That they're not even an American. That they're assassin automatons, sent to America by its greatest historic enemy to destroy its institutions by making sordid "art" and "design", and by spreading seditious thoughts about the nature of love and affection.

What we do know is that CHAIN AND THE GANG's first ever record is emerging under the notorious and venerable K RECORDS imprint.

Its called "DOWN WITH LIBERTY … UP WITH CHAINS!" and is a stylistic blend of musical forms, combining the best elements of skronk, serf, sole, and stomp.

It features call and response, hand claps, singalongs, ad libs, grunts, squeals, shuffling feet, bent notes, dropped beats, missed opportunities, false starts, warts and all. It is, in short, the most exciting and "alive" record to be heard in a long time.

The songs are memorable, immediately noticeable, even in a noisy club or across a record store aisle. They are committed to shackles, chains, being locked up, kept away from society. The instrumentalists are among a secret elite … Veronica Ortuno (Carrots, Finally Punk), Arrington De Dionyso (Olde Tyme Relijun), Chris Sutton (Spider and the Webs), Brian Weber (DNSS), Brett Lyman (Bad Thoughts), Faustine Hudson (Curious Mystery), Sarah Pedal ( Week of Wonders), and so many others as to take up half the space on the back of the record cover.

It also features Ian Svenonius, who is amongst the best loved and most reviled vocalists of his generation. Standing 5'91/2 and weighing 10 stone, he is at first glance , the most average man. But when one peers closely, some strangeness reveals itself. As a mere child, he led the Nation of Ulysses, whose broadsheets and manifestos launched a thousand ships.

After that group, he began the Make Up, one of the more provocative groups of its epoch, and after that Weird War (nee Scene Creamers), the sonic rebuttal to the aforementioned "band". Other musical collaborations are many and too numerous to name on this puny sheet of paper (internet). Svenonius' book The Psychic Soviet from 2006, was an underground sensation, avidly read in coffee shops and bus terminals across the country.

His online talk show Soft Focus is a non-stop rambling tet-a-tet between himself and whatever visionary musicians are in his line of sight. All this toil, all this struggle, all this detritus produced, and yet the labor doesn't stop. No it just gets more fiercely honed and crystallized in his latest and greatest offering, CHAIN AND THE GANG, "DOWN WITH LIBERTY … UP WITH CHAINS!"

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