Digital Press Kit
Announcing THE OOZE, the epic new album by weird-music duo Budokan Boys, arriving 31 October on Strategic Tape Reserve.
Budokan Boys return, summoning eight tracks of surreal no-wave psychedelic folklore: creation stories, damnation stories, tales of magic and cosmic horror. The grand, wide-angle arrangements—pulsing electronics punctuated by bleating horns, hyperreal foley samples, and drunk-stumbling rhythms—conjure up a warped, dream-state sonic landscape perfectly suited to the lyrics' bent, chimerical legends and alternate mythologies. Like a trickster apparition, THE OOZE leads the listener deep into the moonlit woods of the mind—full of enchanted artefacts, malicious entities, and sublime secrets—with no real intention of bringing them back.
Fall concerts in the EU and UK in support of THE OOZE
- 6 Nov — Athens, TV Control Center (KET)
- 7 Nov — Thessaloniki, Kotetsi
- 8 Nov — Skopje, La Kaña
- 11 Nov — Sofia, Bobbina
- 12 Nov — Belgrade, Dim
- 13 Nov — Zagreb, Noise n' Roses event
- 15 Nov — Vienna, Central Garden
- 17 Nov — Budapest, Gólya
- 18 Nov — Prague, TBA
- 23 Nov — Berlin, Petersburg Art Space
- 26 Nov — Paris, TBA
- 29 Nov — Cardiff, ARTHOLE
- 30 Nov — London, The Horse Hospital
About Budokan Boys
Budokan Boys is the trickster music project of two Americans, Jeff T Byrd and Michael Jeffrey Lee. The duo's songs probe loneliness, trauma, delusion, and love with an auteurist vision and brutal sense of humor; their fierce and darkly comic live sets combine off-kilter electronics, bizarre narratives, seedy saxophone and squealing slide guitar. Formed in New Orleans in 2014, they've released albums with Tymbal Tapes, Baba Vanga, Ever/Never, and Strategic Tape Reserve.
Albums
Are You Sick?
(Strategic Tape Reserve)
So Broken Up About You Dying
(Ever/Never)
Dad is Bad
(Baba Vanga)
That's How You Become a Clown
(Tymbal Tapes)
Press Quotes
"An impressively non-categorisable, mordantly funny avant-pop delight."
— The Quietus
"Their 2018 tape That’s How You Become A Clown marked them out as Ween progeny of terrific standing, combining synthesizer skew with odd tales of abandoned dogs, delivered just slightly wild-eyed."
— The Wire
"They’re sending up society’s inherent weirdness and tragedy by chucking on a cheeky smile, playing a digi-honky-tonk, and wielding rubber knives in gun country. Now that’s how you become a clown."
— Spool's Out
"So Broken Up About You Dying is at once confounding, grating and exhilarating, but most of all, it’s a thoroughly impressive record."
— Auxiliary Out
"As they explore the darker, more mysterious corners of modern pop music, they keep producing more and more disarming and exciting results."
— Pop Matters
Videos
Live shows
- 19 Oct, 2023, New Orleans @ Gasa Gasa
- 9 July, 2023, Vienna @ Central Garden, w/Sproing!
- 7 July, 2023, Vienna @ Château Rouge
- 19 June, 2023, Berlin @ Café Plume
- 26 Nov, 2022, Budapest @ Három Holló
- 29 Oct, 2022, Vienna @ Central Garden
- 30 Sept, 2022, Bratislava @ NEXT Advanced Music Festival
- 24 Sept, 2022, Ghent @ Kinky Star
- 26 Aug, 2022, Vienna @ Central Garden
- 14 July, 2022, Prague @ Nultý Bod Festival
- 24 June, 2022, Paris @ Plateforme
- 8 June, 2022, Berlin @ Loophole
- 8 May, 2022, Geneva @ cave12
- 13 Nov, 2021, Vienna @ rhiz
- 11 Nov, 2021, Prague @ Punctum
- 27 Oct, 2021, Poznań @ Pawilon
- 8 Oct, 2021, Budapest @ UH Fest
- 25 Sept, 2021, Bari @ Time Zones Festival
- 12 Sept, 2020, Berlin @ Mauerpark
- 4 July, 2019, Budapest @ Aurora
- 28 June, 2019, Vienna @ AU
- 12 June, 2019, Prague @ Petrohradská Kolektiv
- 8 June, 2019, Vienna @ Kramladen
- 31 May, 2019, Gorzów Wielkopolski @ Dym Fest
- 23 Oct, 2018, Vienna @ AU
- 4 Oct, 2018, Poznan @ Domie
- 2 Oct, 2018, Warsaw @ Klubojadalnia Młodsza Siostra
- 29 Sept, 2018, Gorzów Weilkopolski @ SEJF
- 28 Sept, 2018, Wroclaw @ Uczulenie
- 27 Sept, 2018, Kraków @ Teatr Barakah
- 5 Jan, 2018, Las Cruces @ Eyeconik
- 18 Jan, 2017, Vienna @ rhiz
- 14 Jan, 2017, Linz @ Kapu
- 13 Jan, 2017, Wels @ Alter Schlachthof
- 12 Jan, 2017, Regensburg @ Alte Mälzerei
- 24 May, 2014, New Orleans @ Thank Tank
- 18 May, 2014, New Orleans @ Circle Bar