Phenomenal Handclap Band Tour With Bryan Ferry, Prep New Album

New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Girlie Action Media & Marketing) Phenomenal Handclap Band will soon be taking their forward-thinking, genre-spanning dance party on the road with the one and only Bryan Ferry. The group is also preparing the release of the follow-up to their acclaimed, self-titled debut album. Form & Control, PHB�s ambitious new work takes their clever fusion of international psych, soul, and cosmic disco a bold step forward. With co-founders Daniel Coll�s and Sean Marquand at the production helm, Form & Control finds the band once again deftly mixing and matching seemingly disparate musical genres, with a musical palette that now includes prog-pop, new wave and modern leftfield dance.

Form and Control will be released in early 2012 on Tummy Touch Records.

The band will headline a pre-tour warm-up show this Sunday, September 18th in Brooklyn at Tip Top Bar & Grill. Click HERE for more info.


Thoughts From The Road� Impressions of Phenomenal Handclap Band�s New Album from WFMU�s Duane Harriott

The day started out promisingly enough. My girlfriend and I arrived in Istanbul at two in the afternoon, but in the space of a rocky cab ride to the hotel and a pointless argument, she has now become my ex.

I spend the next five hours aimlessly walking the streets of the city until I find myself in a crowded, smoky caf� off Tunel Square, staring out an open window. As the dusk fades into night, I hear a bewildered American voice call my name from the street. Startled, I see the gangly figure of Mr. Rundgren (yes, that one) flanked by two gorgeous young women of ambiguous ethnicity. He and I had met when I used to tend bar and play Laura Nyro on the jukebox at this place in Soho, and he made it a point to stop by whenever he was in New York.

Anyway, I invite him over for a drink, but he tells me that he's on his way to a club to hear this band from New York that he's really into at the moment. Apparently they've been hanging out in Istanbul for a month now, recording, smoking, spinning records, and playing at this club. He invites me to come with him, and since I have no immediate plans, I tag along. He hails a cab and we weave our way to a tiny little restaurant on the corner of a non-descript street in a residential area. We head into the restaurant and towards the back, past the restrooms and through what looks like a pantry door. And then we are in a dark, smoke-filled room teaming with sweaty, undulating bodies, dancing to what sounds like Can's "I Want More." After a pull off a communal hookah passed my way by some long-haired weirdos, the night becomes a blurry haze punctuated by specific details.

I remember seeing Rundgren standing in the corner nodding his head to a driving synth-rock version of "Whole Lotta Love". I remember a thin, South American-looking girl with long, jet black hair shaking her tambourine to Boney M's "Dancing in the Street.� I remember almost killing myself on an empty beer bottle in a mad dash to the DJ to find out who sings on that amazing middle-eastern electro track (Omar Souleyman). I recognized an androgynous Turkish soap opera star bathed in red and blue light, dancing to "I Feel Love". I remember being surprised by all of the different types of people there--a melting pot of locals and traveling foreigners who just happened to find themselves in Instanbul--in the back of this club dancing together. And then there was the band. All seven members emerged from the crowded dancefloor onto the stage and I recognized them as the dancing South American girl and those weirdos that smoked me out. The music was a startling mix of styles and influences that I couldn't quite place, but it sounded exactly how I was feeling right then. It seemed to grow out of the music we had been hearing all night, like I was listening to something oddly familiar. It wasn't "world" music per se, but rather "worldly" music. The whole band sang in both impassioned wails and robotic drones. Their music moved from hammering guitars to haunting acoustic piano, framed by a wash of soaring synths and building polyrhythms. And this band believed it--this was a moment!


Phenomenal Handclap Band Tour Dates
* = with Bryan Ferry

09/18: Brooklyn, NY @ Tip Top Bar & Grill
09/29: Miami Beach, FL @ Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie*
10/01: Atlanta, GA @ Chastain Park Amphitheater*
10/03: N. Bethesda, MD @ Strathmore Music Theatre*
10/04: Montclair, NJ @ Wellmont Theatre*
10/06: New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre*
10/11: Cleveland, OH @ State Theatre*
10/11: Chicago, IL @ Civic Opera House*
10/14: Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater*
10/15: Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre*