Carnival Of Souls will release their Unit 13 album this week, remastered to mark its 20th anniversary.
The 2003 psych-goth magnum opus was influenced by the likes of The Cure and Mogwai. Though the band regularly played to sold-out audiences across the London circuit, they may be one of the best-kept secrets in the business. Bands who shared the bill with Carnival Of Souls as headliners include Razorlight, The Mystery Jets, The Horrors and Florence Welch when they were up-and-comers.
The band featuring Alex ‘Gronk’ Mounsey (vocals, keys), John Roberts (bass), Gus Robertson (guitars) and Alex Proner (drums) lived and rehearsed in Unit 13, the Hackney Marsh warehouse after which the album is named. It became a local byword for psychedelic excess. It was all too much for Nude Records, who sent their talent scouts looking for “the next Suede” but were baffled by the band’s eclecticism, veering between folk, goth-rock and electronic music. Unwilling to compromise, Carnival Of Souls signed with independent label Pumpkin to release the album shortly before the line-up erupted in a frenzy of controversy and contraband. The album will be released through Identity Music on June 29.
The album tracklisting is as follows:
- Joy
- The Red Hands
- Hang On To Your Id
- Push Me
- Deliver Me
- MonkeyChicken
- Society Of Friends
- Cat’s Cradle
- Learnt Myself
- To Absent Friends
- eulogy
- Beneath Swan Lake
- Who-Knows-Where