JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Daniel Ash’s 68th birthday.
Category: post-punk
New Video: FACS Shares Tense and Probing “You Future”
Chicago-based post-punk outfit and JOVM mainstays FACS‘ sixth studio album Wish Defense is slated for a February 7, 2025 release on CD, cassette, black vinyl and a limited white vinyl variant while supplies last [pre-order] through Trouble In Mind Records.
The album marks the return of original band member Jonathan Van Herik, who replaces longtime bassist Alianna Kalaba. Van Herik’s return to the band reportedly brings renewed vigor and a marked angularity from the Chicago-based outfit’s more recent output. While the songs still hit hard, the approach is sideways; in fact, the roles have changed since Van Herik’s original tenure and previous time with Case and Leger in Disappears. Now on bass, Van Herik was originally the band’s guitarist while Case, the band’s current guitarist, played bass. The role reversal between Case and Van Herik has reportedly helped the band’s dynamic, offering a different musical perspective than before, while revisiting the trio’s long-held collaboration with some distance and time.
Tragically, Wish Defense is the last album engineered by Steve Albini. Two days of sessions were recorded at Electrical Audio in early May, before Albini’s untimely death. Renowned engineer and friend Sanford Parker stepped in to finish the session 24 hours later, tracking the last bits of vocals and overdubs. Longtime collaborator John Congleton mixed the album’s material as Albini would have, in Electrical Audio’s A Room, off the tape, using Albini’s notes about the session.
Thematically, the album focuses on the centuries old subject of the duality of man. Who is your “true self” and what do they want? The album sees the band taking a good long look in the mirror to face themselves. As the band’s Brian Case explains, the album’s lyrical content revolves about doppelgängers or doubles, tackling the idea of facing yourself and observing your ideas and motivations.
In the lead-up to the album’s release next month, I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:
- “Wish Defense,” the album’s title track. Anchored around an angular and forceful bass line from Van Herik, off-kilter and propulsive rhythmic patterns from Leger and Case’s squiggling and chiming guitar lines while featuring one of Case’s more melodic vocal turns in some time and a slow-burning, noisy coda. The song also continues the Chicago-based outfit’s long-held reputation for writing material that’s psychologically probing with Case laying out the entire album’s theme in one stanza, asking the listening — and in turn, himself: Are your actions and emotions your true self? Or are they a performative aspect of that “other” person you put forward into the world? Case says that ultimately, the sentiment is ” . . . don’t let the bastards get you down, there’s something beyond this moment, like hope — but not in the naive belief that ultimately people are good.”
- “Desire Path” a song that sees the band pairing woozy and swirling guitar textures, squiggling guitar bursts and a punchily delivered mantra-like lyric paired with a forceful and percussive rhythm section. The song evokes a claustrophobic sense of unease; of walls both psychological and real closing in on you.
Wish Defense’s third and latest single, album closing track “You Future” continues a run of tense, uneasy yet psychologically probing material anchored around an expansive song structure that reminds the listener of the individual musicians remarkably expressive, forceful playing.
Thematically, the song sees the band asking ‘Are you the same as you were?” “The final track is also the final action, look in the mirror and ask the questions. It’s a future self talking to a ‘you’ from the past, assessing the path up until this point, questioning who you are,” FACS’ Brian Case explains. “We bookended the album with the two songs that felt the most vulnerable and I think that really works with this idea of examining and challenging who you are and the perception of who you are.”
The accompanying video draws from the album’s cover art as it features the checkerboard motif and eyes that constantly peer back at the viewer.
Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, Robin Guthrie!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Cocteau Twins co-founder Robin Guthrie’s 63rd birthday.
New Audio: Riga’s Bēdu Brāļi Shares Brooding and Uneasy “Drošākā vieta”
Jānis Liepiņš (bass) and Pēteris Ozols (drums) — spent their formative years among their homeland’s vibrant mid 00s punk and rock scenes. While the scene’s fiercely independent ethos and the use of Lativan lyrics rubbed off on them, they’ve managed to stand apart from their peers.
The Riga-based outfit’s full-length debut, 2022’s Duende saw them crafting a sound that featured elements of shoegaze, psych rock, post-punk and more. Building upon a growing profile in their homeland, the trio’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Lauskas will be released through I Love You Records.
Deriving its title from the Latvian word for shards, the Riga-based outfit’s sophomore album reportedly sees the band further cementing their boundary pushing sound. The album will feature two previously released singles that I’ve written about over the course of this past year:
“Ikdienas-dzive,” a track anchored around glistening guitars, a chugging motorik groove and a woozy, shoegazer textured guitar solo paired with Tu’s punchily delivered vocal. While recalling Montréal‘s Atusko Chiba, “Ikdienas-dzive,” captures a nagging sense of vacillating self-doubt, bored and uneasy dread and frustration that should feel familiar to anyone who’s slaved away at a soul-sucking day job.
“Pieskaries,” is a brooding, decidedly post punk affair featuring an angular and propulsive bass line, rolling drum pattern and bursts of slashing guitars serving as an uneasy bed for Oskars Tu’s desperate wails. While continuing a run of material that reminds me a bit of Atsuko Chiba, “Pieskaries” captures a modern sense of isolation and unease while being with others.
The album’s latest single “Drošākā vieta” is a tense and brooding song featuring an angular and propulsive bass line, swirling shoegazer textures guitars paired with Oskars Tu’s achingly plaintive delivery before ending with a noisy coda. Deriving its name for the Latvian phrase for “safe place,” “Drošākā vieta” captures the long for a safe place in a mad, mad world.
New Audio: Divine Decadence Shares Angry and Anthemic “No Turning Back”
Led by Sabrina and Tatiana, Nice, France-based outfit Divine Decadence can trace their origins back to 2020: While confined to the home studio as a result of COVID-19 quarantines and restrictions, the band had the opportunity […]
Acclaimed British post-punk outfit THE THE was founded by singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Johnson back in 1979 and through various iterations and configurations, Johnson and his collaborators have developed a sound and approach that seems to inhabit its own difficult to define genre: music of long shadows, high hopes, channeled anger, feverish passions and sweetly disturbing poignancy that meshes elements of pop, rock, blues, folk and soul among others while spanning alienated electronics to twisted cinematic soundtracks, guitar tumbling swing to crimson ballads, rants and prayers to diaries and hymns.
Over the course of their 45 year history, Johnson and company have released only five full-length albums of original material, 1983’s Soul Mining, 1986’s Infected, 1989’s Mind Bomb, 1993’s Dusk and 2000’s NakedSelf. Having a long-held reputation for being unpredictable, the band has also tackled covers, such as 1995’s Hanky Panky; film soundtracks, including 2009’s Tony, 2010’s Moonbug, 2014’s Hyena and 2019’s Muscle; art installations, a the Radio Cinéola podcast series; 2017’s moving, 84 minute documentary/multimedia project The Inertia Variations and various book publications including 2018’s Matt Johnson biography Long Shadows, High Hopes: The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & THE THE.
2017’s The Inertia Variations took inspiration from British poet John Tottenham’s 2005 book of the same name — particularly the idea of “brooding, abstraction and evasion” getting in the way of the creative process. The Inertia Variations eventually resulted in not just the documentary, but also the Radio Cinéola Trilogy triple album box set.
At the end of The Inertia Variations documentary, Johnson was filmed performing a new song live in his studio, “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming,” an energy to his older brother Andrew Johnson, an artist professionally known as Andy Dog, who died in 2016. “It was not an easy song to write,” he says. “That was the first time I’d sung in many years. I enjoyed it but found it very emotional.”
The experience prompted Johnson to revive THE THE as a live band — and it lead to the sold-out 2018 The Comeback Special world tour. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the release of the accompanying live film and album until 2021. And of course, the pandemic also delayed the intended start on the writing and recording of first THE THE album in almost 25 years, Ensoulment. Instead, Johnson and company released a series of 7 inch singles that started with 2017’s “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming,” 2020’s “I WANT 2 B U,” and last year’s “$1 ONE VOTE!”
The 12-song Ensoulment is slated for a September 6, 2024 release through Cinéola/earMUSIC. The album reportedly contains echoes of the acclaimed British outfit’s multifaceted and lengthy musical past, however, it’s richly representative of the mercurial band’s here and now. The album continues Johnson’s long-held reputation for being unafraid to tackle the inherent emotional complexity of the human condition — in particular, intimacy in an age of alienation; democracy in a post-truth age; empire and vassalage; the seemingly inexorable rise of AI and more. And yet, the album is rooted in hope. “It’s vital to be hopeful,” Johnson states. “And I hope people get out of the album what we put into it. It was created under very happy circumstances, with a great vibe amongst the band and all the people that worked on it. There was a lot of thought, a lot of work, a lot of love, a lot of laughter!”
The album’s material were further refined in rehearsals, just before a six-day recording sessions at Bath, UK-based Real World Studios, where Johnson was joined by long-standing band members James Ellen (bass), DC Collard (keys), Earl Harvin (drums) and Barrie Cadogan (lead guitar). The album also marks the return of co-producer and engineer Warne Livesey, who worked with the band on Infected and Mind Bomb. The album also features contributions from Gillian Glover (backing vocals), Terry Edwards (horns), Sonya Cullingford (fiddle) and Danny Cummings (percussion).
Ensoulment’s first single, the Matt Johnson and Barrie Cadogan co-written “Cognitive Dissident,” a brooding and slinky number, anchored around a strutting bass line, bursts of squiggling, reverb-soaked guitar, Johnson’s breathy speak-singing delivery, sultry cooing from Gillian Glover, atmospheric electronics, skittering percussion paired with an equally slinky and remarkably catchy hook. Thematically, the song captures the madly topsy-turvy Orwellian nature of modern life with an uncanny and unsettling attention to detail.
THE THE tour dates
8/21 – Cambridge Junction – Cambridge, England SOLD OUT
8/22 – The Waterfront Norwich – Norwich, England SOLD OUT
8/23 – Picturedrome – Holmfirth, England SOLD OUT
8/25 – National Museum Of Ireland – Dublin, Ireland
9/10 – Sentrum Scene – Oslo, Norway
9/11 – Sentrum Scene – Oslo, Norway SOLD OUT
9/13 – Filadelfia – Stockholm, Sweden
9/14 – Store Vega – Copenhagen, Denmark SOLD OUT
9/15 – Store Vega – Copenhagen, Denmark SOLD OUT
9/17 – Huxleys – Berlin, Germany
9/18 – Carlswerk Victoria – Köln, Germany
9/19 – Ancienne Belgique – Brussels, Belgium SOLD OUT
9/21 – De Roma – Antwerp, Belgium SOLD OUT
9/22 – Paradiso – Amsterdam, Netherlands SOLD OUT
9/23 – Paradiso – Amsterdam, Netherlands SOLD OUT
9/25 – Usher Hall – Edinburgh, Scotland SOLD OUT
9/27 – The Civic At The Halls – Wolverhampton, England
9/28 – Alexandra Palace – London, England SOLD OUT
9/30 – O2 Apollo – Manchester, England SOLD OUT
10/1 – O2 Academy Brixton – London, England
10/11 – Tabernacle – Atlanta, GA
10/12 – Durham Performing Arts – Durham, NC
10/14 – The Anthem – Washington, DC
10/15 – The Fillmore – Philadelphia, PA
10/17 – Beacon Theatre – New York, NY
10/19 – Orpheum Theatre – Boston, MA
10/20 – MTELUS – Montreal, QC
10/22 – Massey Hall – Toronto, ON
10/23 – Masonic Cathedral Theatre – Detroit, MI
10/25 – The Salt Shed – Chicago, IL
10/26 – Palace Theatre – St. Paul, MN
10/29 – Mission Ballroom – Denver, CO
10/30 – Eccles Theater – Salt Lake City, UT
11/2 – Paramount Theatre – Seattle, WA
11/3 – Roseland Theater – Portland, OR
11/4 – Orpheum – Vancouver, BC
11/7 – Fox Theater – Oakland, CA
11/8 – Shrine Auditorium – Los Angeles, CA
11/14 – Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre – Auckland, New Zealand SOLD OUT
11/16 – Palais Theatre, Melbourne, Australia SOLD OUT
11/17 – Palais Theatre, Melbourne, Australia
11/18 – Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide, Australia
11/21 – Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
11/22 – Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
11/23 – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane, Australia SOLD OUT
11/24 – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane, Australia
11/27 – Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth, Australia
New Video: A Place To Bury Strangers Share an Explosive Ripper
Led by Death by Audio founder and Dedstrange Records co-founder Oliver Ackermann, New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place To Bury Strangers — currently Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (guitar) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — have long been fueled by Ackermann’s restless creativity and propensity to be surprising: Over the past close to two decades, A Place To Bury Strangers have delighted, astonished — and occasionally destroyed the eardrums of — their audience with a sound that combines elements of post-punk, noise rock, shoegaze, psychedelia and avant-garde music in rather unexpected ways. Their live show is often wildly unpredictable and often sees the band
In concert, A Place To Bury Strangers is nothing short of astounding — a shamanistic experience that bathes listeners in glorious sound, crazed left turns, transcendent vibrations, real-time experiments, brilliant breakthroughs.
And as the founder of Death By Audio, the company behind signal-scrambling stomp boxes and visionary instrument effect pedals, Ackerman has exported that sense of excitement, surprise and invention to other artists, who plug their instruments into his company’s gear and attempt to blow minds with wild, new sounds and approaches.
With A Place To Bury Strangers’ latest lineup, the band may arguably be at their most current sounding, courageous and accessible melodic in their lengthy and acclaimed run. The new lineup has two releases under their belt, 2021’s Hologram EP and their sixth full-length album, 2022’s critically applauded See Through You, which they’ve supported with a seemingly indefatigable touring schedule.
Continuing their long-held reputation for restless creativity, the members of APTBS are releasing a four 7-inch vinyl record series, called The Sevens. The Sevens are a treasure trove of previously unreleased tracks from See Through You. The special vinyl collection sees the band inviting listeners to dive deeper into their unique sonic universe to explore uncharted territories and hidden gems. “When looking back at the recordings that were done around the time of See Through You, there were a bunch of great tracks that just captured life back then and really had something incredible going on,” APTBS’ Oliver Ackermann says. “Even though they are a bit raw and a bit personal, I thought it would be a mistake if they didn’t come out. I thought it would be best to go back to my roots and put out a series of 7-inches the way A Place To Bury Strangers started. That strange weird format where the tracks each speak for themselves; no album context to muddy the water. These tracks are such a contrast to the way I am feeling now and the current songs we’ve been working on so slip back into this moment in time.”
The first installment of the series, “It Is Time”/”Change Your God” saw its digital release the other day and will see a physical release on Friday. “Change Your God,” the first single of the series is classic APTBS — bombastic, over-the-top post-punk and shoegaze sonic explosion rooted in fuzz and feedback saturated power chords, pummeling drumming and propulsive bass lines, grunge-like quieter-extremely loud-quieter song structures and Ackermann’s reverb-drenched, seemingly detached yet yearning delivery.
The accomapnying video features slickly edited stock footage of pulsating time-lapsed highway traffic and blooming flowers, of sledgehammers smashing things, jellyfish glowing in the dark, buildings imploding and more. And it’s all fucking awesome.
New Audio: Seattle’s Ghost Fetish Shares Brooding, Dance Floor Friendly “C’mon”
With the release of last year’s full-length debut, Almost Touching, Seattle-based post-punk outfit Ghost Fetish quickly established a dance floor friendly sound that draws from New Wave, synth pop and goth in a fashion that’s uniquely theirs.
The album’s latest single “C’mon” is a brooding bit of darkwave/chillwave/post-punk featuring icy synth arpeggios, skittering beats parried with a relentless and propulsive groove and a vocal delivery that reminds me a bit of Whispering Sons while being dance floor friendly.
Throwback: Happy 68th Birthday, Peter Hook!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates former Joy Division and New Order member Peter Hook’s 68th birthday.
New Video: West Wickhams Share Brooding and Shimmering “The Conformist”
Originally formed in Tresco, the second biggest island of the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, UK, an island famously known as “The Island of Lost Souls,” and now currently based in Richmond, UK, the self-described psychedelic, garage noir duo West Wickhams — Jon Othello and Elle Flores — named their project after an imagined rival gang to British punk style icons The Bromley Contingent, a group who followed Sex Pistols and whose style was largely influenced by David Bowie and Roxy Music.
Their overall aesthetic is influenced by a wide range of goth and horror sources including the work of Mary Shelley, Whitby Abbey, Edgar Allan Poe, Andy Warhol, abstract painting, film noir and more.
Back in 2022, the duo released two EPs, their debut EP Consider Her Way, which featured the brooding, The Cure-meets-Cocteau Twins-like “Consider Her Way.” They quickly followed up with their sophomore EP Magenta, which featured the slick The Cure-meets-New Order-like “This Is a Hang Up,” one of the more dance-floor friendly tracks of their growing catalog.
The British outfit start 2024 with the recently released effort, Vivre Sa Vie. The album’s latest single “The Conformist” continues a run of material clearly indebted to 80s goth and post-punk — but with chiming percussion, which adds a subtle bit of bright beauty to the generally dark, brooding air.
“The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it’s conformity,” the duo say of their latest single.
The accompanying video is based among edited stock footage of two dangers — rendered in stark and trippy negative, as though they’re dancing amongst the cosmos.
New Audio: Low Praise Returns with Existential “Time Is Calling”
Oakland-based post punk trio Low Praise — Andrew (drums), Chris (guitar vocals) and Warren (baritone guitar, vocals) — have specialized in the sort of nervous energy paired and chanted hooks that bring late 70s post-punk bands like The Fall and Wire to mind.
Low Praise’s full-length debut DRESSING is slated for a May 19, 2023 release. Recorded over the course of two sessions split apart by the peak of the pandemic, the album captures the band being forced to evolve and collaborate remotely, leading to experimentation in song structure and their overall sound. When the band was able to reconvene, they were able to reimagine the material in a stripped down, live band format. The end result reportedly sees the band writing material that’s their most diverse and wide-reaching while touching upon the anxiety and helplessly they individually and collectively felt during the pandemic.
Last month, I wrote about “Forget That It’s Summer,” a single built around looping and angular, reverb-drenched guitar attack and a nervous, motorik groove paired with chanted, mantra-like hooks. Sure it brings Wire, The Fall and even Blessing to mind, but it also manages to evoke an eerily family existential dread and despair.
“‘Forget That It’s Summer’ was the first song we wrote together during the Covid depths, during our shared peak fear, anxiety and loneliness,” Low Praise’s Warren says in press notes. “As a band that had always jammed stuff out in person and worked off that energy this song was originally composed through chopping up loops, file sharing and experimentation. We actually built a complete version of this song as a weird loop construct with a ton of layers, mostly as a way to still make something, anything together during that self-imposed separation. We then reconstructed it as a stripped down live band version once we could finally get together again. So I think you kind of still hear that in the song that it was born from a pretty different process.
Thematically, this was a period where I think we were all mega-bumming and at the same time getting the immense appreciation and perspective for all of the little things you take for granted in normal life that we all lost access to during that period. Just being able to see your friends, make music together, have physical contact with the people you love. It was a period of forced reflection and forced appreciation. All put to a dance groove for some reason.”
“Time Is Calling,” DRESSING‘s second and latest single is built around a decidedly 120 Minutes-era alt-rock take on post-punk featuring a sort of jangling guitar attack, thunderous drumming and the band’s penchant for pairing arena rock friendly hooks with an unerring sense of melodicism. But much like its predecessor, the song is rooted in existential dread — of time and peers passing you by while your life seemingly sputters in front of your eyes. In this line of work, the bitter feeling of failure is all too familiar.
“This song is about accepting impermanence. Like a lot of folks the past few years (especially), I was riding a wave of anxiety, depression, and uncertainty of what the future was going to be like. At the time I was nearing 40, unemployed due to Covid related layoffs, filled with existential dread, and pondering what I’ve done with my life and what to do with the rest of it,” Low Praise’s Chris Stevens explains. “I’d often wake up in the middle of the night with all of these thoughts and try to find a way to calm myself down in order to get a couple of hours of sleep. I already had the phrase ‘time is calling’ in my head, along with the main guitar riff and vocal melody. So, I would just run through lyric ideas based around that until I’d eventually fall asleep. When we all got together to go over the song idea, we ended up fleshing out the basic structure in one night pretty much. It’s just one of those songs that felt strong and we didn’t want to overthink too much.”
New Video: FACS Shares Menacing and Uneasy “Constellation”
In 2013, Chicago-based post-punk act Disappears — founding member Brian Case (vocals, guitar) along with Noah Leger (drums), Jonathan van Herirk (guitar) and Damon Carruesco (bass) — released two somewhat related yet very different efforts that have remained in my album rotation — the atmospheric and tempestuous Kone EP and the tense, raging Era.
Carruesco left the band in 2017. The remaining members — Case, Lager and van Herrik — eventually decided to continue onward, but under a new name, new songwriting approach and sound as FACS. And with 2018’s full-length debut, Negative Houses, the trio quickly established themselves as a heavy band, although they don’t necessarily feel or seem like one in the traditional sense.
Since Negative House, the Chicago-based trio have released three more albums, including 2021’s Present Tense. Each of those albums have seen the band perfecting their unique brand of intense, catharsis-inducing post punk while pushing their sound and approach in increasingly further and newer directions.
Recorded by Sanford Parker at Chicago’s renowned Electrical Audio Recording, FACS’ fifth album Still Life in Decay is slated for a Friday release through Trouble In Mind Records. The album sees bassist Alianna Kalaba, who joined the band after the release of Negative Houses making her amicable last stand with the group. The album’s material sees the band’s rhythm section dancing and twisting around each other, much like a double helix, in which they collectively approach rhythm from outside the grove, rather than inside it, creating a lattice in which Case weaves his guitars in and around.
The album reportedly sees the band at their most solidified and focused: The apocalyptic chaos that defined its immediate predecessor is pushed away in favor of examination with a remarkable and unsettling clarity — but while still being a sort of addendum to Present Tense.
So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:
- “When You Say,” an uneasy track built around the propulsive lockstep rhythm held between Leger and Kalaba, and Case’s reverb-soaked guitar slashes. The song’s narrator shouts repeated phrases with a desperate urgency, as though trying to hold on to something — anything, really before it falls out of his grasp. The song’s stream of consciousness-like free-form lyrics touch upon the themes of resignation, cynicism, classism and the search for identity and meaning in a fucked up, crumbling society. The end result is a song that savagely pulls the bandages off to expose the rot, grime and ugliness of our world to the sunlight.
- “Slogan,” a brooding track built around shimmering, meditative guitar lines, a forceful and insistent rhythm section paired with Case’s reverb-drenched vocal and a soulful, aching guitar solo. The song features a a narrator meditating on the connection between identity and memory, repeating the phrase “I had it in the palm of my hand,” like a sad, desperate slogan.
“Constellation,” Still Life in Decay‘s third and latest single begins with a squall of white noise and distortion that quickly collapses into the song’s lumbering and thunderous groove. Case’s guitar has a spectral presence, appearing and disappearing in gauzy feedback throughout. The song’s narrator continues an uneasy meditation on memory, the past, the present and fate, sounding like a man striking out desperately against forces bigger than him.
The accompanying video by Nick Ciontea features lighting patterns that pulse and undulate in time to the song.
New Video: Oakland’s Low Praise Shares Nervous “Forget That It’s Summer”
Oakland-based post punk trio Low Praise — Andrew (drums), Chris (guitar vocals) and Warren (baritone guitar, vocals) — have specialized in the sort of nervous energy paired and chanted hooks that bring late 70s post-punk bands like The Fall and Wire to mind.
Low Praise’s full-length debut DRESSING is slated for a May 19, 2023 release. Recorded over the course of two sessions split apart by the peak of the pandemic, the album captures the band being forced to evolve and collaborate remotely, leading to experimentation in song structure and their overall sound. When the band was able to reconvene, they were able to reimagine the material in a stripped down, live band format. The end result reportedly sees the band writing material that’s their most diverse and wide-reaching while touching upon the anxiety and helplessly they individually and collectively felt during the pandemic.
“Forget That It’s Summer,” DRESSING‘s latest single is built around a looping, angular and reverb-drenched guitar attack and a nervous, motorik groove paired with chanted hooks. Sure it’ll bring Wire, The Fall and even Blessing to mind, but it also manages to evoke an eerily familiar existential dread and despair.
“‘Forget That It’s Summer’ was the first song we wrote together during the Covid depths, during our shared peak fear, anxiety and loneliness,” Low Praise’s Warren says in press notes. “As a band that had always jammed stuff out in person and worked off that energy this song was originally composed through chopping up loops, file sharing and experimentation. We actually built a complete version of this song as a weird loop construct with a ton of layers, mostly as a way to still make something, anything together during that self-imposed separation. We then reconstructed it as a stripped down live band version once we could finally get together again. So I think you kind of still hear that in the song that it was born from a pretty different process.
Thematically, this was a period where I think we were all mega-bumming and at the same time getting the immense appreciation and perspective for all of the little things you take for granted in normal life that we all lost access to during that period. Just being able to see your friends, make music together, have physical contact with the people you love. It was a period of forced reflection and forced appreciation. All put to a dance groove for some reason.”
Directed and edited by Gregory Downing, the accompanying video for “Forget That It’s Summer” is centered around stock footage of summery scenes and old school projector cues cut and edited in a way that pulsates along with the song’s nervous groove.
Lyric Video: FACS Share Brooding “Slogan”
Back in 2013, Chicago-based post-punk act Disappears — founding member Brian Case (vocals, guitar) along with Noah Leger (drums), Jonathan van Herirk (guitar) and Damon Carruesco (bass) — released two related yet very different efforts that are among some of my favorite albums — the atmospheric and tempestuous Kone EP and the tense, raging Era.
In 2017, Carruesco left the band. The remaining members — Case, Lager and van Herrik — eventually decided to continue onward, but under a new name, and new sonic direction and songwriting approach as FACS. With 2018’s full-length debut, Negative Houses, the trio quickly established themselves as a heavy band, although they don’t necessarily feel like one.
Since Negative Houses, the Chicago-based outfit has released three more albums, including 2021’s Present Tense. Each of those albums have seen the members of FACS perfercting their unique brand of intense, catharsis-inducing art rock/post-punk, while pushing their sound and approach in new directions.
The Chicago-based outfit’s fifth album, Still Life In Decay was recorded by Sanford Parker at Electrical Audio Recording and is slated for an April 7, 2023 release through Trouble In Mind Records. Bassist Alianna Kalaba, who took over for founding member Jonathan van Herik after the release of Negative Houses makes her amicable last stand with the group. Alongside Leger, the band’s rhythm section dance and twist around each other like double helix in which collectively they approach rhythm from outside the groove, rather than inside it, creating a lattice in which Case can weave his guitar lines in an around, like creeping vines.
Reportedly, Still Life in Decay is a decidedly focused effort that sees the band at their most solidified. The apocalyptic chaos of that defined their previous album is pushed away in favor of examination with a remarkable clarity — while being a sort of addendum to Present Tense.
Last month, I wrote about Still Life in Decay‘s first single, the uneasy “When You Say.” Built around the propulsive lockstep rhythm between Leger and Kalaba, and Case’s reverb-drenched, guitar slashes, the song sees Case shouting repeated phrases with a desperate agency, as though desperately trying to hold on to something — anything, really. The song’s freeform lyrics touch upon themes of resignation, cynicism, classism and search for identity and meaning in a crumbling society. The song is a primal, forceful meditation on the exposed ugliness, divides and inequities within our world — both pre-pandemic and post pandemic.
“Slogan,” Still Life in Decay‘s second and latest single is a brooding track rooted in shimmering and meditative guitar, a forceful rhythm section paired with Case’s reverb-drenched vocal and a soulful yet buzzing guitar solo. The song narrators meditates on identity and memory — repeating one phrase “I had it in the palm of my hand,” much like a slogan.
Directed by the band’s Brian Case, the lyric video for “Slogan” features the song’s lyrics floating on top of a geometric field.
New Video: Heartworms Shares Startling and Cinematic Visual for Brooding “Retributions Of An Awful Life”
Jojo Orme is a South London-based singer/songwriter, producer and mastermind behind the rapidly rising, goth-inspired post-punk outfit Heartworms. Uniformity plays a huge role with Orme and Heartworms: the metronomic music and meticulous fashion of acts like Interpol and Kraftwerk have been a major influence on the South London-based artist. But she also cites PJ Harvey, whose dark sense of humor and lyrical dexterity permeates her own songwriting.
Orme’s Heartworms debut, “Consistent Dedication” quickly exploded across both the British and international scene: She received nods from the NME 100 and Dork Hype List for 2023, and she received critical applause from The FADER, The Quietus, Loud and Quiet, The Line of Best Fit, So Young Magazine, Clash Magazine and a lengthy list of others. The song was added to BBC Radio 6 Music‘s playlist following airplay from the station’s Chris Hawkins, Steve Lamacq, Lauren Laverne and Tom Ravenscroft. And the song received airplay from Radio X‘s John Kennedy and BBC Radio 1‘s Jack Saunders and Gemma Bradley.
She has also made a name for self on the national live circuit in the past year: She played DIY Magazine and So Young Magazine showcases at The Great Escape. She opened for Lime Garden. And lastly, Sports Team invited her to play their annual Margate bus trip.
Building upon a growing profile, the rising South London-based artist’s debut EP A Comforting Notion is slated for a March 24, 2023 release through Speedy Wunderground. The EP’s latest single “Retributions Of An Awful Life” further cements an uneasy and deeply goth-inspired take on post-punk featuring ambient noise, glistening synth oscillations, skittering beats and slashing guitars paired with Orme’s defiant and swaggering delivery, which seems equally indebted to hip-hop and punk rock. The song reveals a singular artist, crafting something completely new from the familiar, while delving deep into her own psyche.
Directed by Niall Trask and Dan Matthews, the accompanying video for “Retributions Of An Awful Life” is shot in a cinematic yet intimate black and white, and stars Orme, along with Natalia Tonner, Lizzy Walsh, Lizzy Walsh, Pip Smith, Marko Andic, Tom White, Simone Reca and Jazz as a military regiment going through some brutal military training exercises. Throughout we see the members of the miserable regiment, covered in dust and mud, wincing in pain, fighting to continue through the wet and cold. Their suffering is real and difficult to watch yet compelling and symbolic: We all have to figure out some way to push through in the face of terrible suffering — whether from outside forces larger than us or from within — and in face of our own fears.
“The song itself lyrically is deeply unsettling, I wanted it to come alive in action. I had an idea of being kitted up in full militaria of no specific regiments, in black and white, putting my body through cold water and wet mud,” Orme explains. “This was stepping outside my comfort zone because I’m not a skilled swimmer; deep water frightens me immensely, especially when cold and in full military gear.”
She continues: “Not many artists/bands I know have done something this raw. I didn’t want to go for a fancy video with pretty dancers or lovely wallpaper plastered with an airbrush filter – I wanted to imbibe a new pain, bring to life punishment, fight fears while abiding relentlessness with my friends by my side. To have put my body through something I found frightening just for the art… there’s something exhilarating about it.”