Fixers will sweep you off your feet with the Altruistic Love of their comeback single — premiering exclusively on Tinnitist.
The first preview of the reunited Oxford psyche-rock experimenters’ long-overdue sophomore album The Sun, The Moon, The Wind, The Sea, the mind-expanding Altruistic Love is the sound of a band firing on all cylinders. Actually, make that multiple bands — between the pulsing buzz of the guitar, the epileptic Keith Moon-style drums, the swirling cathedrals of organ, the tight-trousered vocals of singer Jack Goldstein and a shape-shifting arrangement that always keeps you guessing, Altruistic Love sounds like a whole jukebox of ’60s and ’70s songs spliced into one track. By all rights, it shouldn’t work. But oh, how it does. Freaky, fuzzy, full of momentum and fuelled by boundless attitude, Altruistic Love is a soaring journey straight up to the stratosphere — and straight down to the center of your mind. Come along if you dare.
A crucial part of their creativity, says Jack Goldstein, Fixers’ singer and keyboardist, is impulsiveness. “It took me ages to adapt to that,” he laughs. “And to learn the importance of knowing when to rein yourself in, and when to let go.” They’ve had plenty of time to get it sorted. Fixers — Goldstein, Jason Warner, Christopher Dawson, Roo Bhasin and Michael Thompson — date back all the way to 2009. “When I first met Roo as a teenager,” Jack reminisces, “I was playing hardcore punk and he was in a doom band. If you’d told me then that we’d be in this psych-pop band together and be best friends, musically aligned, I’d have been pretty sceptical. And now look at us.”
With characteristic leap-before-you-look recklessness, the five friends agreed to play their first gig before they’d even properly rehearsed. “All I had were these demos,” Jack recalls. “I thought they sounded like Phil Spector — but trust me, they didn’t. We had this show booked at a local venue, and we didn’t really have a set at that stage. But the experience taught us something — that, to realise the sound in our heads, we had to embrace electronic elements in a much deeper way. Layering samples and voices, building the songs, was an incredible eye-opener. And that was the big catalyst.”
The band made their debut radio appearance in August 2009, when the track Amsterdam was played on BBC Oxford Introducing. Increasing support followed, with the band’s first release, a cassette also entitled Amsterdam, arriving in late 2010. They released the 7″ Iron Deer Dream in 2011, before signing a deal with Mercury division Vertigo Records. Their first official single Crystals came in 2011, followed by the EP Here Comes 2001 So Let’s All Head For The Sun. The second single Swimmhaus Johannesburg preceded the Imperial Goddess of Mercy EP. It included Majesties Ranch, which they performed for BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge, alongside a cover of What’s My Name? by Rihanna. Fixers headlined the BBC Introducing stage at Reading and Leeds Festivals in 2011. Their debut album We’ll Be The Moon landed in 2012 to critical acclaim.
Now, nearly a decade later, Fixers have finally announced the arrival of their long-awaited sophomore album The Sun, The Moon, The Wind, The Sea on May 7. It was produced by the band, recorded in more than four different studios, and mixed by Matt Lawrence (Grinderman, Scott Walker, Bjork) and mastered by Jonah Falco of Canadian punk legends Fucked Up. The album serves as a direct followup to We’ll Be The Moon, with Goldstein referring to it as “the crazy fucked-up sugary psychedelic return journey that starts just as WBTM ends.”
Get on board now. Watch the Altruistic Love video above, hear more from Fixers below, check out their releases on Bandcamp and follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
