Saltpig – the duo featuring producer Mitch Davis (Damon Albarn, U2, Mark Lanegan, etc.) and Fabio Alessandrini (Annihilator) – is now streaming their grimy new single "Satan's War" from their upcoming self-titled debut album. It's one to be blasted at full volume, preferably until your windows are rattling in their frames.
On the upcoming debut album from Saltpig, Davis said the writing and production are all completely different on purpose. "I get bored listening to a record where every song comes on with the same drum sound, same guitar sound, same vocal production. Maybe it's the producer in me or maybe it's a byproduct of how we listen to music on streaming services now. I wanted to create something that felt more like a mix tape. When I produced these tracks, I basically zeroed everything out from song to song and let the songs be their own entities.
"To force myself to write unexpected things, I changed tunings from song to song to force me away from what might fall naturally under my fingers. I even put a song on the album that's nearly 20 minutes long. The only rule I gave myself and Fabio was to disregard anything that could be considered a 'rule', and at the same time to not be jarringly different just for the sake of being different. It's more about just following a creative vision without having to be constrained by what is expected. It all sounds varied from song to song, but consistently Saltpig at the same time because, in the end, it's still me writing the songs, singing, playing the parts and producing/mixing the tracks with Fabio playing the drums, so It always sounds like Saltpig."
Pre-orders for Saltpig are available here digitally and on mysterious cassettes. How mysterious are we talking here? Well, mysterious enough that you might destroy your speakers upon hitting play… seriously.
"As far as I know, this has never been done before," said Davis. "When the cassettes were being manufactured, there are some being recorded at the 'proper optimal level'. But there are also some cassettes being recorded at 'too loud' levels! And there is no way to know what version you'll be getting. Even I don't know which is which! You may get a normal copy. Or you may get one that's more saturated… or you may get one that's even more saturated! When I was mastering the album to tape, I was trying it out at different levels… hitting the tape harder and distorting it more. No matter what level I recorded at, it sounded different and great in its own way. So I wanted to give that sort of individualized listening experience to people who get the Saltpig album. I wanted the feel of the old tape trading days.
"You traded tapes… copied them… didn't have any regard for proper levels. You just recorded it and you loved your copy. I wanted people to get this album and have their copy be unique to them. Get the tape, rip it to digital, put it on YouTube… whatever! Let people hear what your copy sounds like. Share it! It's a great time to be part of the metal scene. There is so much amazing stuff coming out now and it's really inspiring to be a part of it. And if we can re-create some of that old school community, even better!"
