Negativland prep 'True False' (watch "Destroying Anything" video)

Cut-and-paste sonic social critics / pranksters Negativland are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year and will release new album True False on October 25. It’s the first of two interconnected albums, and “tackles concerns that will be familiar to any surviving fans of the band: our nervous systems, our realities, and the evolving forms of media that inevitably insert themselves between the two.” The album includes tapes from the earliest days of the group and samples that will be familiar to regular listeners of their radio program Over the Edge. Guests include Prairie Prince (The Tubes, Byrne/Eno, XTC), M.C. Schmidt (Matmos), guitarist Ava Mendoza, and percussionist Nava Dunkelman, and the record also marks a return to song-like structures, with vocals on three tracks by The Weatherman (aka founding member David Wills).

We’ve got the premiere of “Destroying Anything,” which shows their ability to juxtapose disparate soundbites (and video footage) into something new and provocative has not dulled. Negativland says, “Can you do your own research? Recommendations based on your user data cut and paste the insurrectionary propaganda of the last 50 years together for your viewing pleasure. Are you guys seeing this too, or is something actually happening?” Watch the video below.

Negativland will tour for True False and while dates are still forthcoming, they will perform at Netherlands festival Le Guess Who? in November.