Dulli, Lanegan Wrap Gutter Twins Album

Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan have wrapped the debut album from their long-in-the-works Gutter Twins project. Due March 4 via Sub Pop, "Saturnalia" features guest appearances by Joseph Arthur, Martina Topley-Bird, Queens Of The Stone Age's Troy Van Leeuwen and the touring band from Dulli's Twilight Singers.

The Gutter Twins concept has been alive since late 2003, and the first two songs the group wrote, "All Misery" and "The Body," are present on "Saturnalia." But the majority of the material was finished this year, often with Dulli in New Orleans and Lanegan in Los Angeles.

"I'd send them to him and he'd mess around with them," Dulli tells Billboard.com of working with longtime friend Lanegan. "But whenever we were in the same room, that's when the lion's share of the material was realized, because we actually could work it out." Lanegan contributed two of his own songs to the project, "Who Will Lead Us" and "Bete Noire."

Hooking up with Sub Pop was an easy decision for the artists, who were both signed to the label earlier in their careers (Lanegan with Screaming Trees, Dulli with Afghan Whigs). "It was the perfect situation," Dulli says. "The way it presented itself, it was sort of the classic offer you couldn't refuse."

The Gutter Twins have lined up five shows for next year, beginning Feb. 14 in New York and including a March 1 set in San Francisco as part of the Noise Pop festival.

"We'll see how the first round goes and that will dictate what we do from there on out," Dulli says. "I think we have an exciting show. We certainly have a lot of material that we could cull from and stretch the set. We're also very fond of interpretations."

Here are the Gutter Twins' tour dates:

Feb. 14: New York (Bowery Ballroom)
Feb. 19: Paris (Maroquinerie)
Feb. 21: London (Koko)
Feb. 23: Amsterdam (Melkweg)
March 1: San Francisco (Bimbo's; Noise Pop festival)

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Saturnalia is the anticipated first album from The Gutter Twins, the collaboration forged in late 2003 by Mark Lanegan and fellow maverick singer-songwriter Greg Dulli. Saturnalia finds the axis Dulli nicknamed "the Satanic Everly Brothers" going even deeper into the shadows than ever before. Mystical, unpredictable, ultimately masterful, the album both embodies and defies any expectations suggested by the principals' individual notoriety. Pointedly not resting on the sonic laurels of their previous successes, Saturnalia instead proves rootsy but baroque, handmade yet modernist, teeming with siren melodies that don't resolve. Produced by Dulli and Lanegan along with the band's unofficial third member Mathias Schneeberger, "Saturnalia's eerie modal swirls trap the listener in each song's atmosphere; simultaneously evoking everything from Indian sitars to Appalachian folk and Delta grit, the drones inadvertently create narcotic hooks."

1. The Stations 4:34
2. God's Children 4:57
3. All Misery/Flowers 4:22
4. The Body 3:02
5. Idle Hands 4:37
6. Circle the Fringes 5:24
7. Who Will Lead Us 3:48
8. Seven Stories Underground 3:21
9. I Was in Love with You 4:25
10. Bete Noir 3:50
11. Each to Each 4:48
12. Front Street 5:22

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012GJG38/?tag=imwan-20

That gestation process reminds me of the first Twilight Singers album, which existed as a pretty fleshed-out Dulli demo until he put large swatches of it in the hands of producers Fila Brazilia and wrote some additional new material.

Hope they decide to do a proper tour sometime after the record comes out.

Just found out about this project. Check out some tracks here... http://www.myspace.com/theguttertwins

(from Pitchfork)

Gutter Twins Announce Release Date, Shows


Valentine's Day: a time for flowers, candy, snuggles, kisses, hugs, and all that gooey stuff. Who better to spend it with than Greg Dulli, the Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers master of the depraved psycho-sexual mindfuck?

On February 14, 2008, the Gutter Twins, Dulli's collaboration with Screaming Trees/QOTSA/Soulsavers dude Mark Lanegan, will hit the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. How romantic!

The date is the first of five for the Twins, who will be celebrating the March 4 Sub Pop release of their debut album Saturnalia. In a press release, Dulli says, "I couldn't tell you what Saturnalia's theme is, but there's a seeking of transcendence that's new. I have never written songs like this before. It's a different temple I'm visiting."

Lanegan is on tour with Soulsavers right now.

Gutter Twins:

02-14 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
02-19 Paris, France - Maroquinerie
02-21 London, England - Koko
02-23 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg
03-01 San Francisco, CA - Noise Pop

Soulsavers (with Mark Lanegan):

11-28 Philadelphia, PA - North Star Bar
11-29 Washington, DC - Black Cat
12-01 San Francisco, CA - The Independent
12-02 Los Angeles, CA - Troubador