he Problem of Leisure: A Celebration of Andy Gill and Gang of Four,
is set for release on June 4, 2021. It’s a double album of tracks written by Andy Gill and Gang of Four, all newly reinterpreted and recorded by artists whose own unique contributions to music were enriched by listening to Gang of Four. The album features songs from across Gang of Four’s 40-plus year career, each individually chosen by the artists’ who covered them.
The latest single to be taken from the album is a new interpretation of “In the Ditch” by the brilliant American alternative rock band, Helmet.
Listen here!
soundcloud.com/gangoffour/helmet-in-the-ditch/s-Kmml4tatO8O
Andy Gill was a fan of Helmet from their early days and had hoped to collaborate with them on a future music project. “In the Ditch” is the first new track from Helmet since 2016.
Speaking about their involvement in The Problem of Leisure, Page Hamilton from Helmet explains: “My old pal Henry Rollins reissued Entertainment! and Solid Gold back in the 90’s and asked me to do liner notes for Solid Gold. I don’t remember what I wrote but I know it was glowing, corny and fanboy. Their songs, feel, energy, inventiveness made an indelible imprint on my musical soul. All of our peers that formed bands in the late 80’s were influenced by Go4. I chose ‘In the Ditch’ for this tribute cause it’s a great song even though it was challenging (thank you to my band!). It feels improvised and random at times but holds together as a composition. The guitar part feels like spontaneous scratchy funk, the angular bass and drum groove grooves hard but sounds like there’s a spoke missing. The vocal is somehow beautiful but scary, urgent and dangerous. There’s no room for limp dick, mail-it-in, non-musical moments in any of these songs. How the hell did they put this together? We could only try to capture the intensity of the original. This band changed me. Thank you Andy, Dave, Hugo & Jon.”
Andy Gill’s widow Catherine Mayer says:
“Helmet has recorded a superb version of “In the Ditch”, such a powerful song for these paranoid times. Andy and the other members of the original line-up came of age during an era of Public Information Films issued by the UK Government in case of nuclear attack. Even then it was clear that the instructions given in these films, such as taking shelter under tables or diving into ditches, were designed not to save lives but to quieten public nerves. It was propaganda, and as such grist to Gang of Four’s preoccupations. How eerily relevant the lyrics seem, recalling Prepper ideologies and also the claustrophobia of our locked-down world. Of course I also stumble over the lyrics about ‘beyond the cares of the world’ and ‘six feet under’, things that apply to Andy metaphorically if not, in the second case, literally. His ashes are at home with me, high on a shelf where he can observe, with pleasure, preparations for this wonderful album.”
Listen to previous singles from the album
TOM MORELLO & SERJ TANKIAN – NATURAL’S NOT IN IT
gang-of-four.ffm.to/naturals-not-in-it
Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) has collaborated with Serj Tankian (System Of A Down) to create an incredible cover of Natural’s Not In It.
This track, like many on this album, first appeared on the band’s extraordinary 1979 debut long player, Entertainment!, an album universally heralded as a classic, and as “the fifth best punk album of all time” by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2006 the track gained new audiences when writer-director Sofia Coppola used it for the opening of her film “Marie Antoinette”.
Says Tom Morello: “Andy Gill was one of a handful of artists in history who changed the way guitars are played. His band Gang of Four were just incendiary and completely groundbreaking with Andy’s confrontational, unnerving and sublime playing at the forefront. His jagged plague-disco raptor-attack industrial-funk deconstructed guitar anti-hero sonics and fierce poetic radical intellect were hugely influential to me.”
3D X GANG OF FOUR FEATURING NOVA TWINS –
WHERE THE NIGHTINGALE SINGS (REDUX)”
https://youtu.be/zeJuy42wgl8 “Where the Nightingale Sings”, produced by 3D (Robert Del Naja, Massive Attack) and Andy Gill, and featuring London based alt. rock duo Nova Twins.
The creation of this new version of “Where the Nightingale Sings” was a collaborative project between 3D and Andy Gill. 3D chose the song and started working on a remix using the original Nightingale track from the What Happens Next album (2015). Andy recorded new vocals with Nova Twins which 3D incorporated into this haunting new “Redux” version. Andy Gill was a long standing fan of Massive Attack and was thrilled that Gang of Four were invited to support them at Meltdown Festival in the UK in 2008, which they curated. Amy Love from Nova Twins worked with Andy on the Happy Now album (2019), contributing backing vocals on several of the tracks. Speaking about his connection with Gang of Four, Robert says: “I first met Andy in a hotel bar in Glasgow and gushed drunkenly about the importance of the Entertainment album for an hour. He’d recorded the conversation and played it back through my hotel room door later that night. In fact, the Mezzanine album project was named ‘Damaged Goods’ until I fell out of the hotel lift and into the minibar. Gang of Four were a foundation stone for us, even though we never successfully sampled or covered a single track of theirs. Years later, when we hosted them at Meltdown I mentioned this fact to Andy after the show and he said “That’s because you’re crap”… Provocative but true. So I got the Anthrax beetle tattooed on my back-‘Love, leisure, work and war’
WARPAINT – PARALYSED
https://youtu.be/bENKa3p77Sk
Speaking about their involvement in The Problem of Leisure, Warpaint’s Jenny Lee, who produced this new version of “Paralysed”, explains: “The change will do me good.” (Damaged Goods). Best piece of advice that pretty much changed my life. Not to mention Dave Allen’s bass playing. Also changed me forever. Made me wanna play bass. “It was cool to get inside of ‘Paralysed,’ and for Gang Of Four to give us freedom to freak out in our way…it was a beautiful opportunity and we’re SOOO excited, it’s an honour actually, to be a part of Andy’s tribute.”
Further singles will be released in May, ahead of the album release in June.
After Andy’s death in February 2020, Catherine Meyer assembled a small team to completeThe Problem of Leisure. The record had originally been conceived by Andy himself not as a post-mortem tribute, but to mark the 40th anniversary in 2019 of Gang Of Four’s extraordinary 1979 debut long player Entertainment! an album widely heralded as a classic (“the fifth best punk album of all time”: Rolling Stone magazine).
A message from Catherine Mayer here:
https://youtu.be/QfNAZ6C7cyM
Andy had already revised that vision in the months before his death, after some artists chose tracks from different albums and periods. Every musician who committed to the project was given the freedom to create new versions of whichever Gang of Four songs they wanted to cover, with Andy overseeing some of the earlier productions but largely leaving artists to create their own interpretations.
When Andy died, obituarists struggled to sum up his profound impact on music. He had co-founded Gang of Four and remained at the time of his death its only original member. As co-writer or writer of all the band’s songs and through his unmistakable and much emulated guitar style, Andy influenced generation after generation of musicians, and that effect was amplified by his work as a composer and producer. This album speaks to that impact and influence.
The final 20 track double album features an extraordinary roll call of global talent, with artists from seven different countries and four continents, and demonstrates the breadth and scale of Andy and Gang of Four’s influence. The album’s brilliant artwork was created by Damien Hirst, a long-term Gang of Four aficionado. Andy chose the cover art from a selection of options provided by the artist.
The album is available to pre-order now in a variety of double vinyl, two CD and cassette formats from all usual retail outlets worldwide.
The deluxe vinyl format, “Dogluxe” is only available from the Gang of Four website,
gangoffour.uk/store
All formats feature different versions of the artwork from Damien Hirst.
The album will be released on the Gill Music label on June 4
Pre-order now at
gangoffour.uk/the-problem-of-leisure