1. Friendship (also known as the Friendship Collective) are one of the most vile, antagonist, and visionary grind/powerviolence acts to have ever emerged from Japan. Their absurdly devastating music comes together as a collapsing black hole that devours everything with surgical precision, sparing nothing from the plain of existence. In perfect adherence to the tradition of Japanese extreme music where everything is always taken to ridiculous and mindless extremes, Friendship's music is like a chain reaction that can not be stopped - the devastating consequence of an uncontrolled nuclear fission of Japan's most praised and iconic musical extremities: the mindless chaos of bands like Endon and Zeni Geva, the pulverizing blunt force trauma of bands like Unholy Grave and Death Side, and the cataclysmic sludge-doom aberrance of bands like Corrupted and Congenital Hell. While their infamously savage live sets are frequent and somewhat celebrated events in their native country, Friendship has emerged from Japan’s extreme underground like an enigma of sorts, eluding press and hype, diverting attention from them selves as people, and sticking instead to a hermetic and self-deprecating approach to their craft, which has yielded extremely overlooked but devastating recordings shrouded in mystery and characterized by bizarre artwork, cryptic song titles, and a uniformly antagonist aesthetic that makes them appear anti-human in everything.

2. 'A chaotic mix of loop pedals, rolling funk beats and chanting vocals. This mustachioed London 2-piece are slacker music you can dance to'

3. Friendship is a Philadelphia-based band currently comprised of Dan Wriggins, Peter Gill, Mike Cormier, Evangeline Krajewski, and Jon Samuels.

Gill, Cormier, and Wriggins, all originally from Maine, began performing as Friendship in 2015, when they shared an apartment in Philadelphia. They released an LP, You’re Going to Have to Trust Me, on Burst and Bloom Records in late 2015, and an EP, F/V Hope in 2017 with Philadelphia’s Sleeper Records.

Friendship's new album, Shock out of Season, will come out November 3, 2017 on Orindal Records. It is a collection of songs about work, friends, love, and loneliness, lifted by synthesizer, pedal steel, and Rhodes piano, and set against a combination of live and programmed drums.

Wriggins’ lyrics reflect conversation, humor, and calamity. They stress his characters’ unmediated involvement in each other’s lives, which transcends and is frustrated by their failed communications. These tensions are expanded by the band’s twisted articulation of Americana - waves of ambient pedal steel, droning synthesizers and drum machines, vibraphone, electric piano, and percussion surge and fall alongside minimal guitar and bass patterns.
credits
Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.