French band trade in intense, pounding post-punk on latest taste of their forthcoming debut album
French post-punk trio Veik are today releasing ‘Château Guitar’, the third single to be lifted from their forthcoming debut album, ‘Surrounding Structures’, due out April 30th on Fuzz Club. A piece of throbbing, motorik art-punk that charts a similar course to contemporaries like Girl Band, Snapped Ankles and Beak, you can stream the explosive ‘Château Guitar’ below and pre-order the album here. The accompanying video is directed by Léo Gack, who was assistant to Wes Anderson on Isle of Dogs and The French Dispatch.
Centred around vintage analogue synths and abrasive instrumentation, Veik’s sound is one rooted in the experimentalism of Krautrock and No Wave (think Contortions and Suicide by way of Faust and Cluster). Arriving following the recent singles ‘Difficult Machinery’ and ‘Political Apathy’, Veik describe ‘Château Guitar’ as their attempt “to get to grips with the codes, conventions and structures of techno music but performed with our usual live setup of synths, drums and guitar”. Building in intensity throughout, the result fuses a dark and hedonistic four-to-the-floor pulse with razor-sharp post-punk guitars.
On the accompanying visuals, they say that "the video presents a more intimate and intricate portrait of the relationship between humans and machines. It was directed by French director Léo Gack and shot on 16mm film, in the tradition of the 'cinéma vérité' films of the 1960s."
New album ‘Surrounding Structures’ arrives off the back of a handful of EPs and singles, tours around Europe and shows with the likes of The Soft Moon, Tomaga and Vanishing Twin. Talking about the album, they say that “The writing of Surrounding Structures was heavily influenced by architectural environments. We made a lot of detours when touring in 2017 and 2018 to visit modernist and brutalist buildings in France, Germany and Belgium (which caused us many delays for soundchecks.)”
Listening to their music, it’s quickly clear how the disjointed shapes and abrasive textures of brutalist architecture are manifested in their music. However, they claim that the ‘Surrounding Structures’ of the album’s title are also a reference to both the “physical and social structures that surround us, and how they shape us as individuals and collectives. It’s not a political album per se, but a way to address that question from different scales of observation, by telling stories and by integrating our own experiences and reflections into our sound.”
Based in Caen, France, Veik is comprised of Boris Collet (drums/vocals), Adrien Legrand (synths/backing vocals) and Vincent Condominas (guitar/bass).
