Minneapolis hip-hop collective
Doomtree is excited to announce their new full-length
All Hands, due
January 27, 2015 on their own
Doomtree Records. To ring in the release, the group has revealed “
Gray Duck” from
All Hands, which is available to stream or embed
here.
All Hands is available for pre-order
here. Standard pre-order packages of
All Hands will receive a 36-page lyric booklet, instant downloads of “
Gray Duck” and “
.38 Airweight” (as well as bonus track “High Water” upon the album’s release), an autographed poster and a glow-in-the-dark sticker. The deluxe pre-order option will also include a limited-edition t-shirt, a miniature ship in a bottle and custom matchbox (as a nod to the album artwork), a metal Doomtree pin and an
All Hands cloth patch.
The group, which consists of
Cecil Otter,
Dessa,
Lazerbeak,
Mike Mictlan,
P.O.S,
Paper Tiger and
Sims, has also announced a string of tour dates for early 2015, beginning on
February 4 at
Mojo’sin
Columbia, MO, routing up and down both coasts, and concluding on
March 17 at
Launchpad in
Albuquerque, NM. These dates follow their sold out last-ever
Doomtree Blowout in
Minneapolis, MN, which takes place at various venues around the city from
December 6-13. The full list of tour dates is below, with more to be announced soon. Tickets will be available for
pre-order on
Friday, December 5 and will be on sale to the public on
Monday, December 8.
Doomtree started as a mess of friends, fooling around after school, trying to make music without reading the manual. The group had varied tastes — rap, punk, indie rock, pop — so the music they made together often bore the toolmarks of several styles. When they had enough songs, they booked some shows. They made friends with the dudes at Kinkos to print up flyers. They burned some CDs to sell. The shows got bigger. Of necessity, Doomtree’s seven members figured out how to run a small business. Lazerbeak’s garage became the merchandise warehouse; P.O.S’ mom’s basement became the webstore. A decade and fifty releases later, it’s all properly official-Doomtree is now a real, live label with international distribution-but not too much has changed. Doomtree still partners with people who aren’t jerks. If they can’t find something they need, they make it themselves. Although each member has a career as a solo artist, every so often the whole crew convenes to make a collaborative record as a group.
The most recent Doomtree record was called
No Kings. A lot of people liked it. Happily, some of those people were writers at places like
Vice,
NPR,
Rolling Stone, etc. According to the
Village Voice, Doomtree is “one of the most talented and dedicated rap groups working today.”
VH1 says the crew has “the aggressive energy of a punk act with just the right amount of hip-hop swagger.” In support of
No Kings, Doomtree made laps around the US and hit Europe a couple times too. They played at festivals like Lollapalooza, SXSW, and Belgium’s Dour Festival.
The newest Doomtree record is called All Hands, due January 27th 2015. The title nods to the nautical rally cry, “All hands on deck,” and the album stands as the most collaborative and cohesive project the crew has yet produced. The production from Cecil Otter, Lazerbeak, Paper Tiger, and P.O.S twists through 13 booming tracks, building the raw and epic soundscapes that the group has become well known for, while adding more of-the-moment musical elements and techniques for a genre-spanning effect. This is the sound of old friends fine-tuning their craft, both together and individually, for over a decade, and it shows. Lyrically, All Hands sounds hungry as all hell. The three-year gap between Doomtree albums has given each of the five emcees substantial time to grow as solo artists, and the group’s return finds everyone tour-tested with plenty to prove. Sims, P.O.S, Mike Mictlan, Dessa, and Cecil Otter drive home razor-sharp cadences, hard-hitting punchlines, and monstrous choruses, passing the spotlight back and forth until the house lights come up.
To write All Hands, crew members sequestered themselves in a cabin with no cell reception to distract from the task at hand and no neighbors to be bothered by the music playing through the night. The process informed the product: the record creates and operates within its own sphere-a particular mix of menace, humor, beauty, and adrenaline. Though the Minneapolis sound is present on All Hands, the record is as much a product of seven friends, relying only on each other, working in international waters. Both the catchiest and densest album in the group’s catalog, All Hands adeptly walks a tightrope of immediately memorable hooks and in-depth lyricism that rewards repeated listens. The result is equally worthy of up-to-11 trunk-rattling drives as it is late-night headphone sessions.
All Hands tracklist:
1. Final Boss
2. My Own Nation
5. Heavy Rescue
6. 80 on 80
7. Mini Brute
8. Cabin Killer
9. Beastface
10. The Bends
11. Generator
12. Off In The Deep
13. Marathon
Doomtree tour dates:
12/6-13 – Doomtree Blowout – Minneapolis, MN
2/4 – Mojo’s – Columbia, MO
2/6 – Trees – Dallas, TX
2/8 – Fitzgerald’s Downstairs – Houston, TX
2/9 – One Eyed Jacks – New Orleans, LA
2/11 – The Earl – Atlanta, GA
2/12 – Motorco Music Hall – Durham, NC
2/13 – Boot & Saddle – Philadelphia, PA
2/14 – U Street Music Hall – Washington, DC
2/16 – The Sinclair – Cambridge, MA
2/17 – Highline Ballroom – New York, NY
2/19 – Blind Pig – Ann Arbor, MI
2/20 – Abbey Pub – Chicago, IL
2/21 – Majestic Theatre – Madison, WI
3/4 – The Waiting Room – Omaha, NE
3/5 – Aggie Theatre – Ft. Collins, CO
3/6 – Gothic Theatre – Englewood, CO
3/7 – Urban Lounge – Salt Lake City, UT
3/9 – Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
3/10 – Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, OR
3/12 – Slim’s – San Francisco, CA
3/13 – The Roxy Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
3/14 – The Glass House – Pomona, CA
3/16 – Club Red – Mesa, AZ
3/17 – Launchpad – Albuquerque, MN
