The Kills announce release of rarities album 'Little Bastards'; share video for unreleased demo "Raise Me"

The Kills announce release of rarities album 'Little Bastards'; share video for unreleased demo "Raise Me"

It’s been a long time coming…

The Kills have compiled an extraordinary career-spanning B-sides and rarities album titled Little Bastards, to be released on Domino on December 11, 2020. The songs date back from the band’s first 7-inch singles in 2002 through to 2009. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2 x LP, CD, and digital—marking the first ever vinyl pressing for some of these tracks.

The compilation includes the unreleased and never-before-heard demo “Raise Me” from the 2008-2009 Midnight Boom era. Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince produced and directed a striking new video for the recently excavated song. 

Watch the video for "Raise Me" below.



Often raw, intimate and zero-budget spontaneous, the album’s title is a wry comment on these excellent recordings’ neglectful fate: in many cases birthed on the fly to fill bonus-track space on CD singles, they’d effectively vanished together with the release format that necessitated their creation. Also: Little Bastard was the affectionate nickname that the pair gave to the drum machine which enabled their initial existence as a band of only two members for the first half of their career. “It was a Roland 880,” says Jamie, “which isn’t strictly a drum machine – it's a sequencer, and an eight-track recorder, with its own drum machine built in, and that’s what we’d record all our beats on.” 

Little Bastards is available digitally, and on CD and LP. The deluxe double LP comes on neon yellow vinyl and is housed in a gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves. Pre-order the album below.

Other LP highlights include “I Call It Art” from the Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited covers compilation, the brilliant Midnight Boom digital bonus track “Night Train,” a blistering performance of “Love Is A Deserter” from an XFM radio session and a handful of classic American roots songs performed with the kind of bruising delivery they’re famous for: Howlin’ Wolfs’ “Forty Four,” Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell on You” and Dock Boggs’ “Sugar Baby.”

First ignited over trans-Atlantic mixtapes shared between two kindred spirits at the turn of the Millennium, the past two decades have seen The Kills master a savage balance, unleashing artful detonation and subtle vocal and guitar violence. That’s five albums and four EPs where Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince reimagined the possibilities of modern duality - alchemizing garage rock, punk, and blues into smoke clouds, psychic carnage, and a smoldering nocturnal slink into a northwest passage between Outkast and Suicide. Their last album, Ash & Ice (2016), was universally lauded, and their most recent release -  a 2018 cover of Saul Williams’ “List Of Demands” b/w Peter Tosh’s “Stepping Razor” – marked 15 years since their first album as The Kills, 2003’s Keep On Your Mean Side. As performers, their chemistry is unmatched and unfettered; magnetic and enthralling whether drenched in guitar feedback or delivering a piano-led torch song under a single spotlight. The Kills have transcended whatever genres first claimed them and inhabit an entirely unique place in music culture. They are themselves. Inimitable and unparalleled, Little Bastards is a musical refresher manifest as a shot of pure adrenaline. Enjoy the memories. Long may they blaze.

The Kills Little Bastards

Album | 11th December 2020

The Kills have compiled an extraordinary career spanning b-sides and rarities album titled, appropriately, Little Bastards. The songs date back from the band’s first 7-inch singles in 2002 through to 2009. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2xLP, CD & Digital and marks the first ever vinyl pressing for some of these tracks.

Tracklisting

  • 1Superpowerless (Remastered 2020)
  • 2Passion Is Accurate (Remastered 2020)
  • 3Kiss The Wrong Side (Remastered 2020)
  • 4Raise Me (Demo) (Remastered 2020)
  • 5Night Train (Remastered 2020)
  • 6Half Of Us (Remastered 2020)
  • 7London Hates You (Remastered 2020)
  • 8I Call It Art (Remastered 2020)
  • 9Forty Four (Remastered 2020)
  • 10Love Is A Deserter (XFM Session) (Remastered 2020)
  • 11The Search For Cherry Red (Remastered 2020)
  • 12Magazine (Remastered 2020)
  • 13Blue Moon (Remastered 2020)
  • 14Jewel Thief (Remastered 2020)
  • 15Baby's Eyes (Remastered 2020)
  • 16I Put A Spell On You (Remastered 2020)
  • 17Run Home Slow (Remastered 2020)
  • 18Weed Killer (Remastered 2020)
  • 19The Void (Remastered 2020)
  • 20Sugar Baby (Remastered 2020)

The Kills Little Bastards

Album | 11th December 2020

The Kills have compiled an extraordinary career spanning b-sides and rarities album titled, appropriately, Little Bastards. The songs date back from the band’s first 7-inch singles in 2002 through to 2009. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2xLP, CD & Digital and marks the first ever vinyl pressing for some of these tracks.

Tracklisting

  • 1Superpowerless (Remastered 2020)
  • 2Passion Is Accurate (Remastered 2020)
  • 3Kiss The Wrong Side (Remastered 2020)
  • 4Raise Me (Demo) (Remastered 2020)
  • 5Night Train (Remastered 2020)
  • 6Half Of Us (Remastered 2020)
  • 7London Hates You (Remastered 2020)
  • 8I Call It Art (Remastered 2020)
  • 9Forty Four (Remastered 2020)
  • 10Love Is A Deserter (XFM Session) (Remastered 2020)
  • 11The Search For Cherry Red (Remastered 2020)
  • 12Magazine (Remastered 2020)
  • 13Blue Moon (Remastered 2020)
  • 14Jewel Thief (Remastered 2020)
  • 15Baby's Eyes (Remastered 2020)
  • 16I Put A Spell On You (Remastered 2020)
  • 17Run Home Slow (Remastered 2020)
  • 18Weed Killer (Remastered 2020)
  • 19The Void (Remastered 2020)
  • 20Sugar Baby (Remastered 2020)
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