Premiere: Prisa Mata – Crooked Trees

With the absurd quality of releases that have seen the light of day this year, it’s insane that there’s any room left for fresh artists to emerge and make their mark on the metal scene, but South London’s Prisa Mata are poised to do just that. The trio came together four years ago out of a desire to satisfy their hankering for massive riffs and churning grooves, and have since self-released an impressive split with Fuckjar and built up an imposing list of bands they’ve shared stages with, which includes the likes of Bismuth, Ghold, Chubby Thunderous Bad Kush Masters, Calligram, Dawn Ray’d, Limb, Slabdragger and Astral Noize Records debutants Aerosol Jesus. Later this month, they are set to cross the English channel for the first time as a band to play Holland’s Black Earth Festival.

After two years of touring and growing as a group and as musicians, 2018 has been a year of creativity for the trio. The band has been hard at work on an upcoming album, and have kept sharp by playing a few shows around the UK with Sūrya. The result is a hybrid of existing material, some tracks that have been in the works for a while and some brand new music, with bouts of experimentation (free-form jam, noise and even some sax) being thrown in to mix things up.

Now, they’re set to emerge as one of the burgeoning talents of the UK doom underground, and we’re thrilled to be the first to offer up a brand new slice of Prisa Mata heaviness. Recorded with Milos Rojko at the SAE in the Neve Legend studio, the track boasts gargantuan riffs oozing in a hypnotic tar of hazy feedback, whilst cavernous yells keep things sinister, reverberating over the fuzzy guitars like a ghostly voice in a barren ruin.

Introducing the single, the band explain:

“All of our songs always start with jams, this was no different. We had a bit of time to muck around at Overdrive Studios (our practice space/second home) and just started jamming and then looked at each other with that ‘it’s a keeper’ look.

We carried on playing around the central theme and then remembered we had this sample of Tom Waits knocking about that we wanted to use but had forgotten about and bang, fits perfectly.”

Prisa Mata play Black Earth Festival later this month. Check them out on Bandcamp and Facebook.

Words: George Parr (@GeorgeJParr)

Cover Art: Shindy Design

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