Another month, another exciting Algiers project to tell you about, this time in the form of Nun Gun. This is a collaboration between Lee Tesche and Ryan Mahan of said band and visual artist Brad Feuerhelm, and features further contributions from ONO, Mourning [A] BLKstar, artists Luiza Prado and Farbod Kokabi, as well as authors Blake Butler, Michael Salu, and Sohail Daulatzai. Mark Stewart of The Pop Group is another name involved, and he features on the new track ‘Stealth Empire, which you can listen to above. Speaking about the project, Lee Tesche says, "Mondo Decay is a project devoted to the moment, contemplating the sins of the past, visited upon the future. In a continuation of the visual themes of the book, unpacking the problematic ideas presented in the Mondo film series and flipping the lens back onto the west, we wanted to make a video where Mark Stewart was the ghost of past, present and future. He haunts the upper echelons of the scrambled channels of your teenage cable box, pulling back the curtain on the dystopian present. Imagine a parallel universe where Mark was Max Headroom." Nun Gun’s Mondo Decay project is released via the Algiers Bandcamp on 19th February, and will be available on cassette with a limited edition 500 page book – you can preorder it and find out more here.
The collaboration with Stewart has an interesting birth, as Tesche explains: "Ryan and I first encountered Mark a number of years ago in the neighboring urinal after a showing of Don Letts super8 films at the Southbank center. There had been a loud mouth in the seat in front of us during the screening, that was then revealed to be one of our heroes when he stepped between us in the florescent light of the toilet and nodded.
"It would be a number of months later before we would encounter each other again, backstage at a gig, the only people that no one really seemed to want to talk to. We were mutual admirers of each other’s work and Mark pitched working together. One of the reference points for this project was much of Mark’s solo work, and the words he penned and sent over fit perfectly within the concept without any interference. I was surprised by how easy and effortless it all came together."
