We Speak Music
ZKELETONZ drop official video for high-energy single ‘OUT!’
‘OUT!’ is the title track from BBC 6Music, Radio 2 & Introducing-backed Zkeletonz’ self-produced debut album—which features contributions from Alex Gopher (Daft Punk, Phoenix, Ed Banger) and Sam Wheat (Nile Rodgers, Public Enemy).
A fiercely independent band born from London’s DIY scene, Zkeletonz have grown from self-promoted warehouse parties to commanding major stages and are set to launch the album with a 500-capacity party at Camden Underworld on Friday 12th December.
Perfectly showcasing their electronic but guitar-based fusion sound “fans of LCD Soundsystem and MGMT will love” (Q Unsigned act of the week”), ‘OUT!’ is sure to light up Indie, Synth Pop and Alternative Dance-focused DSP and radio playlists as we head into party season.
It’s impossible to not get swept away in the band’s feverish, diva-ish goodness on this glittering, hard-hitting banger, which shows off the kind of insane party vibes that you’ll be able to expect at the Camden Underworld launch night and the type of mercilessly catchy anthems that abound in the debut Zkeletonz album.
The full LP ‘OUT!’ channels the spirits of Breakbot, Phoenix, Daft Punk’s ‘Homework’, and classic Ed Banger French Touch, but from a UK perspective. With a distinctively stylish and ironic edge, the band’s synth-fuelled indie style is at full power on this title track single, which is an intoxicating neon-lit ball of dance energy. Bouncy bass and retro drum machines drive forward relentlessly like an out-of-control rave powered steam locomotive, or a semi-regrettable Camden night out, and the track sees the band fully letting loose. It’s the perfect taster for the album of the same name.
Working independently with no established Manager, Agency or Record Label, Zkeletonz have appeared across BBC radio networks including 6Music (Fresh Finds, Tom Robinson); 5Live (session for Scott Mills & Chris Stark); Radio 2 ‘Sounds of Soul (Tony Blackburn); Introducing (Song of the Week, Band Of The Month – West Midlands) and on BBC-curated Festival stages alongside The Specials, Nile Rodgers/CHIC and the Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show.
They were mentored by DJ Yoda as Wilton’s Music Hall resident Emerging Artists (Dance/Electronic) in 2021 and are alumni of the prestigious MAS Records Artist Development programme (patrons: Rickie Wilson, Kaiser Chiefs; Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin).
The band’s 2025 crowd-funded debut album ‘OUT!’, which commences a trilogy of releases set to continue in the following 2 years, is a sonic love letter to live music, London club culture and late-night events with a focus on the unique and unforgettable experience only live music can provide. The album aims to invoke the adventurous and hedonistic spirit of a by-gone but never forgotten time in musical history and the band’s lives. Think 2004’s ‘You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine’ by Death from Above, 2005’s ‘Capture/Release’ by The Rakes, and ‘Fantastic Playroom’ in 2007 by New Young Pony Club mixed up in a cosmic blender with big hitters like The Strokes, MGMT, Empire of The Sun, and more obscure cuts who were always in Zkeletonz’ headphones as young Uni students, like US electroclash legends The Faint and almost unlistenable synth-noise from Crystal Castles.
Zkeletonz launch debut album ‘OUT!’ on Sat 12th December at Camden Underworld. Get tickets now here.
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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