Thank + Kal Marks

Love Thy Neighbour Presents

THANK

The Rock Band Thank From Leeds’ concoction of anxious disco grooves, harsh noise freakouts and inscrutable sprechgesang bluster was borne out of their hometown’s notorious – and now sadly defunct – DIY collective CHUNK .

Thank closed out 2023 with a December residency in Scarborough. Holed up in Beckview Studios and its attic flat, the band were accompanied by longtime producer Rob Slater (Blacklisters & Mush), and they effectively lived and breathed the album for 24 hours a day during the recording. “Three of us studied in Scarborough, and during that time we played in a few different embryonic versions of Thank,” explains Vinehill-Cliffe. “We had barely visited for ten years, and in the meantime our old campus has shut down, our former practice space has been demolished to make way for luxury flats, and almost everyone we knew has moved away. So we were in this ostensibly familiar place where basically every trace of our existence was gone, it was a weird headspace to be in.”

KARL MARKS

Kal Marks have never made a record as personal as Wasteland Baby. Though Carl Shane, the band’s vocalist-guitarist, has made a career off of exploring blunt, uncomfortable truths through song, with Wasteland Baby, he steered Kal Marks toward something utterly new. Shane looked inward to stare down a fear that had long plagued him: What would it look like to have a child in a world that looks like this? “The album was driven by the fears I’m having about being a father,” says Shane. “The initial spark was this fear, and I thought that maybe if I could express it, I could overcome it.”