PRESCOTT - the London based instrumental group, verging on supergroup, featuring Kev Hopper (Stump, Ticklish), Frank Byng (This Is Not This Heat, Snorkel), Keith Moliné (Pere Ubu) and Rhodri Marsden (Scritti Politti), have a new record out today. Thier second album 'Thing Or Two' is now out via the Thoofa label..
After the 2014 release of their first album, One Did , Prescott acquired a fourth member in Pere Ubu’s Keith Moliné and a newfound affection for twangy guitar tunes. The new record builds on the arty, minimal intensity of their debut with sweeping melodies and extravagant arrangements.
The startling bass playing of Kev Hopper, the group’s founder, is sprinkled with unexpected pops, slides and trills, a series of musical question marks and raised eyebrows. Frank Byng’s precision drumming is pared down and funky one moment, wildly uninhibited the next, all interweaving with Rhodri Marsden’s broad palette of organs, percussive samples and stabbing synths. Keith Moliné brings improvisatory skills acquired over two decades working with Pere Ubu’s David Thomas, along with the Hank Marvinesque twang that characterises much of the record.
“Prescott are a unique and mischievous proposition” – The List
“Endlessly inventive backdrops which owe a fair amount to both Beefheart and The Residents at their
most wickedly playful” – Prog
“Part particle accelerator, part mutant squash court… a postpunk upending of 1980s jazzfusion,
creating something pretty serious out of a very English irreverence and inquisitiveness” – Misfit City
“A dishevelled Heath Robinson contraption of small moving parts, Prescott make music as hilarious as it is infuriating” – The Wire
“As perplexing as their namesake, Prescott demonstrate the forgotten art of the confounded, the
contrary and the confused, with compelling results” – Flipside
