Ten years ago, Barbès Records released Hazmat Modine’s debut album, Bahamut, which quickly went on to become a cult classic. Pitchfork probably captured it best by describing it as “…roots music that takes from pretty much any roots it sees fit,” and went on to praise the album as “true world music, weird and wonderful to the last note.”
 
Now ten years later, Barbès is releasing Hazmat Modine’s third studio album: Extra-Deluxe-Supreme: an artistic statement that is the culmination of ten years of musical adventures around the world.
 
The new album confirms Hazmat Modine’s place as a band of outsiders oblivious to the rules that govern today’s music scene. The group itself is a heterogeneous collection of musicians with a fondness for odd instruments and an all inclusive view of what constitutes American music. Extra-Deluxe- Supreme is their most classically American album to date. It displays a strong attention to songcraft, inspired by a long line of American songwriters from Tin Pan Alley to Stax and the Brill building.
 
Hazmat’s sound is still defined by their signature tuba and harmonica, augmented by their original horn section, guitars and accordion – plus your usual assortment of marimba, doshpuluur, Igil, railroad spikes, claviola, rocks and cimbalom.
 
Extra-Deluxe-Supreme does away with obvious genre hopping. After ten years of left field collaborations and extensive touring in places as varied as Siberia,Borneo, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand and Turkey, Hazmat Modine seems to have absorbed it all. They have shed any sense of self-consciousness and embraced their own forged identity as an American band with its own idea of what American music means.
 
Hazmat Modine official site
Hazmat Modine on Facebook