UK-France duo The Noise Who Runs will soon release their ‘Preteretrospective’ album, a 14-track offering from the mind of Ian Pickering (of Sneaker Pimps and Front Line Assembly). Ahead of that, they share the final single ‘2poor2die’, addressing the growing inequality in society and the struggle of the unheard / unseen decent people without voices and increasingly without hope.
The record’s spiritual centrepiece, ‘2poor2die’ is, at once, a celebration of ordinary bravery in the face of the daily grind of routine and a condemnation of the eternal ideology that sees working people as cannon fodder, only to be told “Shut up and get on with it, nothing’s gonna change”. Call it a tribute to the folks who are barely considered worth considering.
Certainly, ‘2poor2die’ pulls no punches. Here loud, noisy guitars and pounding drums and bass are set against a deceptively simple lyric, almost nursery rhyme-like in its repeated refrain:
Rip it up, strip it down, over again
Pack it up, wrap it up, over again
Sick it up, spit it up, over again
Rip it up, tear it up, start it again
This follows two remarkable singles from the album – the anthemic lead track ‘Beautiful Perhaps’ and ‘Takes a Long Cold Look and Then The Kitchen Sink’ – the impossible, illegitimate child of solo album-era Syd Barrett and immediately post-Talking Heads David Byrne.
Ian Pickering (co-author of such Sneaker Pimps hits as ‘Spin Spin Sugar’, ‘6 Underground’ and ‘Tesko Suicide’) wrote this material simultaneously to material for the latest Sneaker Pimps album. Formed four years ago upon relocating from Hartlepool, England to Lille, France, The Noise Who Runs is now a duo with Brazilian-French guitarist Felipe Goes.
“Around three minutes into the video, we use a quote from Richard II, King of England, following the Peasants’ Revolt around 1381, and it’s not difficult to understand how clearly that remains the prevailing view of the establishment when it comes to the people and any hope that fairness is gonna somehow trickle down to us all here at the bottom. And it’s a terrifying quote really. And that’s why we have The Noise Who Runs, to challenge all that,” says Ian Pickering.
“You wretches detestable on land and sea: you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues: rustics you were, and rustics you are still; you will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity.”
A literal translation of ‘O bruit qui cour’, a French phrase meaning ‘gossip’, The Noise Who Runs was also the name of Pickering’s favourite restaurant, where the ideas for this project fell into place.
The Noise Who Runs’ is rooted in the shared principles and approach to making music of punk/new wave and early hip-hop – both the mentality and the message. This brand of indie-electronic rock is heavily shaped by the 1970’s experimental electronic scene in Sheffield, the 1990’s guitar-house mix of the Manchester scene, Primal Scream’s guitar-electronic sound after 1997’s ‘Vanishing Point’, and 2000’s XTRMNTR.
‘2poor2die’ is out now via Bandcamp, where ‘Preteretrospective’ can already be ordered. As of April 21, the full album will be available across digital music platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music.
