Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Limited edition digipak CD with "Bile and Bone" pinup zine featuring the album lyrics and the art by Cameron Lucente.
Includes unlimited streaming of Bile and Bone
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
edition of 80
$5USDor more
Cassette + Digital Album
Cassette of the album with classic fonts to confuse your parents and older friends.
Includes unlimited streaming of Bile and Bone
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
edition of 50
7 remaining
$4.20USDor more
T-Shirt/Apparel + Digital Album
What it says on the tin, er, shirt.
Wear it to the death metal clubs and convince everyone that this is a hot new hardcore band or whatever when in reality you know exactly what you're listening to, and it's al Riggs.
Orders include a sticker with the same damn logo on it.
Bile and Bone is the new album from songwriter al Riggs and guitar annihilator Lauren Francis.
Two years in the making, and in between countless side-projects, singles, side-albums, and a premiere at Hopscotch Music Festival 2019, Al and Lauren recorded this nine-song album in two different New York apartments, an apartment in Durham, a house on the other side of Durham, and additional recording in yet another house on yet another side of Durham.
Produced by Francis and mixed/mastered by Alli Rogers (recently an engineer on Bon Iver’s “i,i”), Bile and Bone is a culmination of familiar themes and tropes in Riggs’ songwriting (horror movie monsters, queer politics, puns) taffy-pulled into a widescreen format by Francis’ production and arrangement. Swaths of strings and electric piano are cut through by chunky acoustic guitar that sometimes teeters on the intrusive. Flirtations with soft rock (“Werewolf”) motorik pop (“Boyfriend Jacket”) and Eno-esque ambient balladry (“Apex Twin”) sit snugly against the ghosts of Fahey (“Dying Bedmaker Variations”) and the dust-clogged remnants of a pawnshop (“Love Is An Old Bullet”).
The title track is a shuffling climax of held-back fury, summarizing the overall air of the album with volatile lyricism (“I should not be in a place/where I am on my knees each night/praying for my leaders/to be shot down on sight”) with classic pop harmonies provided by Rook Grubbs (Vaughn Aed).
The end result is a patchwork of beauty with claw marks. Possibly cat, possibly wolf-person, definitely lovely.
“At the very end of the opening track, a sound is heard, a warped deviation, and you might, for a moment, think that it was Satan. Not the Satan our parents’ parents rejected in recordings, but rather a new, much improved Satan 2.0, leading by example of sensitivity and risky business, no longer mutually exclusive. Do not fear it. Give in and go forth and enjoy.”
-Adam Schatz (Landlady, expert on Satans)
“It is their best and most compelling record yet, Riggs singing songs about self-realization during a moment that badly wants to beat you into preordered shapes, delivered with both tenderness and intensity over matching acoustic picking. A work of clarity and reckoning, it is the album that Riggs has been building toward for this busy past half-decade.”
-Grayson Haver Currin (Pitchfork, NPR, makes his own mayo)
credits
released September 18, 2020
BILE AND BONE
is an album by
al Riggs and Lauren Francis
All words by al Riggs
All music by al Riggs and Lauren Francis
"Dying Bedmaker Variations" contains an interpolation of John Fahey's arrangement of "Jesus Is A Dying Bedmaker"
Backing vocals on "Love Is An Old Bullet" and "Bile and Bone" by Rook Grubbs
Recorded and produced by Lauren Francis
Mixing/mastering/additional recording by Alli Rogers
Artwork by Cameron Lucente
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Al Riggs and Lauren Francis would like to thank, in no order;
Dustin Britt, Lindsey Charlotte, Justin Ellis, Owen Fitzgerald, Moms and Dads, Michael Venutolo-Mantovani, Nathan Walker, Rook Grubbs, Alli Rogers, Cameron Lucente, Brad Cook, John Darnielle, Matt Douglas, Jon Wurster, Peter Hughes, Reese McHenry, Skylar Gudasz, Justin Vernon, Adam Schatz, Zach Stamper, the audience at the Bile and Bone Hopscotch 2019 show, the staffs of Bull City Records, Nice Price Books, The Pinhook, Ruby Deluxe, The Wicked Witch, Slim's, King's, The Cave, and every friend and well-wisher that patiently listened to us talk about this album for two years. We love you all.
Extra special thanks to studio cats Ripley and YoYo.
In Memory of John Prine.
When in Durham, visit Monuts.
When in New York, visit The Donut Pub
Phil makes sometimes quiet, sometimes ear shattering, always pretty and dense records and this one is no different. As big as all outdoors and as small as a small wooden shack, as to be expected. al Riggs
Dance to this all night and then the morning and then the afternoon until your legs turn to noodles or the landlord starts a-knocking on your floor/their ceiling with a broom. Whichever happens first. al Riggs
Landlady live is a force of nature, on record they are just as gorgeous and anxious as they are in the Flesh World. More Nervous Energy for those who like tremendous drumming and proper earworms. al Riggs
The Alabama singer-songwriter may have turned in his guitars for synths and drum machines, but his music is no less personal or incisive. Bandcamp New & Notable May 28, 2019