Algiers drop their new LP Shook on  February 24, 2023 via Matador Records.  Ahead of the album’s arrival, Algiers have shared  new single “Irreversible Damage” featuring Zack de la Rocha, in one of his rare guest appearances. “This a relapse / what it be god / No rehab for my jihad / A rapture in a grief storm / Time on my neck an’ it be gone” de la Rocha spits to a breakneck climax of clattering beats, snaking guitars and pulsing electronics. “The end of that song is the sound of joy,” says Algiers frontman Franklin James Fisher. “That’s what hope sounds like in 2022 when everything’s falling apart.”  It follows the recent release of new single/video ‘Bite Back’ featuring billy woods and Backxwash.

Algiers will tour Europe in 2023, including a London show March 8th at the Dome. Today, they also announce a special SHOOK event at NYC’s National Sawdust on December12 th featuring special guests, with more details to follow. The band are also confirmed for the 2023 edition of SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

Shook is described as notably joyous and celebratory. It was born when Fisher and Mahan found themselves back in their native Atlanta for several months, reeling from growing pressures and burnout as touring musicians. This triggered an intense period of beatmaking, reconnecting as friends over hours immersed in episodes of Rhythm Roulette and Against the Clock and descending deep into alt-rap YouTube rabbit holes. A revisit of DJ Grand Wizard Theodore’s 1970s punk-infused New York City rap masterpiece ‘Subway Theme’ served as a spiritual moodboard for the album’s cross-pollination of urban and counter-culture styles. Across the seamlessly flowing set, including spoken vignettes and ambient instrumental segues, the band pay respect to a sprawling lineage of rap and punk iconoclasts from DJ Premier, DJ Screw and Dead Boys to Lukah, Griselda and Dïat – chopping and screwing beats on a dusty SP-404 and a Sequential Circuits Tempest, building imagined sample libraries from scratch.

Community and collaboration has always been integral to Algiers, Shook brings this to its fullest manifestation. The liner notes read like a who’s who
of ground-breaking and contemporary underground music, featuring Zack de la Rocha, Big Rube (The Dungeon Family), billy woods, Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands), Jae Matthews (Boy Harsher), LaToya Kent (Mourning [A] BLKstar), Backxwash, Nadah El Shazly, DeForrest Brown Jr. (Speaker Music), Patrick Shiroishi, Lee Bains III, and Mark Cisneros (The Make-Up, Kid Congo Powers). Their contributions throughout deftly reshape and recontextualize the notion of being Shook from a variety of perspectives, occupying shifting roles as oracles and narrators. “It very much deepens and broadens the world of Algiers”, says drummer Matt Tong.

The accomplishment of this record is made all the more impressive by the fact it was made by a band who were falling apart and on the verge of breaking up. But instead they have produced an extraordinary, transformative record born from a shared sense of place and experience. “I think this record is us finding home,” says Mahan, with Fisher adding: “It was a whole new positive experience— having a renewed relationship with the city we’re from and having a pride in that. I like the idea that this record has taken you on a voyage but it begins and ends in Atlanta.”

Algiers
Shook
Tracklisting
Matador Records

1. Everybody Shatter (ft. Big Rube)
2. Irreversible Damage
3. 73%
4. Cleanse Your Guilt Here
5. As It Resounds (ft. Big Rube)
6. Bite Back (ft. billy woods & Backxwash)
7. Out of Style Tragedy (ft. Mark Cisneros)
8. Comment #2
9. A Good Man
10. I Can’t Stand It! (ft. Samuel T. Herring & Jae Matthews)
11. All You See Is
12. Green Iris
13. Born (ft. LaToya Kent)
14. Cold World (ft. Nadah El Shazly)
15. Something Wrong
16. An Echophonic Soul (ft. DeForrest Brown Jr. & Patrick Shiroishi)
17. Momentary (ft. Lee Bains III)

Algiers 2023 Tour dates

Feb 9 2023 Ireland, Dublin, Workman’s
Feb 10-12 Netherlands, The Hague, Grauzone Festival
Feb 15 2023 Belgium, Brussels, Botanique Rotonde
Feb 16 2023 Switzerland, Winterthur Salzhaus
Feb 17 2023 Italy, Ravenna, Bronson
Feb 18 2023 Italy, Pordenone, Capitol
Feb 20 2023 Slovenia, Ljubljana, Kino Šiška
Feb 21 2023 Austria, Vienna, Flex
Feb 22 2023 Austria, Linz, Posthof
Feb 24 2023 Czech Republic, Prague, Lucerna Music Bar
Feb 25 2023 Poland, Warsaw, Niebo
Mar 1 2023 Germany, Dresden, Beatpol
Mar 2 2023 Germany, Berlin, Hole44
Mar 3 2023 Germany, Bielefeld, Forum
Mar 4 2023 Germany, Schorndorf, Manufaktur
Mar 5 2023 Germany, Cologne, Club Volta
Mar 7 2023 France, Paris, Petit Bain
Mar 8 2023, UK London, The Dome
Mar 13-18 2023, USA Texas, Austin – SXSW

Pre order Shook by Algiers HERE