Prolapse return with a new single

The mighty PROLAPSE return with a new single this week!

Released on Tuesday 25th March, it’s called On The Quarter Days and, in the band’s very own words, the title alludes to the following: “In the very olden days, the nearest you could get to nothing was to pay a peppercorn rent – a nominal sum. This was a symbolic act which was often paid on the quarter days – 4 days a year when you could sign a binding contract without giving anything away.”

This is great news for those of us (that’s including me of course) who still believe that this band are one of the greatest ever to have blessed us with gloriously addictive noise in the last 50 years.

The band have been sporadically gigging between their normal day jobs (only two of which involve music full time) since their unexpected and much welcome regrouping in 2015 – tentatively – and then again in 2022 – properly for a series of live dates – and have been hinting at recording new material for some time (having debuted some new numbers at the recent live shows), and now after a gap of over 25 years since their last album Ghosts Of Dead Aeroplanes, they issue this first taster for a forthcoming new album – slated for release later in the year.

Comprising the original sextet of ‘Scottish’ Mick Derrick, Linda Steelyard (both on vocals), David Jeffreys on guitar, Pat Marsden on guitar/keys, and the formidable rhythm section of ‘Geordie’ Mick Harrison on bass and ‘Octopus’ Tim Pattison on drums, along with seventh partner-in-crime the venerable Donald Ross Skinner, the band previewed their first new release on the Mark Riley & Gideon Coe Show on 6Music just a few days ago on 20th March.

On The Quarter Days does not disappoint: it’s as if Prolapse have been cryogenically frozen in all that intervening time and have returned sounding as youthfully cocksure, brash, bright, breezy and belligerently vital as ever. It starts like a homage to Kids In America (by Kim Wilde – but don’t be fooled for one second!) with a throbbing one-note synth tattoo before bursting into the usual and reassuringly familiar trademark post-punk-meets-Kraut-meets-noise-rock dual guitar assault that has Mick and Linda doing their usual terse call-and-response wordplay and sounding like neither have changed one iota since 1999, whilst an undercarriage of unsettling discordant noise threatens to derail the track but somehow doesn’t manage to succeed due to the rhythmic tightness of the propulsive bass and drums.

As sure as night follows day, the insistent, nagging circular riffing builds to a typically frenetic and thrillingly noisy climax and that, in itself, is the essence of Prolapse. On The Quarter Days is seven minutes of perfectly controlled beautiful chaos, just like before, but still with tunes!!

The new single will be available on all streaming platforms (no physical format as yet to be confirmed).

Listen to the preview here (at 1:03:53 exactly) :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0028rqf

Follow Prolapse and all their forthcoming activities on their Facebook page
and purchase Prolapse music and stream their new single from Bandcamp.

Photo of Prolapse is thanks to / courtesy of their Facebook page.