Below is the official press release for Thunderdome. If you’d like to purchase a copy, please contact the band directly at booking@joyonfire.com ($20 + $3 shipping in the US, or available at shows for $20).
Joy on Fire Press Release
Winter 2020
Thunderdome Extended Single
Limited-edition 12” 180 gram vinyl, play at 45 RPM (digital download included)
Joy on Fire is proud to release Thunderdome Extended Single, a two-song introduction to the group’s new sound, which blends its trademark punk-jazz instrumentals with vocals throughout, a first in the band’s history. An eight-song LP, States of America, is currently being mixed for prospective release later this year.
The danceable “Thunderdome” identifies the phenomenon of dejected people “revolving like minutes in a display case” considered alongside the “anger and decency” of political outrage. Funky and energetic, the song closes after a rollicking sax solo with the ultimate question: “What’s love?”
The A Side concludes by reviling the deadliness of gun violence in the metallic, soaring “Uh Huh,” wherein “Earth is / The gun raised at the unarmed,” yet Earth is not just the incipient moment in a confrontation but a constellation of actions and consequences: “What will our brothers be singing / When we return their bodies to the Earth?”
Three remixes of “Thunderdome” on the B Side offer listeners reconceived horns, distortion, guitars, and beats. These mixes are radical reconstructions that create the music anew.
By enmeshing threads of influence that range from the eclectic rock of King Crimson and The Talking Heads to the spirituality of John and Alice Coltrane, from the clipped postmodernism of European poet Paul Celan to the basslines of Sleaford Mods, Morphine, and Joy Division, Joy on Fire continues to produce pioneering music that swings hard and thumps breath into the bodies of listeners.
Joy on Fire is John Paul Carillo (bass guitar, electric guitar, lead composer), Anna Meadors (alto and baritone saxophones, vocals), Chris Olsen (drums, percussion), and Dan Gutstein (lyrics, vocals).