UK's Talk Show Share New Single 'Red/White' From Debut Album 'Effigy'

Talk Show have shared the catchy, breakneck new single “Red/White,” the latest from their debut album Effigy, out on February 16 via Missing Piece Records.  

With Effigy, the emerging London four piece do more than just push their sound; they completely reinvent it. Produced by Remi Kabaka Jr. (Gorillaz, Yard Act), the record offers up a bold and exhilarating showcase for the band's dramatic evolution.

Drawing on everything from The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy to Nine Inch Nails and The KLF, the band leans into the raw, primal sound at the intersection of techno, electronic, industrial, and rock music that informed their 2022 EP Touch The Ground (produced by Hot Chip's Joe Goddard and Al Doyle).  

“‘Red/White' has definitely been one of the songs that's evolved the most on the album,” explains frontman Harrison Swann. “We wanted to really lean into something that was going to be a real mix of guitar driven electronica. We wanted something proper fast. Vocally I felt it was important to have a calmer delivery, compared to the other tracks on the album, as I think it helped to add to the hectic atmosphere in the song. We envisioned it being that feeling when you stand in the smoking area of a club, in the middle of January, and it's absolutely freezing cold.  

“For me ‘Red/White' stands out the most on the album, as we really tried to aim for something different than what we'd done before. Mixing DnB drum beats with Peter Hook-esque bass lines felt like a bizarre mix in the studio, but I'm really proud of what the song has become.”  

“Red/White” follows previous singles “Closer” and “Gold,” which have gained support from BBC1, BBC 6, MTV Music Italy, FLOOD, DIY, Clash, DORK, The Line Of Best Fit, and many more.

They also recently performed “Gold” at a rainy beer garden in Hackney for FLOOD Magazine's “Neighborhoods” session series, who raved, “Talk Show first caught our ear with the lead single [‘Closer'] from their debut album, which fused rock and electronic music in innovative ways,” adding that, “the more hip-hop-indebted ‘Gold' sounds like ‘Sabotage' being karaoke'd by Squid.”  

Both “Closer” and “Gold” arrived with music videos directed by Ashley Rommelrath, each pulling the listeners further down the rabbit hole of a phantasmagorical club scene that the band grew from visual cues influenced by the intro to the movie Blade. “We wanted to create the kind of music we'd play if we were performing in that club, to put ourselves into that scene and see how far we could push it,” writes Swann.  

The band dubbed their envisioned nightclub Effigy - something to be worshiped and despised at the same time - and visualized every detail from the ground up to help guide their creative focus during recording sessions. What would it look like? Where would it be located? How would it feel to wait in line? To walk through the doors?  

Of “Closer,” FLOOD said, “dirty electronics mingle with an uptempo drum groove on the track before a dance-punk inspired guitar riff skirts around Harrison Swann's sardonic vocals. Handclaps and a funky bassline round out the diamond-sharp cut.”

“Gold” was also praised by many including DORK who exclaimed, “It's a track that doesn't just demand attention — it seizes it, with relentless drums and a bassline that pulses with the lifeblood of the city's night,” and DIY who said, “[‘Gold'] hints at the LP's merging of rock with electronic and industrial sounds… Fuelled by thrashing guitar and a pummeling beat.”  

Hailed as one of the UK's most exciting new bands, Talk Show first came together in 2017, when Swann met bassist George Sullivan, drummer Chloe MacGregor, and guitarist Tom Holmes at Goldsmiths, University of London. A series of critically acclaimed singles and raucous live shows led to the band's internationally lauded debut EP, These People, which arrived in March of 2020, just as the entire world shut down.

By the time the pandemic had subsided enough for Talk Show to properly tour the collection, though, the group had already begun to move on creatively, trading in the brash post-punk of their early work for a ferocious, guitar-driven vision of dance music that would help earn them festival slots everywhere from Pitchfork Avant-Garde to Sonic Wave, tours with the likes of Fontaines D.C., Squid, and Shame, in addition to a four-star review from the NME for their 2022 follow-up EP, Touch The Ground.   

“The shift in sound wasn't so much about changing who we were as it was about finding ourselves as a band,” Swann reflects. “It just felt like the most natural thing in the world to us, and we're never going back.”

Photo Credit: Ashley Rommelrath

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