Animal (EP) Skunk Anansie

• 1 Animal 04:07
• 2 Lost and Found 04:15
• 3 Cheers 03:26
• 4 An Artist Is An Artist 03:11
• Total Runtime 14:59

Info zu Animal (EP)

This is a promotion EP prior to the album release.

The Painful Truth, which is the seventh studio album to come from the rockers and the first to come from the band in nine years, is set for release on 23rd May 2025.

“I don’t care that we were big in the Nineties,” vocalist Skin says. “Creatively it’s irrelevant because in my rock bible the first commandment states, 'If thy rest on them laurels thy shall wither up and die artistically, musically, mentally. And then financially.’”

For Skin the past counts for nothing. Even when you’ve been a band for 30 years and history seems on your side. The Painful Truth is the sound of Skunk Anansie facing up who they are and what they want to become. It is more than an album title. It is a reality that they have lived through.

Individually and collectively, in the last five years they have been through a series of life-changing events. Like everyone else, they felt that Covid had disrupted then corrupted everything and changed the world.

A combination of parenthood, illness, and the departure of their longstanding manager seemed to conspire against them and add to their uncertainty, forcing singer Skin, guitarist Ace, bass player Cass and drummer Mark to question their place in the world as a band, as well as their own personal ambitions. For a while, they came close to calling it a day.

Not what you would expect from a band whose fierce determination, drive and resilience has defined so much of their career. And yet, that’s how they felt in late 2022 as they began to contemplate the prospect of making their seventh studio album.

Remarkably, their doubt percolated in the wake of a sold-out European tour, an appearance at London’s Meltdown Festival at curator Grace Jones’s personal request and a return to Glastonbury (the festival they headlined back in 1999 – their singer, Skin, famously being the first female black artist to do so). On the outside, everything looked good. On the inside, anxiety had set in.

Unsure of what to do, and failing to write on zoom, the four-piece retreated post-Covid to a farmhouse in Devon where amid frank conversations and home-cooked dinners, they slowly began collating their feelings into songs.

“We didn’t have a manager anymore so it was literally the four of us in a room without any interference and we got to know each other again. We’d done the Greatest Hits tour and we realised that things needed to change. If we didn’t do something fresh and forward thinking, we couldn’t really be a band anymore. We’d just be doing Skunk karaoke,” says Skin bluntly.

Listening to some of their most recent favourite records, they began throwing loose musical ideas around. Four of those ideas became proper songs. Reinvigorated and having fun again, the band also began to compile a shortlist of producers. Short being the operative word. The list consisted of one name: David Sitek of TV On The Radio fame, known for his production work with Foals, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Santigold, Solange, Weezer and Chelsea Wolfe.

“His name seemed to be on a lot of records that we liked. But none of the records sounded the same. The records all sounded fresh, but mainly the artists all sounded like themselves,” says Skin of the producer.

A call to Sitek’s management followed but not before a further round of doubt set in. “I was like ‘What if he doesn’t want to work with us? What if he doesn’t like our music? At one point it developed into full-on Imposter Syndrome!’” laughs Skin. “I thought we might not even hear back from him but we got a note back that said ‘I fucking love Skunk Anansie! They’re one of my favourite bands!’”

Despite his initial enthusiastic response, Sitek is a notorious task-master. A man with a meticulous ear for detail, he also has a general dislike of the ludicrous posturing you find in most rock bands. Thankfully, Skunk Anansie are not most rock bands. When the four band members sat down with David at his Federal Prism Studio in Los Angeles in September 2023 and told him they wanted to try a different approach to making music, he took them at their word.

“He basically reminded us that the process of making music didn’t need to be that complicated. When you start a band it never is, so it was a good reminder of that, and he got us to strip things right down,” says Ace.

Sitek began by informing the band not to bring any of their gear over from the UK to the studio. He also suggested they leave their preconceptions at the door. His less-is-more approach could not have come at a better time.

“Basically, we wanted to question everything and stop being comfortable. We really had to figure out a new sound. We had some ideas and they were quite radical. I had a David Bowie quote in mind: ‘If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area’,” explains the singer referring to the inspiration the band took from their late friend and former touring partner.

You only need to play ‘An Artist Is An Artist’, the opening track of The Painful Truth, to hear Skunk Anansie moving out of their comfort zone. Originally based around a trademarked, hulking Skunk riff, the band listened to Sitek as he reduced the tune to its most primal essence. Then, he decided that they needed to add a sax solo. “I fucking hate sax!” grimaces Skin, “then this really cool fucking dude walks in and played sax like I’ve never heard it before, and at that point my mantra became, just trust The Dave.”

Strangely, what should have felt uncomfortable sounds utterly natural. Tackling everything from ageism to our current need for approval in the digital age, ‘An Artist Is An Artist’ somehow seems to hark back to the band’s vitriolic debut single, ‘Little Baby Swastikkka’, in terms of its confrontational quality. It also reconfirms the fact that Skunk are part of Britain’s proud agit-pop lineage that extends back to The Slits, whilst also conjuring up the wordplay of Ian Dury.

“The great Dennis Bovell produced The Slits and Dave Sitek really loves dub. He spent a lot of time saying ‘Dub bass! Dub bass! Dub bass!’ to me, so that’s probably where that type of musical connection comes from,” smiles Cass.

“I loved the original riff to that song. It was great and it hurt to lose it, but he fucked off the great big riffs and just told us to trust him. And we did,” adds Skin. “Sometimes you have to give someone the space to be great and that’s what we did.”

Space is one of the major features of The Painful Truth. So too is the desire to create something that genuinely feels uncompromising. If the riffs have indeed been “fucked off”, then Ace’s guitar lines are somehow even more effective (check out his insidious melodic punctuation that transforms ‘Cheers’ into a genuine earworm).

“I don’t think I’ve ever played less guitar on an album! And lots of the things on there are one take. I’d offer to re-do things but Dave was happy with what I’d played straight off and he wanted to capture the vibe,” says Ace.

A muscular monster behind the kit, Mark Richardson also found the need to show a little more restraint this time around. “Dave wanted me to use a minimal kit and really play to the song. That’s probably the secret of the album as a whole. Everything is in service to the song,” says Mark.

The Painful Truth is an album where you can indeed feel the vibe – created as it was late at night with Skin and David Sitek swapping madcap ideas as they developed a collaborative working process. It is possibly more electronic compared to Skunk’s previous efforts. It is definitely more textured.

That said, the band’s knack for writing big pop songs remains undiminished. If anything, their hooks this time around are sharper and sink in quicker. The vocal-and-piano intro of the highly-charged ‘Lost And Found’ and the electronically-driven and chorus-heavy ‘Animal’ are proof of that, both tracks sitting comfortably alongside Skunk’s slew of Top 20 hits like ‘Weak’, ‘All I Want’, ‘Hedonism (Just Because It Feels Good)’, ‘Charlie Big Potato’ and ‘Brazen (Weep)’.

Lyrically too, Skin has refocussed how she writes on the ten tracks that make up The Painful Truth. ‘Shame’ sees her delving into her past in a manner that is raw and yet vulnerable in equal measure, while the provocative ‘Fell In Love With A Girl’ serves up a ball of sexual energy against an irresistible electro-riff and a shimmering sense of post-disco joy. Meanwhile, album closer, ‘Meltdown’, brings down the curtain with a moment of epic introspection where she holds forth on the illusionary benefits of material pleasures and the endless surface noise we all battle against in the modern world.

“This record is very emotional. But that’s the truth of it,” agrees Skin. “At no point did I feel safe, or comfortable with what we were doing, but that feeling became quite thrilling and addictive. In the end we just had to trust how it felt. And it feels really good.”

The Painful Truth is a radical record made for these uncertain times. Their first release on the newly formed FLG Records, and with new management in place, it also comes with a freshness that belies their storied career and previous multi-platinum achievements.

“We were looking for a new beginning, a new launch pad. You have to reach a point of expiration to get to that point and that’s what we did. It’s been a long time since we’ve finished a record where I play it back and I get goosebumps. But that’s what happens every time I hear Animal. It’s a beautiful thing,” adds Cass.

The final word, as ever, lies with Skin…

“Making this record was a very scary process and I didn’t think we’d end up getting the record that we did, but we just had to keep pushing, and pushing and pushing. All of us were in fear, all the time,” she admits. “When I really think about it, yes, we have made some good records in our time but it’s been a long time since we have made a great album. And that is the painful truth. Understanding that, led us to making what I genuinely think is our greatest record yet.”

Skunk Anansie

Skunk Anansie
were born radical and have stayed that way ever since. It’s there in their music, which slips effortlessly between the confrontational and the tender, the politically charged and the nakedly emotional, the upfront and attention-grabbing and the quiet and restrained. But it’s there in the band’s essence too – in the blend of influences, cultures and personalities they have so successfully brought together.

When the band emerged from the sweat-drenched backrooms of London in 1994, electrifying everyone who saw them and jamming an adrenaline shot into the arm of a decadent music scene, they sounded and looked like nothing that had come before them.

“Nobody in our manor had seen anything like us before”, says singer Skin, who co-founded the band with bassist Cass and guitarist Ace. “We were an earthquake.”

“London in the 1990s was a mish-mash of people,” adds guitarist Ace, “But bands weren’t – it was always four blokes with identical haircuts. We were a band of people who were real. That’s why we were radical.”

Almost 25 years later, every other band is still playing catch up. No one before or since has had the cultural or emotional impact that helped propel Skunk Anansie to huge success. The greatest measure of what they’ve achieved is that nobody else has come close to imitating them.

It’s fitting that the band have opted to mark their forthcoming 25th anniversary with 25LIVE@25, a live album that brings together the greatest songs from the six studio albums they’ve made.

Few bands inhabit the stage like Skunk Anansie. Their exhilarating live shows are a hurricane of energy, noise and personality, an exhortation to become part of something much bigger that’s impossible to resist. Recorded at shows across Europe on the tour in support of 2016’s Anarchytecture, it’s both a celebration of Skunk’s unmatchable career and their importance as a musical and cultural force. “We come alive onstage,” says bassist Cass. “That’s where we bare our teeth.”

When Skunk Anansie formed in February 1994, with original drummer Robbie France, the clubs and bars of their native London were stirring with the first murmurings of Britpop – a movement largely populated by white 20-something men with guitars whose heroes were the giants of the past: The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks. Skunk Anansie couldn’t have been further away from that scene’s homogenised approach. Their DNA was a glorious mix of race, gender, sexuality, cultural and musical influences. They looked forward, not backwards. “We were outsiders,” says Skin. “We were proud that we were. We came along and showed you could be different.”

Skunk’s base of operation was The Splash Club, a cramped backroom in a ramshackle pub in King’s Cross, one of North London’s sleazier neighbourhoods. As the Splash’s founder and resident DJ, it made sense that Ace would debut the band he had put together with Skin and Cass there. And so it was, in early March 1994, a couple of hundred people packed into The Splash Club got their first glimpse of Skunk Anansie.

“It was super-hot and absolutely rammed,” remembers Skin. “We all had a reputation – Cass was the best bass player, I was the best lead singer, Ace was the best guitarist, and it was his club. Everybody was curious what it was going to be like, in a positive way. Like, ‘This is going to be weird and different and special.’”

It was all of those and more. The band booked a second gig there a month later, on April 5. Packed with dozens of A&R reps from record labels, it was to be a pivotal occasion for two very reasons. Firstly, it was the day that Kurt Cobain died. And secondly, it was the night that Skunk Anansie got their record deal.

“The A&R for One Little Indian was the biggest Kurt Cobain/Nirvana fan ever,” says Ace. “He’d heard the news and wasn’t going to go out. But he went to the gig and it was so mad it turned him around. He said, ‘I have to sign this band – if anything can make me feel better after this, it must be amazing’”.

Less than six weeks after forming, Skunk Anansie’s rise was underway – and the speed only increased. Between 1995 and 1999, the band released a string of hit singles that ran the spectrum of subjects and emotions, from the politically-charged ‘Little Baby Swastikkka’ and ‘Selling Jesus’ to the emotionally vulnerable ‘Weak’ and ‘Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)’, through to the anthemic ‘I Can Dream’ and ‘Charlie Big Potato’, all of which appear on 25LIVE@25. The three acclaimed albums released during that period, 1995’s Paranoid & Sunburnt, 1996’s Stoosh and 1999’s Post-Orgasmic Chill, were statements of intent from a band who refused to be pigeonholed.

“As a black female singer, it was hard to get accepted in many ways,” says Skin. “And then I was onstage, doing exactly what I envisioned in my dreams. And I felt for the first time that I was accepted.”

Skunk Anansie have frequently been described as a political band. And they undeniably are – as their take-no-prisoners 1996 track ‘Yes, It’s Fucking Political’ pointed out, ‘Everything’s political.’ But politics are just one part of what they are: Skunk address love and rejection, anger and sadness, frustration and rage. The human emotions we all share.

“In rock music, it’s really easy to talk about partying and shagging girls and all that kind of stuff,” says Skin. “But for us, what we were singing about had to be deeper, it had to mean something. We had to talk about our experiences and what we were going through.”

While Skunk racked up Top 40 singles and Top 10 albums, their formidable reputation was amplified by their fearsome live presence. “Everything that is good that has come out of Skunk Anansie has come out of being a live band,” says drummer Mark Richardson, who joined Skunk Anansie in 1995, muscling his way into the band after being blown away when he saw them supporting Northern Irish outfit Therapy?.

“We’ve always thought that nobody could defeat us. ‘Come on, try and beat us. You won’t.’” Nobody did. With Mark now completing the line-up, they proved this over and over again, whether it was as part of the NME-sponsored Brat Bus club tour in 1995 or opening for the likes of David Bowie and U2 a few years later.

The highlights came thick and fast: just over a year after they formed, they opened the second stage at the 1995 Glastonbury festival – an appearance that nearly didn’t happen after three-quarters of the band were held up in traffic en route to the site. “I was standing on the side of the stage, going, ‘Where the hell are the rest of them?’” says Ace. “They literally turned up, ran onstage and started playing.”

Two years later, Skunk Anansie became the first international multi-racial band to tour South Africa, playing three sold out arena shows. The following year, they were invited back to the country to perform at a massive concert held to mark the 80th birthday of former South African President and global icon Nelson Mandela.

“The night before, Skin and I were invited to a birthday meal in his honour, and we both got called up onstage to meet him,” says Cass. “All of sudden, Stevie Wonder starts playing Happy Birthday. And next to me are Nina Simone, Michael Jackson, the actor Danny Glover, and we’re all singing Happy Birthday to Nelson Mandela. I’m, like, ‘This is surreal.’”

There were other mind-blowing moments, such as being joined onstage by Luciano Pavarotti at a benefit concert organised by the Dalai Lama, when the opera singer sang Skunk’s ‘Follow Me Down’ with the band. “Going out to play with Pavarotti really gets the adrenaline going,” says Mark. “But then a big part of the band is about running on pure adrenaline.”

In 1999, Skunk Anansie’s meteoric rise reached a new height. Just four years after their debut Glastonbury appearance, the band were invited back to headline the festival. For Skunk, bringing the last Glastonbury of the millennium to close was the perfect end to a perfect decade.

“You look out and see all these people and go, ‘This is a long way from the Splash Club’,” laughs Ace. “That was definitely one of the highlights of our career.”

The new millennium brought new considerations. For Skunk Anansie, it meant embarking on a lengthy hiatus, during which they could reflect on their stellar achievements while branching out and flexing their muscles away from the mothership.

“Being away from each other made us appreciate what we had with the band even more,” says Cass. “When we got back together, it was, like, ‘We’ve got unfinished business.’”

When the four members reconvened in 2008, at Cass’ Black Mushroom Studios, it was with renewed purpose. The first thing they did at their first rehearsal back together wasn’t run through one of their old hits, it was write a brand new one. “We were, like, ‘Shall we play something old to warm up,” says Ace. “And Skin goes, ‘Let’s play something new.’ And we wrote ‘Because Of You’ in about ten minutes.”

The break had made them realise just how important they were to each other, how the chemistry they had together was irreplaceable. “The weird thing about Skunk Anansie is when the four of us come together, something happens,” says Mark. “It’s the chemistry we have together, the sound and feel of the band, the energy. That’s never, ever changed. And it never will.”

It was with this eyes-fixed-forward mentality that Skunk Anansie embarked on the second chapter of their career. Since getting back together, they’ve swerved the nostalgia circuit to release three acclaimed albums – 2010’s Wonderlustre, 2012’s Black Traffic and 2015’s Anarchytecture – that showcase a band who remain as single-minded in their intent. Many of the issues they’ve confronted over the years haven’t changed either, but Skunk Anansie are still fighting the good fight, taking no prisoners while they do it.

“Racism still exists, sexism still exists, homophobia still exists, and since Trump, it’s just open warfare,” says Skin vehemently. “Things have gone backwards, and we’re not going to tolerate it.”

“The more oppressive or fascist or repressive the regime is in the country, the more we bring out the opposing faction,” says Cass of the band’s lightning-rod nature. “We get the rebels because we are the rebels.”

Twenty-five years after they exploded from the backrooms of London, Skunk Anansie’s international prominence continues to thrive. As they come into their anniversary year the mainstream British media have strongly embraced their importance within today’s culture with the likes of Channel 4 News, Newsnight, The One Show, Radio 2, national newspapers and broadsheets hailing them as iconic pillars of Britrock, as well as wide-spread acclaim from music and fashion press including Kerrang, NME, Classic Rock, Dazed & Confused, Phoenix Magazine, Diva Magazine, The Quietus and many more.

Skin was also awarded with the ‘Inspirational Artist’ award at the 2018 Music Week Women In Music Awards.

Skunk Anansie’s legacy is shaped by their past, present and inevitably their future as their contribution towards music’s next generation will continue their influence as their scholarship offer and involvement with ACM aids to help the industry’s rising stars.

The release of 25LIVE@25 marks another milestone in the band’s unrivaled career and is a living, breathing, in-your-face document that there is and always will be only one Skunk Anansie.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet