” (2018) had a linear beginning-to-end narrative. With “Stray” (2020), populated by characters he imagined from faces in old, randomly-found photos, he began to scramble the songs to bury the plot, and this latest album pushes that process even further, with submerged layers of meaning.\n\nBambara are a once-in-a-generation band, fearlessly experimental and compulsively narrative. For those craving powerful, electrifying music in the vein of its most celebrated literary authors – Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen and the like – they are, without question, the real deal.\n\nBirthmarks will be released on March 14th via the Bella Union label.","brand":"Bambara","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55306583638360,"sku":null,"price":23992106.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0898\/4943\/0360\/files\/3700187687878_25544224-9e31-4015-9279-c2a85b78d001.jpg?v=1760288623","url":"https:\/\/vinyles.com\/en-us\/products\/bambara_birthmarks_2025_bel","provider":"Vinyles.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}