Supported: Datarock, Devo, Air, The Horrors, Florence and the Machine, The Charlatans, Electric Six, Juliette Lewis, Steve Aoki and many more.
Rolling Stone has shared UK’s Scanners’s title track “Mexico”, the band explains the song: “We wrote the song ‘Mexico’ after we toured a few times driving across the U.S. desert. It’s pretty mind blowing if you’re from the U.K. because there is nothing like it there at all. The heat, the space, it’s like another planet. All the time we would be driving near the border and stopping in places like El Paso, but we never made it into Mexico itself,” The Scanners Matthew Mole tells Rolling Stone. “So I suppose it always had some strange romantic appeal to us. I suppose that’s why we were so conscious of being ‘so far from home’.”
Listen: Scanners – “Mexico”
Download: Scanners – “Control”
Scanners released their Mexico EP with Dim Mak Records on March 5th, right before coming to SXSW. Their brand new tracks “Mexico”, “Control” and “Charmed Life” are their latest in their sound that Vice describes as “perfecting a laser-fried blend of dance-punk and leaving beer-soaked UK club night in their wake.” Later this year, the band’s Love Is Symmetry album will come out on Dim Mak Records. Submarine was their second album, released in 2010. After the DIY approach to the first album, Scanners had decided to work with experienced producer Stephen Hague (New Order, Blur, Erasure) for the second. Recorded in part at Real World Studios and mixed in Stephen Hague’s shed, the second album’s higher production values made it popular with TV programmers. In fact, it is through TV shows such as Entourage, One Tree Hill, The Big C, Skins and more that Scanners’ music has managed to reach a wider audience. “Salvation” the first single found many new fans thanks to its use in Gossip Girl, and “Lowlife” from the films Endgame and Mama’s Boy.
In 2011, after lots more touring and much soul searching Tom decided give up his drumstool. This was eventually taken over by French sticksmith Kilian, who joined in time to record on the third album Love is Symmetry. For their third album Scanners decided to go back to recording and producing themselves. Sarah and Mat have also been kept busy by the arrival of their son Flynn who was born in January 2012.
Scanners’ story starts at a rehearsal studio in Camden Town London in 2005. Sarah and Mat had loads of songs they had been working on together whilst playing guitar in other people’s bands. When they met Amina and Tom it seemed the natural step to go and record these tracks, and so the first Scanners album Violence is Golden was born. It was a homemade affair, recorded in bedrooms and rehearsal rooms, but it still started to attract some attention. Through a strange set of circumstances Steve Aoki, head of LA label Dim Mak Records (Bloc Party, The Rakes, Gossip) heard one of the tracks and was hooked. On a visit to London he met up with the band and he promised to put out the record. So in 2006 Violence is Golden was released to much critical acclaim from sources as varied as the LA Times, Aversion and Perez Hilton. They played their second single “Lowlife” on NBC’s Carson Daly Show, the performance introduced by Ice Cube. They toured the West Coast and supported bands like Datarock, The Horrors, Forward Russia and The Rakes. The success from the album in America led to releases and tours in the UK and Europe.
Click image to check out the EP on iTunes
01. Mexico
02. Control
03. Charmed Life
Musically Amusing 