Electric War Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto
Album info
Album-Release:
2025
HRA-Release:
18.04.2025
Album including Album cover
I`m sorry!
Dear HIGHRESAUDIO Visitor,
due to territorial constraints and also different releases dates in each country you currently can`t purchase this album. We are updating our release dates twice a week. So, please feel free to check from time-to-time, if the album is available for your country.
We suggest, that you bookmark the album and use our Short List function.
Thank you for your understanding and patience.
Yours sincerely, HIGHRESAUDIO
- 1 Electric War 05:15
- 2 Zero Sun 03:26
- 3 Spektator 03:46
- 4 Creaky 07:32
- 5 ’Said Soul 02:44
- 6 Sick 8 04:20
- 7 My Now 05:50
- 8 Count Of Four 06:05
Info for Electric War
Electric War is an electrifying collaboration between British power trio, Little Barrie (Barrie Cadogan and Lewis Wharton, who wrote and performed the theme to Better Call Saul) and acclaimed producer/drummer, Malcolm Catto, fusing unique talents into a mesmerizing exploration of raw, experimental sound. Electric War delivers a blend of sharp guitar lines, thunderous drums, and swirling textures that evoke a post-apocalyptic soundscape teetering between chaos and harmony.
Genre-bending trio Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto today announced their new album Electric War will be released April 18th, 2025, via Easy Eye Sound. The band of singer/guitarist Barrie Cadogan and bassist Lewis Wharton, in collaboration with drummer Malcolm Catto (The Heliocentrics), also shared the album’s dynamic lead single “Zero Sun” alongside its grainy, vintage VHS-style video–directed by Robert Schober (The Killers, Green Day, My Chemical Romance)–that radiates with an effortless sophistication to match. “I had the idea of doing something with this groove for years. I’m not sure if you count in 3 or 6, I just like it. We jammed around it for a good hour in the studio until we got the feel,” says Cadogan of the song. “Me and Lewis keeping it minimal so Malcolm can play around it. The song came later. It’s about a mixture of things, old con artists, bleak English skies and waking up with the feeling you have a lot of obstacles to overcome, but then realizing how much you have already achieved and to keep going. Ultimately the glass isn’t half empty, it’s more than half full.”
Produced by Catto and Little Barrie, Electric War sees the group trusting their instincts as they push themselves into unchartered musical territories. Its eight, intoxicating songs pack an unforgettable punch as it offers a unique musical melting pot of 21st century rock ‘n roll, deep funk, jazz, and fuzzy atmospherics that propels their sound into exciting new directions. “We just pretty much do what we want to without tailoring our music to any specific genre,” Catto says of their approach to the new LP. Explains Cadogan, “From Malcolm, I learned a lot about the power of taking things down musically rather than just smashing the audience over the head with loud guitar for an hour. That can be cool, but in slowing the tempo or bringing the volume down, it gave us scope to say much more. We wanted to capture more of that in the studio, as well as the freakouts.”
Over a 20-plus year career, Little Barrie have proven themselves to be one of the UK’s most respected and resilient bands, cooking up a sound that blends elements of the ’60s British blues explosion, deep funk, hip hop, and the best rock n’ roll of the last six decades. Originally from Nottingham, Cadogan is one of the world’s most respected songwriters and guitarists, having worked on music for film and television that includes composing and performing the main title theme for the award-winning Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul, and composing the soundtrack to the documentary Year Of The Dog. He’s also contributed to music for Hollywood releases–including Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (featuring on “Cotton Candy Land” with Stevie Nicks & Chris Isaak), BBC drama Peaky Blinders–and has been the go-to guitar man for various legendary artists, including Primal Scream from 2006-2015, and more recently as a member of The The, co-writing two songs with leader Matt Johnson on the band’s critically acclaimed 2024 comeback album, Ensoulment. Cadogan played guitar for Liam Gallagher at his historic 2022 sold out Knebworth shows and bass for Gallagher and John Squire’s 2024 world tour. All this along with an impressive CV of session work for the likes of Johnny Marr, Paul Weller, Morrissey, Spiritualized, Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys), and Edwyn Collins, among others.
A legendary leading figure of the UK’s underground funk, jazz and psych scenes for over three decades, Catto worked with Jazzman Gerald on his Stark Reality label (who also released Little Barrie’s first single), and served as the master drummer for well-respected UK funk outfit The Soul Destroyers before forming The Heliocentrics along with fellow Soul Destroyer Jake Ferguson. Following the untimely passing of Little Barrie’s former drummer Virgil Howe in 2017, the band recruited Catto, and would go on to gain global recognition for his production chops and as leading exponents of mind-expanding psych-jazz and funk.
Electric War, their first for Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound, proves that the alchemy of their debut was no fluke. Highlights abound across the album, from the laid back funk of “Creaky”–led by Cadogan’s fluid and tasteful wah-guitar lines and featuring cello courtesy of The Heliocentrics’ Danny Keane–to “Spektator,” which sets Cadogan’s beautifully understated vocal delivery against a shifting, telepathic arrangement. “We now feel confident that we don’t have to be bound by traditional song structures for this project to work live,” says Wharton. “I think the shows that followed the first record have influenced us to feel free to go with whatever sounds exciting to us without overthinking it.” Stylish and cinematic, Electric War finds Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto locked in their groove and ascending a new level in their decades-long collaboration.
Little Barrie, vocals, guitar
Barrie Cadogan, guitar
Lewis Wharton, bass
Malcolm Catto, drums
Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto
A classic British power trio in the lineage of Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Little Barrie started off as a solo guise for guitar whizz Barrie Cadogan, using the nickname given to him aged 14 by a mate’s dad in Nottingham. He grew up in Robin Hood country surrounded by as much cool music as he could handle, from ‘80s alternative and psychedelia/acid-rock, through to R&B and jazz, and onto DC hardcore and electronica. He came to London in 2000 “with Can and The Meters in my head”, but wanting “a bit more Chuck Berry thrown in”.
He’d already started gigging as Little Barrie in the early 2000s when he met Lewis Wharton at mod clothes store Merc on Carnaby Street, where the band’s future bassist was running the record department. Barrie persuaded him to stock copies of his first single, and Little Barrie were away. With Lewis on board alongside drummer Wayne Fullwood, they debuted with 2005’s blue-eyed soul/funk blueprint, We Are Little Barrie (“as soon as the plug hits the amp, Little Barrie turn into something much, much bigger” - DMC). After putting in miles across Europe, Japan, Australia and the US, and remixing UK hip-hop acts Aspects and DJ Format, LB returned with 2007’s rockabilly-tinged Stand Your Ground. Now with Russell Simins (John Spencer’s Blues Explosion) and subsequently Billy Skinner on percussion, and produced by underground hip hop supremo Dan The Automator and UK reggae hero Mike ‘Prince Fatty’ Pelanconi, The Guardian championed Barrie as “a compelling frontman, pitting street-corner punk vocals against volleys of reverb and twang”.
Little Barrie would shore up their ranks with the arrival of Virgil Howe, son of Yes guitar hero, Steve Howe, on drums in 2007, to go with the enduring mentorship/friendship of Edwyn Collins, whose West Heath studio in London became LB HQ. Two further albums diversified the Barrie blueprint, moving into ’60s surf-pop (2011’s King Of The Waves) and the darker soundtrack-style Krautrock of 2014’s Shadow, “an effortlessly exciting album, taking rock back to its thrilling basics” as lauded by the NME. Airmiles continually racking up, album number five, 2017’s Death Express, packed a heavy punch, a raw, DIY outburst covering themes of greed and CCTV generationalism. Its spurning of big, expensive studios in favour of a couple of ancient MacBooks and an old tape machine, lead to Louder Than War praising it’s “classic sixties r’nb garage rock with 21st century thrust”.
Along the way, the Johnny Marr-endorsed Barrie had developed a parallel career as elite axeman for hire, extensively sitting in on sessions for premier leaguers such as Morrissey, Spiritualized and Paul Weller, serving time in Primal Scream circa 2006-15, and unveiled as the guitarist for The The on their 2018 comeback tour. Other notable assignments include the band supporting The Stone Roses on one of their limited run of post-reform gigs in Paris, and inputting for/backing The Chemical Brothers, Paolo Nutini, Charles Bradley, Dinosuar Jnr’s ‘J Mascis’, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and notably Scott Asheton of The Stooges. A phenomenal list of small and big screen tie-ins also ensued, none greater than providing the theme tune for cult ‘Breaking Bad’ offshoot ‘Better Call Saul’. Spots on US hits ‘Shameless’ and ‘Brooklyn 99’, computer game features and advertising placements for Nissan, Ralph Lauren, Nokia, Rimmel and, with thoroughly British synchronicity, Marks & Spencer, meant the Little Barrie hallmark had become hot property.
Following the untimely passing of Virgil Howe in 2017, Little Barrie underwent a healing process where returning to the studio and reconnecting through music, without seeking an end product, became therapy, an opportunity to work on bits and pieces Barrie had written for fun with zero pressure. Aligning with Malcolm Catto, sticksman and producer for The Heliocentrics in 2020, new album Quatermass Seven slowly but surely emerged from this emotional exile. Still rooted in the ‘Death Express’ sessions but seeking electrical energy coupled with the primeval feel of playing, Seven developed common ground and mutual respects exploring psych, late ’60s US funk 45s, British beat bands such as The Eyes, The Birds and The Creation, and the heavy heyday of early ’70s Detroit. Recorded on Catto’s treasure trove of analogue gear, and mastered onto ¼” tape, guitar, bass and drums launched into the sweet spot where genres collide, landing at the feet of maverick hip-hop producer Madlib and his Madlib Invazion label.
This album contains no booklet.