Lucky Number Music

Friends will perform a very special in-store at Rough Trade East on Bank Holiday Monday June 4th starting at 5pm. Wristbands for the show will be allocated to those who purchase debut album ‘Manifest!’ on CD or LP vinyl at Rough Trade East on the day of the in-store, with any remaining wristbands to be given out 1 hour prior to the stage time. Wristbands are strictly limited to one per person. More details can be found here.

Every album purchased from Rough Trade will be accompanied by a limited edition bonus disc which is exclusive to Rough Trade.

Pre-order ‘Manifest!’ from Rough Trade here

Friends have unveiled the video for their new single Mind Control. Shot by Hiro Murai, the clip combines band performance, action footage, and special effects, in a rhythmic montage cut to the Paul Epworth mixed track.  The band pay reverent homage to dystopian Sci-Fi films from the ‘80s (‘They Live,’ ‘Brainstorm,’ ‘Scanners’).  But the members take themselves less seriously in various roles in an apparently sinister brainwashing plot, evocative of the song’s over-the-top lyrical message (“Hold holy only what you want/Mind control everywhere/Is trying to keep your brain washed”).

Mind Control is guaranteed to be unlike anything else you’ll watch this year.  It’s Friends’ most ambitious video to date, following the lower-budget viral sensations for their singles Friend Crush and I’m His Girl.

After blazing out of Bushwick in 2011 with the two buzz-worthy singles, “I’m His Girl” and “Friend Crush”, a reputation for turning live gigs into spontaneous DIY parties (and vice versa), and a bio built to withstand the most cynical indie-blog cred-vetting – Brooklyn’s Friends will release their debut album Manifest!, on June 4th.

Produced by the band its twelve tracks were recorded between last summer and this spring with engineer Daniel Schlett at Strange Weather studios in Brooklyn.

Full track-listing and more details are forthcoming but, for now, as a further provocative taster we are delighted to present the anthemic “Mind Control”, which is to be the band’s next single and the album’s climax.

Mixed by Paul Epworth, it sums up the seditious streak of Manifest! The musical choices are brazen even by Friends’ standards: superfly bass, slinky synth, crybaby wah, bongo solo, group chants.  Lyrically, it also might be the Friends manifesto, were it not for the strong possibility that  the band are taking the piss, poking a bit of good-natured fun at their ‘indie’ image and at our expectations of it.

“I don’t want to rule or be ruled/I just want the right to be cool/However I chose to do what I do/Wherever I choose to be or with whom/Hey, I don’t need your money, I can grown my own food/I don’t need your beauty standard, I can be my own dude.”

With “Mind Control” already anointed the Hottest Record in the World by the Zane Lowe show on Radio 1, the band’s Spring tour close to selling out and more shows to come in the Summer, Friends look set to make the rest of the year theirs alone.

Our first Friends front cover.
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