Humour are today announcing new EP A Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me and sharing new single ‘Big Money’, a song that further introduces their latest project’s influences of historical stories from across the world. ‘Big Money’ doubles down on the band’s acute and insightful approach, marrying keenly original concepts to music of equal ambition.
“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.”
Lead singer Andreas Christodoulidis about ‘Big Money’
Pre-order new EP A Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me here.
At the tail end of last year Glasgow’s Humour put out their debut EP “Pure Misery”, a six-track fever dream that established the band as one of the most exciting new bands on the circuit, a record they called themselves “a montage of miserable things… a bit desperate and a bit grim, but also a bit ridiculous”. Released by tastemaker label So Young.
Humour live together in Glasgow and formed across the 2021 lockdowns, writing and recording their material at home, with the music intended as a backdrop to Andreas’ lyrics. Sometimes they’re about letting people down, sometimes they’re about pets dying, sometimes they’re about trying to say something when you don’t have anything worth saying. They’re usually just trying to paint a picture, with Andreas drawing sketches to go along with each of their songs, including last year’s EP cover, and the artwork and visuals behind the lyric videos for previous singles.
They hope that each song looks the way that it sounds.
The band have announced a series of new live dates in support of the new single, followed by a string of shows in support of Do Nothing.
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
Humour are:
Ruairidh Smith – Drums
Lewis Doig – Bass
Ross Patrizio – Guitar
Jack Lyall – Guitar
Andreas Christodoulidis – Vocals
Praise for debut EP Pure Misery
“Helter-skelter post-punk that stands out from the pack”
CLASH
“Far from the despair of its title, ‘Pure Misery’ has lots in it to love”
DIY
“Pretty soon everyone’s going to have a sense of Humour”
Dork
“Bracing, bizarre avant-rock… Humour combine melancholic, open-hearted instrumentation with Andreas Christodoulidis’ utterly alien vocal performances, replete with violent pitch changes and lurching dynamics.”
Loud & Quiet
“A superbly exciting debut EP.”
NME
Humour – A Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me
1. A Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me
2. Wrangel
3. Big Money
4. Take a Look at My Tongue
5. The Halfwit
