British Nuclear Bunkers
Haines has never made an album quite like this, nor did anyone really expect him to.
The follow-up to the ex-Auteurs/Black Box Recorder frontman's New York in the '70s, the sex, drugs, and rock & roll-fueled third chapter in a psych-folk trilogy that began in 2011 with an LP focused solely on the heyday of British wrestling, 2015's British Nuclear Bunkers once again finds Haines exploring a very specific topic, but dispensing with the urban troubadour approach in favor of a more voltaic disposition. Inspired by the discovery of a Camden Borough-controlled nuclear bunker near his home, Haines began fiddling with his arsenal of analog synthesizers (most notably a mid-'70s Octave-designed monophonic/duophonic beast called The Cat), and before long had conjured what would ultimately become the album's brooding title cut, an icy and largely instrumental (the only lyric is "Maximum electronic rock and roll") mood piece that boasts an equally vexing video featuring Haines assuming various yoga positions while somebody in a gorilla suit makes fresh-squeezed lemonade.