Gogol Bordello have just dropped ‘Ignition‘, and it sounds like something entirely new is happening in their world. The track is the third single from their upcoming ninth studio album We Mean It, Man!, due out February 13 via frontman Eugene Hütz’s own Casa Gogol Records.
The accompanying music video features actor Liev Schreiber, marking a full circle moment in a friendship that spans two decades. Schreiber first cast Hütz in his 2005 directorial debut Everything Is Illuminated, and the two have remained close ever since. Schreiber even executive produced the Vice documentary Scream of My Blood: A Gogol Bordello Story.
Hütz explains the connection: “‘Ignition‘ is about the hardest currency there is: lifelong friendships and trust, the people who will come pull you out of a ditch at 5am. I didn’t want musicians’ faulty acting to obscure that, so I called my friend Liev, who is exactly the kind of actor who embodies it effortlessly and powerfully, because he’s exactly that kind of person. Growing up on Lower East Side basketball courts with New York hardcore guys will do that. I value our friendship tremendously, plus it’s Everything Is Illuminated‘s 20th anniversary. It was time to have a meaningful drink.”
Schreiber returns the sentiment: “My brother from another mother. Ridiculously insane with the heart, mind, and voice of a poet.”
The album was co-produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, IDLES) and Adam “Atom” Greenspan, and Hütz has described We Mean It, Man! as their “post punk groove revenge,” bringing together punk, gypsy music, hardcore, and techno in ways they haven’t explored since Gypsy Punks.
It sounds to us like a new era of Gogol Bordello has arrived with this dance floor track. Can we skank to this? Maybe. Maybe we just jump up and down. It might take some getting used to, but we’re looking forward to seeing what this new era of Bordello brings us.
Gogol Bordello kick off their North American tour on February 13, with a New York homecoming show at Knockdown Center on March 27.
