Brand new single from Hackney Colliery Band, featuring the combined vocal talents of Yvette Riby-Williams, Selena Seballo and Joanna Christie.

Flood is the latest single from east London musical pioneers Hackney Colliery Band.

As one of the very first of the new wave of brass bands to appear, since 2009 they have consistently pushed the boundaries of what we think of as a ‘brass band’. Best-known in their early days for their unlikely covers, including Toto’s Africa and Blackstreet’s No Diggity, HCB have nevertheless always had original music at their very core, producing four albums of almost entirely newly-penned music since their 2011 debut. Their fourth album Collaborations: Volume One vindicated this approach with their strongest material to date, produced in collaboration with an enormous range of creative talents including Grammy-winning Beninese vocalist Angélique Kidjo and godfather of Ethiopian jazz Mulatu Astatke.

For this first single from their forthcoming Collaborations: Volume Two album, HCB continue to surprise, producing a fiery vocal-led diatribe on the state of the world in 2022.

Steve Pretty, the band’s frontman and trumpet player, said: ’too often recently it seems that the word ‘flood’ is mainly used as a way of describing refugees or migrants ‘flooding’ in. With this tune, we wanted to flip that idea on its head and instead think of how we’ve been flooded with negative messages which are, as the song says, ‘burning brighter fuelled by every tweet we view’. So when the amazing vocal talents of Yvette Riby-Williams, Selena Seballo and Joanna Christie combine in the chorus, we wanted their tight harmonies to be a kind of positive call to arms - ’now we’re nearly drowned, we’re doing something, like we should.’

With an insistent and catchy horn riff and punchy, urgent double drumming of Luke Christie and Olly Blackman driving this message forward, Flood represents the start of another intriguing chapter from the band described as ‘an ingenious blend of showmanship and intelligence’ (Sunday Times).

Composed by Luke Christie
Mixed by Geoff Southall
Mastered by Dan Smith
Recording copyright Hackney Colliery Band 2022

Flood (feat. Yvette Riby-Williams, Selena Seballo & Joanna Christie)

From Hackney Colliery Band's brand new album 'Collaborations: Volume One'

Collaborations: Volume One

Derashe (feat. Mulatu Astatke)

8 Crushing Lactic (comp. Tom Rogerson)

Hackney Colliery Band's brand new album 'Collaborations: Volume One'

Netsanet (feat. Mulatu Astatke)

Mm Mm (feat. Angélique Kidjo & Roundhouse Choir)

"Reinventing the brass-band format for the 21st century" - Times
"This is the most enjoyable, fun music that I know of" - Observer
"One of the best live bands we have in this country" - BBC Radio 2
"Clever, and enormous fun" - Guardian
"An ingenious blend of showmanship and intelligence" - Sunday Times

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