Since the emergence of their falling-down-around-you sound documented on The Name of the Demon is… (2021), Cowboy Builder have gotten slower and steadier. Organs EP (2023) saw the addition of, well, organs, and strange harmonies started to blend with their double drums. On COLD, Cowboy Builder are even more unhurried - disconsolate, see-sawing melodica and flattened bongos giving a stoic, funereal repetitiousness somewhere between Kurt Weill and Augustus Pablo. Their signature wok clang and clatter is treated with delay, the guitar’s strings crossed and warped; another bell to ring us back to earth. It’s bleak, industrial music for a time where ‘industry’ is working nightshifts for Amazon and drinking Lidl box wine. And yet, side-stepping the trappings of hauntology in favour of science fiction, the endurance of it all and its relentless pursuit gives welcome relief midst a nation of thumbs. Recorded Jan 2024 at SHUNK II, Edinburgh. Overdubs at TERT PALACE Edinburgh + MARSHALL TOWER, Falkirk.
