It feels like an age ago when we announced Teddy Killerz’ long-awaited debut album Nightmare Street. During that time the Russian/Ukrainian trio have continued to dent the dance, teasing us with a string of gritty, frazzled bass shredders; Monkey Kingdom, Teddy’s Song, Unbelievable, King Is Back and a full-strength jump-up take on Noisia’s Tentacles.
On Friday June 2, Teddy Killerz will finally show us around the whole neighbourhood they’ve spent years building: Nightmare Street is open for business and there’s affordable real estate for all. In fact the above-listed tracks they’ve revealed so far are just the tip of their hairy, grizzly, genre-munching iceberg: Nightmare Street comprises 14 blunderbusses ranging from the nasty, grotty tech we’ve come to love them for to much more uplifting lighter-raisers…. And all shades (and tempos) in between.
The time for being woke is over: Nightmare Street is a moment to take a break from weirdness of reality and step into Place 2b, Paimon and Garud’s messed up world and get well and truly deaded.
With the release imminent we had two options: get deep and meaningful about the album’s creation and the unrealistic pressures of being teddy bears in a human-dominated industry. Or send them some real nightmare dilemmas to see how they’d react.
SPOILER: the below contains descriptions of nudity, evil drum & bass hating clowns, a political revolution and a pissed off DJ Guv.
You’re playing the Friday night headline slot on the massive spaceship stage at Let It Roll. It’s the gig you’ve been waiting for all your lives. But you realise the crowd are just standing there staring at the screens and not dancing…. You’ve only forgotten to get dressed! You’re all naked and everything is on show on the big screens. This is a serious nightmare situation. What do you do?
We roll with it. We tell people this is the only way to rave, and everyone must get their kit off now. They obey and we drop some of our seriously bass heavy wobblers much to everyone’s enjoyment. Bits shaking, vibrating all over.
You rock up to a club to play the headline set at a cool club, you put your USBs in the CDJs and, before you realise what’s happened, all your personal pictures and gentleman’s movie collection is up on the screens! The CDJs are DVJs and you’ve brought your nudes USB and not your tunes! This is a f**king nightmare m8. What do you do?
We cause a distraction while we get the technical hitch sorted. We get some Teddy Killerz costumes on, slap on some tracks from the Nightmare Street album, and synchronise some sweet dance moves. Everyone is temporarily distracted while pictures of Oleg riding a bear naked are flashing in the background. Eventually Oleg and the bear win people’s attention and there’s nothing we can do.
You’ve had no sleep and suffered a long delay at the airport… You finally board the plane and it’s FULL of clowns. Not nice happy juggling clowns but nasty Pennywise bastard-type clowns. And they’re all wearing t-shirts with slogans like ‘kill DJs’ and ‘D&B is shit’. Nightmare, right? What do you do?
We take over, we hijack the plane’s sound system which just happens to be set-up with the heaviest sub’s, and strap in these sad little clowns, turn up the volume and blast the heaviest set we have ever done. When we land the clowns have all gone, vaporised by the bass.
You’re queuing up for your Visa for hours. It’s long and the room is smelly and sweaty. When you finally reach the desk, things get a bit weird… The Visa guy is your old headmaster from school and he says you can’t have any Visa for any country until you’ve completed all the exams and lessons you skipped. Nightmare! What do you do?
We quit travelling. There’s no chance I’m doing those lessons and exams!
You arrive at a show in America and there’s a massive crowd around the club with big banners saying ‘Ban Teddy Killerz!” and “Teddy Killerz Are Horrid!” They think you actually kill teddies, the idiots. The problem is, they’re an angry rabble. They’ve been rabbling for hours waiting for you and they won’t accept any intelligent argument from you…. They’ve got pitchforks and fire on sticks and everything. They want blood. Nightmare vibes. So what do you do?
We hire a tank and call in some reinforcements. We have a full-blown war against these teddy lovers. It’s messy as hell, but we survive and we then take over the US and become the first presidents to set up decks in the White House.
DJ Guv calls over for a cup of tea and you haven’t got any tea, or sugar, or milk. And all your cups are dirty. Guv is thirsty as hell and in a bit of a bad mood. This is a nightmare situation. What do you do?
We tell him to stop being a pussy and we hand him our finest Russian/Ukrainian vodka.
Nightmare Street is out June 2 on Ram BMG: iTunes pre-order / Spotify pre-save
Follow Teddy Killerz: Soundcloud / Facebook / Twitter
