It started with a chaotic double bill at Hastings boozer The Jenny Lind in February 2025, a mosh pit, a breakneck run through The Stooges’ “TV Eye,” and enough cross-pollinating energy that local label Property Of The Lost commissioned an album before last orders. The result is a mini LP from Kentish post-punks Moron Butler and Yorkshire aggro-jazz four-piece Vipertime, recorded across 2 hectic days at Leeds’ Eiger Studios and mixed in a single session, out now on vinyl.
The music channels Gang Of Four’s acerbic attack, the punk-dub distortion of The Pop Group, and the motoric drive of Can. Troy Osmond’s vocals sit front and center, his delivery interspersed with saxophone abstractions from Vipertime’s dual-drum, bass, and sax configuration. The range across the record is striking, from a 5-minute-plus slow-build sax and feedback crescendo on “The Easter Parade” to the 70-second hardcore gut-punch of “Waugh & Peace.”
Vipertime’s 2023 album ‘Arise’ earned BBC 6 Music airplay and praise from Iggy Pop, Gilles Peterson, and Colin Curtis. Iggy’s verdict on the band says plenty: “I wouldn’t mind hanging out somewhere where that was going on. I guess I’d have to go to Leeds.” Mike Watt of the Minutemen and Stooges called the collaboration “really fucking happening. I dig this big time.”
Moron Butler bring the DIY ethos of Minutemen and Hüsker Dü to songs inspired as much by Cheever and Steinbeck as by the street poetry of Billy Woods and Black Thought. Their songs are short, lyrically bleak, and deliberately hard to categorize, which is precisely the point. Three split 7-inch singles with three equally undefinable bands have done nothing to help them slide into a category, and they’re fine with that.
The two bands take the collaboration on the road through early June, including a London show at The Blue Monk with Sly and the Family Drone on May 29.
Tour Dates:
Wed, May 20 – Oldham – Whittles (Manchester Jazz Festival)
Wed, May 27 – Leeds – Wharf Chambers (Leeds Jazz Festival)
Thu, May 28 – Deal – The Lighthouse
Fri, May 29 – London – The Blue Monk (with Sly & the Family Drone)
Sat, May 30 – Hastings – Jenny Lind
Wed, Jun 3 – Nottingham – Peggy’s Skylight