A Band Apart
Every group of working musicians has its own origin story, ranging from the widely familiar — friends jamming in a garage, someone responding to a classified ad — to the random and unusual. The story of how the Pet Shop Boys met — by chance at a hi-fi shop in London as they were separately browsing equipment — makes for a particularly charmed example. The band Algiers might have one of the most unexpected stories of all: As one member explains, it all started not merely before they knew each other, but before any of them individually existed.
"You can probably trace our origins back to the births of me and Ryan, because our mothers were friends before we were born," Lee Tesche says. "We've been playing music together for probably almost 20 years."
Tesche is speaking on the phone from Atlanta, the closest thing his band has to a hometown. Deep as its roots go, Algiers also has distance and disagreement woven into its DNA. On a separate call from the UK, where he's lived for some years, Ryan Mahan tries to be a bit more precise.
"Really, the band fundamentally came together in 2012," he says, pointing specifically to the day a tiny Southern indie released the group's first 7" single. "Before that, we were spread out: We were exploring our own musical and political spaces, and trying to figure out how it would work. It really didn't form until Franklin put down the foundations of 'Blood' and then it came into the world."
Joining our conversation from New York, Franklin Fisher listens as Mahan lays out his timeline. When asked if he agrees, he laughs and responds, "No — but that's what makes this band interesting. We've gone through just as many evolutions and phases as any band that's put out however many records, in however many years' time."
Exactly when and where Algiers began may be less important than where it is has ended up. Founded as a trio of Atlantans, it is now four musicians living in three cities on two continents, separated by one massive ocean. On June 23, Matador Records will release its second album, , a work of political critique that draws on and repurposes aggressive '80s punk, Italian horror soundtracks,, the 1960s film about an anti-colonial uprising — has always prized a collective instinct, where no one vision is definitive.
