Glasgow-based quintet Humour have revealed plans for a new EP called A Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me on December 1 through So Young Records. It will feature recent singles “Wrangel” and “The Halfwit”, as well as today’s new offering “Big Money”.
The new track was inspired by a dark tale from history, as vocalist Andreas Christodoulidis explains:
“Big Money was inspired by a story I read about this Peruvian guy called Carlos Fitzcarrald who was a rubber baron in the late 19th Century. He desperately wanted to get to an area of the Amazon basin that was rich in rubber but inaccessible by boat, which is why it hadn’t yet been claimed during the rubber boom. He exploited a group of indigenous Amazonian people, forcing them under pain of death to drag his steamboat in pieces over the mountain which separated him from the prized area. He was the basis for the character of Fitzcarraldo in the film of the same name by Werner Herzog.
“There didn’t seem to be much written about this particular story that I could find online, so I was able to be quite liberal when inventing a personality for him. I imagined him being a temperamental character with a lot to prove, prone to violent outbursts and drinking. I wanted to convey a sense of the destruction of the natural world and the traditions of an ancient people that materialised with the introduction of murder and disease to the Amazon by wealth-hungry interlopers.”
While Christodoulidis unfolds a portrait of an irritable, awful human who’s “killing with abandon”, Humour fill in the details with a rough and rollicking guitar onslaught that thrills as it enrages. Humour’s natural ability with dynamics are on full display, providing tension and release in the way the guitars surge in and out, while the tale of Fitzcarrald is buoyed by fearful, echoing voices. Blood disease and poisoned rivers mean it’s a pleasant tale, but Humour ensure that it is a wild ride with a precision-engineered playing that turns that disgust into a need to rock out.
Watch the video for “Big Money” below or find the song on streamers.
Humour’s A Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me EP arrives on December 1 via So Young (pre-order/save). You can find the band on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Tour Dates w/ Do Nothing:
24/09 Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, UK
25/09 King Tuts, Glasgow, UK
26/09 Cluny, Newcastle, UK
28/09 Brudenell, Leeds, UK
29/09 Gorilla, Manchester, UK
30/09 Rock City, Nottingham, UK
02/10 Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, UK
04/10 Thekla, Bristol, UK
05/10 The Castle & Falcon, Birmingham, UK
06/10 Koko, London, UK
07/10 Patterns, Brighton, UK
13/10 Privatclub, Berlin, GE
14/10 Loppen, Copenhagen, DE
19/10 Point Ephemere, Paris, FR
20/10 Le Grand Mix, Tourcoing, FR
