Category: post-punk

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this month, I wrote about the Portland, OR-based indie rock quintet King Who, and as you may recall, the band, comprised of  Michael Young, Ryan Hayes, Ryan Cross, Glen Scheidt and Travis Girton will be releasing their Hutch Harris-produced sophomore full-length album Giant Eye through SELF Group on August 17, 2018. Reportedly, the album finds the band expanding upon their sound as they increasingly incorporate elements of New Wave, post-punk and dream pop  while retaining the heavy bass of their full-length debut Us Lights; in fact, Giant Eye‘s first single, the slow-burning “Ice Cream” sonically finds the band drawing from shoegaze and dream pop as the song is centered around shimmering guitar chords, a propulsive rhythm section, a soaring hook and Micheal Young’s plaintive falsetto, sounding though as it were recorded during the era of 120 Minutes-era alt rock.

Interestingly, Giant Eye‘s second and latest single, “Crying Shame” is centered around a motorik-like groove, four-on-the-floor drumming and Young’s plaintive falsetto, and as a result the song may arguably be the most New Wave-inspired song off the album, sounding as though it were drawing from Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen, Evil Heat-era Primal Scream and Luminous-era The Horrors, thanks to one of the funkiest rock bass lines I’ve heard this year.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of founding duo Dennis Ponozzo (bass, vocals), a former member of Below the Sound and Scott Udee (guitar), with Gabe Johnson (drums), the Madison, WI-based post-punk/noise rock trio Sinking Suns initially formed in 2007 as a duo, and after a series of basement recordings, the band expanded into a full-fledged live band with the addition of Gabe Johnson, who joined the band in 2009. Since then, the band has released several highly touted albums and singles while touring across the Midwest, playing a sound that features a unique blend of post-punk, noise rock, surf rock and thrash punk.

Slated for a July 27, 2018 release through Reptilian Records, Sinking Suns’ soon-to-be released full-length album Bad Vibes will further cement the band’s reputation for a scuzzy and bruising sound, as you’ll hear on the album’s mosh pit friendly new single “Remember You Will Die”– but the album thematically and sonically is centered around deeply personal tales of struggle, survival and mourning; in fact, as the band’s Dennis Ponozzo explains, the song was inspired after he had been reminiscing about the last time he saw his brother, before his death. “I was looking at old photos of him and remembering when we drove to a local “ghost light” in Michigan one night called The Paulding Light. It was a warm summer night. Looking at the photos I thought to myself how he was clueless in the photos that his number would soon be up. I was clueless. We all were. It’s mainly a reminder of all of our mortality. ” As a result, the song is a urgent and plaintive howl into an unceasing and uncaring void.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Murky Synth-based Post-Punk of Columbus,OH’s Child of Night

Child of Night is a rather mysterious Columbus, OH-based post-punk act and over the course of two EPs — last year’s Breathless EP and Neither of These Alone Is Enough, the members of the band have quickly developed a reputation for crafting murky, lo-fi synth based post punk that sounds as though it were inspired by Joy Division, Interpol, The Cure and others. 

What Remains, Child of Night’s forthcoming EP is slated for a late August release through Altarpiece Records and the EP’s latest single “Sirens” continues on a similar vein as their previously released material — murky, synth based post punk with decidedly goth leanings; however, there’s a subtle refinement of their sound, as there’s a focus on crafting a steady, dance floor friendly groove centered around a propulsive bass line, and four-on-the-floor drumming. It’s as though Antics-era Interpol somehow went a smidge disco and a smudge in the direction of John Carpenter soundtracks. 

The recently released video for “Sirens” fittingly looks as though it were filmed on grainy and completely fucked up VHS tape, which in some way evokes lingering ghosts and menacing presences just out of the frame. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Scattered Clouds Releases Tense and Furious Animated Visuals for New Single

Comprised of Philippe Charbonneau, Jamie Kronick and Mike Dubue, the Montreal-based post punk trio Scattered Clouds have received attention for a dense and scuzzy sound reminiscent of JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers and Chain of Flowers among others — especially on their latest single, the fuzzy, tense and panic-filled “Justice,” which was inspired by the 2016 death of Abdirahman Abdi at the hands of the Ottawa Police Department. The intent of the song is make listener to feel desperate, impotent and vulnerable — to remind them of their smallness within a cruel sociopolitical system that crushes people within its path.

Interestingly, the recently released video features animations from Montreal-based animator Joel Vaudreuil and it depicts the central antagonist (the police) as a fearsome, monstrous and violent figure, meant to symbolize how most marginalized communities fear those who claim are there to protect and serve them.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Deriving their name from a British English word that means to be an avant-gardist — one who emphasizes, practices and celebrates experimental and unorthodox methods and techniques and incorporates them into a craft, Avantist is a South Side, Chicago-based post-punk act, comprised of the Arias Brothers, Luis (drums), David (guitar), Erick (bass) and Fernando (vocals). And over the past decade, the sibling band members have dedicated their lives to making avant made music, centered around their shared personal philosophy that art is, should and must be progressive, dynamic and unconventional, and that creativity is something to incorporate in every single aspect of one’s life. 
The band’s soon-to-be released EP Terasaoma finds the band stepping out of their comfort zone by forcing themselves to write, record, mix and master the EP’s material within  month, instead of the two years it took for their debut effort; however, Terasoma will reportedly further cement the band’s reputation locally and regionally for raucous and infectious post punk while finding the band pushing their sound and songwriting in completely different directions — with the material running the gamut from angular and furious post-punk to more R&B-like.  Of course, the EP’s latest single is the thrashing and angular post-punk ripper “this_could_be_it,” which finds Fernando Arias alternating lyrics in Spanish and English. And in some way, the song should remind listeners that being proudly,  boldly and fearlessly of color — and of Latin descent in particular — in these dark and infuriating days may truly be punk as fuck.
The Chicago-based sibling quartet will be playing a bunch of shows to support their EP, including an EP release show at The Empty Bottle on June 20, 2018. Check out the tour dates below.
Tour Dates
6/20 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle (EP Release Show)
6/22 – Chicago, IL – PRF BBQ Fest @ Illuminated Brewery
6/23 – Alton, IL – Bottle & Barrel
6/24 – Tulsa, OK – Soundpony (w/ The Danner Party, Carlton Hesston)
6/25 – Austin, TX – Beerland (w/ The Boleys, Desilu, Black Basements)
6/26 – Spring, TX – The Blue Giraffe (w/ Brainstorm fir Tuesday, Kaleidescope Project, and Zzyzx)
6/28 – Birmingham, AL – Firehouse (w/ False Jasmine, Bible Belt, Mike Hombre)
6/29 – Nashville, TN – Betty’s Grill
6/30 – Louisville, KY – Lydia House (w/ Wax Astro, Legs Akimbo)
7/01 – Champaign, IL – Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (w/ Arboris, Parachute Day
Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Preoccupations Return with Psychedelic-Tinged Visuals for Propulsive Album Single “Decompose”

Over the past handful of years of this site’s history, I’ve written quite a bit about Canadian post-punk act and JOVM mainstays Preoccupations, and as you may recall the band which features Matt Flegel (bass, vocals), Mike Wallace (drums), Scott Munro (guitar) and Daniel Christiansen (guitar), initially formed under the highly controversial name Viet Cong that managed to put the band in the middle of a furious and tumultuous debate centered around cultural appropriation and the usage of terms, names and symbols closely associated with historical groups and actions that evoke the horrors of despotism, fascism, genocide and so on. Ultimately, the band decided it was best to change their name before the release of their sophomore album, an effort that found each of the individual members of the band in rather unsteady and uncertain positions — at the time, each member relocated to different cities across North America, which made their long-established writing process of writing and testing material while on the road both extremely difficult, if not highly impractical.

Additionally, a couple of bandmembers were reeling from long-term relationships ending around the time that they were preparing to enter the studio — and unlike their previously recorded material, the band went into the writing sessions without having a central idea or theme to consider or help guide them along, essentially making the recording sessions a collective blind leap of faith. Eventually the album’s material wound up drawing from something specific and very familiar — the anxiety, despair and regret that causes sleepless nights.

Building upon a growing reputation for crafting dark and moody post-punk centered around themes of anxiety, uncertainty, creation, destruction and futility will be releasing their third album New Material was released earlier this year through Jagjaguwar Records, and the album, which was self-recorded and self-produced by the band is as the band’s Matt Flegel said in press notes, “an ode to depression. To depression and self-sabotage, and looking inward at yourself with extreme hatred.”  Much like their sophomore album, the band met without having much written or demoed beforehand — and according to the members of the band, it was arguably one of the most collaborative writing sessions they ever had as a band, with the sessions being extremely architectural in nature, with some ideas (proverbially speaking) being built up while others were torn down to the support beams.

Initially they didn’t know what the songs were about or where they were going with them, they had resolved to let the material show and not explicitly not tell; however, the writing and recording sessions reportedly led to a reckoning for the band’s Flegel. “Finishing ‘Espionage’ was when I realized. I looked at the rest of the lyrics and realized the magnitude of what was wrong,” says Flegel. In fact, the murky and angular  Manchester/Joy Division-like first single “Espionage,” while being among the most danceable songs they’ve written and released, focuses on a narrator, who has finally become aware of a disturbing penchant for self-sabotage in every aspect of his life. “Antidote,” New Material‘s second single was centered around propulsive, industrial clang and clatter based rhythm meant to convey a sweaty anxiety, while being about how people forget that we’re all talking, walking, shitting animals, who have an infinite amount of knowledge within their fingertips but still manage to repeatedly make the wrong choices. “Disarray,” the album’s third single was meditative and slow-burning single featuring shimmering guitar chords, an angular and propulsive bass line, organic drumming and boom bap-like drum machine work during the song’s bridge. And while superficially nodding at Turn On the Bright Lights-era Interpol, the song captures something much darker and uncertain — as it’s centered around someone, who from their perspective, views everything they’ve ever known to be a lie. As the band’s Flegal recalls, When I was writing ‘Disarray,’ it started off with an image of a mother combing her daughters hair that came into my mind, I liked the metaphor of splitting the braids and combing through the tangles, and wrote the rest of the lyrics around that image. This song sat untouched for close to 6 months as a recording with just bass and drums before we came back to it and wrote and recorded the guitar line while out of our minds one night in the early AM.”

New Material’s latest single “Decompose” continues in the angular and propulsive vein of its predecessors but centered around twinkling synths, buzzing guitars and an eerie melodicism that underlies the song’s danceable yet murky vibe. Interestingly, the release of the video comes as the band finished an eventful North American tour in which they were robbed twice, having all of their gear stolen. Luckily, they were able to finish the remaining dates of the tour borrowing instruments and gear from friends and openers. The North American leg of the tour ended with a positive note, as they were able to reach their fundraising goal to replace their gear — and in time for them to embark on the European leg of the tour. You can check out the tour dates below; but in the meantime, the video was directed by Evan Henderson and features live footage of the band performing at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern shot on film that had been boiled for two weeks in a salt water brine prior to filming — and while capturing the band performing, you’ll see explosions of geometric shapes and bright colors, which gives the video a subtly psychedelic vibe, while hinting at decomposition and decay. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Introducing the Angular Yet Melodic Post Punk of San Francisco’s Meant to Bend

Comprised of founding members Gaku Kelliher (bass, vocals) and Aamir Mauladad (guitar, vocals) and Nathan Driver (drums), the San Francisco indie rock trio Meant to Bend can trace its origins to when Kelliher spent several months recruiting Maluadad to start a band; of course, Kelliher was successful and the duo began writing riff-centric pop/rock tunes with shared vocal duties, inspired by Bowie, Pixies and Modest Mouse. The band’s founding duo recruited Driver, who they had both knew when all three were in San Diego. And as a trio, the band, as Kelliher says in press notes, “. . . is an attempt to make music that I wish existed. Aamir comes up with awesome riffs and I want to counter play off those ideas on bass. We want people to feel our music is catchy, but, at the same, time appreciate the musicality of it all.” The band’s Mauladad adds, “Our intention with this band is to deliver what our favorite music delivers – hook-laden pop tunes with underlying musicality and intricacy. I’m a huge fan of bands that have two distinct singers that trade off parts and are able to come back together and harmonize. Part of the fun of being in a three- piece is leveraging your limited resources to create dynamic interchanges and playing off two voices.” 

And as you’ll hear on “Closet Nihilist,” the latest single off the San Francisco-based trio’s recently released EP Minimum Frowny, the trio specializes in an angular hook-laden post-punk sound centered around an uncanny melodic sensibility, sneeringly delivered lyrics and some blistering guitar pyrotechnics.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Toronto-based Post-Punk act Releases Murky Visuals for Angular Album Single “Taking Pictures”

Currently comprised of Bria, Duncan, Lucas and Kris, the up-and-coming Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based post-punk quartet FRIGS have developed a reputation for a difficult to pigeonhole sound and approach that draws from the diverse array of influences each individual member brings  — and for a visceral live show that embraces the mercurial and experimental, as though built upon instinct and feel. 

The Canadian post-punk band’s self-produced full-length debut Basic Behavior was written and recorded over a 16-month period in two locations: the band’s home studio and Union Sound Company, and while lyrically the album is centered around Bria Salmena’s personal experience, the album is reportedly the product of several years of self-discovery as a unit. Naturally, recording at home allowed the band to take much-needed time to explore and experiment with sonic textures and production, and meticulously re-working their material. However, they felt that a degree of urgency was necessary to push them to finalize the album, and with engineer Ian Gomes, the band embraced the limitations of third-party studio time, which gave the sessions a sense of immediacy, and as a result, the album’s material is at points stark, chaotic, reflective and manic — often within a turn of a musical phrase. 

Basic Behavior’s latest single “Taking Pictures” features an arrangement based around propulsive drumming, slashing and angular bass and guitar chords, over which the band’s Salmena coos and howls throughout — while evoking a growing sense of disillusionment and fury without focusing on an actual narrative; in fact, it gives the song a primal and forceful urgency. As the band says of the recently released video for “Taking Pictures,” “We wanted a video that similarly eschewed narrative in order to portray this feeling through distorted perspective, overlapping subjects and a black-and-white pallet.  Adds the video’s director, Christopher Mills “The camera seems to be broken in a glitchy, 360 degree virtual space filled with multiple exposures of FRIGS, occasionally and inadvertently disrupted by glitchy abstract shapes in this dark and moody portraiture. For me, this song is like what Mazzy Star would play before a street fight. The toughness of this music evokes images of Ponyboy Curtis, with all of his friend running around the perimeter of town, looking for trouble. ”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chicago’s Ganser Releases Mischievous and Surreal Visuals for “Satsuma”

Over the past couple of months I’ve written quite a bit about the Chicago, IL-based post-punk act Ganser,  and with the release of their debut EP, This Feels Like Living, the members of the Chicago-based act received attention locally for an art rock-leaning post-punk/noise rock sound influenced by Sonic Youth and Magazine.  Now, as you may recall, the band’s full-length debut Odd Talk is slated for release later this month through No Trend Records, and the album’s material reportedly focuses on communication breakdowns, with the song’s narrators desperately seeking meaning in confusion and messiness, as though they were literally sorting through syllables and signals to find the right words to say what they wanted or needed to say.

“Satsuma,” Odd Talk‘s last official single will further cement their reputation for material that thematically can be grimly absurd yet comedic that points at the complexities and frustrations of human relationships paired with angular guitar chords and propulsive drumming that help evoke a sweaty, heart racing anxiety: the sort in which your thoughts are racing and pinballing within your head; but the difference here is that the song focuses on a weary reservation, on avoiding expectations and their inevitable heartache, of not showing your hand when things are uncertain.

Filmed by the renowned photographer Kirsten Micolli and directed and edited by the band, the recently released video for “Satsuma” follow a woman Kate Ziebart as she wanders a post-blizzard Chicago, who’s compelled to dance through the streets. Throughout the course of the video, the woman’s movement varies between graceful and frantic but she turns the mundane and routine to something altogether strange; in fact, her weirdness seems to be infectious, and everyone she passes begins to start acting as weirdly as she is — although the woman is actually completely unaware of her effect on her surroundings or on anyone else. 

Filmed by the renowned photographer Kirsten Miccoli in a post-blizzard Chicago earlier this year and self-directed and edited by the band, the video follows a woman (Kate Ziebart) as she wanders the city, compelled to dance, as she encounters each member of the band in turn as she goes. After being in Chicago, the video not only strikes me as only being possible in Chicago, it manages to evoke the accusatory and sarcastic nature of the song in a mischievously indirect fashion. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you had been frequenting this website over the past few years, you may have come across a couple of posts featuring the Brooklyn-based indie rock act Lazyeyes, and as some of you may recall, the band, which initially began as a trio and now currently consists of Jason Abrishami (guitar, vocals), Sam Maynard (guitar, vocals), Jeremy Sampson (drums) and Jermey Rose (bass, vocals) received quite a bit of attention after the release of their 2013 self-titled EP: The Deli Magazine named the band the “Best Psych Rock/Shoegaze band,” Purple Sneakers praised the EP as a “moody and anthemic record, equal parts shoegaze and dream pop,” Stereogum described their sound as a “a muscular, riff-happy brand of guitar based dream-pop” and they were a featured artist in the November 2014 issue of NME — and adding to a growing profile, tracks from the EP received airplay from BBC Radio, XM Radio and a number of FM stations across the globe.

2015’s self-released, sophomore EP New Year was eventually picked up and reissued by Burger Records‘ cassette imprint Weiner Records, and “Adaptation,” the EP’s first single received quite a bit of attention across the blogosphere, including this site. Some time has passed since I’ve last written about them — but their long awaited full-length debut Echoes is slated for a summer release through Egghunt Records and 2670 Records. Interestingly, Echoes first single, album title track “Echoes” is a brooding and seamless synthesis of 80s British post-punk and shoegaze as you’ll hear angular and propulsive bass chords, four-on-the-floor drumming and towering, pedal effected guitar pyrotechnics paired with rousingly anthemic hooks — and while the song may initially strike you as drawing influence from Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen, it reveals a band confidently expanding upon the sound that first captured attention.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Throughout the almost eight year history of this site, I’ve written quite a bit about JOVM mainstays Bambara, and as you may recall, the trio, comprised of twin brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh and their childhood friend William Brookshire will be releasing their Andy Chugg-produced third, full length album Shadow on Everything later this week — and the album, which is their first for renowned indie label, Wharf Cat Records, reportedly represents a decisive step in a  new direction for the band, with their sound moving from the noise rock and post-punk of their first two albums to incorporating a Western Gothic-inspired sound. And while the music center remains the trio’s tight and forceful rhythm section featuring Blaze Bateh’s frenzied yet incredibly metronomic drumming and Brookshire’s propulsive bass lines, unlike their previously recorded output, Shadow on Everything finds the band placing Reid Bateh’s vocals at the forefront, symbolically placing the damaged characters and seedy locales of his lyrics at center stage.

With the album’s first single ““Jose Tries to Leave,” the band retains the forceful and nightmarish dynamism that has won them attention here and elsewhere, but with a cinematic air, as it focuses on the lives and thoughts of desperate, fucked up and incredibly seedy sorts with a humanist’s sense of empathy and a novelist’s attention to psychological detail. “Doe-Eyed Girl,” the album’s second while continuing in a similar vein is imbued with a sweaty and furious urgency, fueled by manic and desperate obsession. Interestingly, Shadow on Everything‘s third and latest single “Sunbleached Skulls” is arguably one of the murkiest and bleakest songs of their growing catalog as Reid Bateh’s dark imagery centers around buzzing flies around sun-bleached bones, rotting flesh, dirt and grime paired with Brookshire’s propulsive bass and Blaze Bateh’s mathematically precise, metronomic drumming and shimmering bursts of Western guitar figures, seemingly writhing about in the dirt and grime; but underneath the bleak vibes and foul stenches of the song, there’s a strange sense of finding comfort and companionship in someone else, even if it’s fleeting. And much like its predecessor, the album’s single is incredibly cinematic track, that evokes a feverish and lingering nightmare.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Preoccupations Release Surreal Visuals for Haunting New Single “Disarray”

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written quite a bit about the Canadian post-punk act Preoccupations, and as you may recall the band which features Matt Flegel (bass, vocals), Mike Wallace (drums), Scott Munro (guitar) and Daniel Christiansen (guitar), initially formed under the highly controversial name Viet Cong, which put the band in the middle of a furious and tumultuous debate centered around the appropriation of terms, names and symbols associated with historical groups and actions that evoke the horrors of despotism, fascism, genocide and so on. Ultimately, the band decided it was best to change their name before the release of their highly-anticipated sophomore album, an album that that found the individual members of the band in an unsteady and uncertain positions: at the time, each  member and relocated to different cities across North America, which made their long-established writing process of writing and testing material while on the road both extremely difficult, if not highly impractical. Along with that, several members of the band were reeling from having serious, long-term relationships end, around the time they were preparing to enter the studio. And unlike their previously recorded efforts, the band went into the writing sessions without having a central idea or theme to consider or help guide them along, essentially making the recording sessions akin to collectively blind leap of faith. Eventually the album’s material wound up drawing from something specific and very familiar — the anxiety, despair and regret that causes sleepless nights.  

Building upon a growing reputation for crafting dark and moody post-punk centered around themes of anxiety, uncertainty, creation, destruction and futility will be releasing their third album New Material is slated for release on Friday through Jagjaguwar Records, and the album, which finds the band recording and producing themselves is as the band’s Matt Flegel said in press notes, “an ode to depression. To depression and self-sabotage, and looking inward at yourself with extreme hatred.” Interestingly, much like their sophomore album, the band met without having much written or demoed beforehand — and according to the members of the band, it was arguably one of the most collaborative writing sessions they ever had as a band, with the sessions being extremely architectural in nature, with some ideas (proverbially speaking) being built up while others were torn down to the support beams. And although they didn’t initially know what the songs were about or where they were going with them, they had resolved to let the material show and not explicitly not tell. 

However, the writing and recording sessions reportedly led to a reckoning for the band’s Flegel. “Finishing ‘Espionage’ was when I realized. I looked at the rest of the lyrics and realized the magnitude of what was wrong,” says Flegel. In fact, the murky and angular  Manchester/Joy Division-like first single “Espionage,” while being among the most danceable songs they’ve written and released, focuses on a narrator, who has finally become aware of a disturbing penchant for self-sabotage in every aspect of his life. “Antidote,” New Material’s second single was centered around propulsive, industrial clang and clatter based rhythm meant to convey a sweaty anxiety, while being about how people forget that we’re all talking, walking, shitting animals, who have an infinite amount of knowledge within their fingertips but still manage to repeatedly make the wrong choices. 

“Disarray,” New Material’s third single is a meditative and slow-burning single featuring shimmering guitar chords, an angular and propulsive bass line, organic drumming and boom bap-like drum machine work during the song’s bridge. And while superficially nodding at Turn On the Bright Lights-era Interpol, the song captures something much darker and uncertain — as it’s centered around someone, who from their perspective, views everything they’ve ever known to be a lie. As the band’s Flegal recalls, When I was writing ‘Disarray,’ it started off with an image of a mother combing her daughters hair that came into my mind, I liked the metaphor of splitting the braids and combing through the tangles, and wrote the rest of the lyrics around that image. This song sat untouched for close to 6 months as a recording with just bass and drums before we came back to it and wrote and recorded the guitar line while out of our minds one night in the early AM.” 

Directed by Ruff Mercy, the recently released video pairs animation and live footage of the band’s Flegel walking on a deserted beach while singing the song’s lyrics, shot with a grainy, almost Instagram-like filter. At points, animated and cartoonish figures and lines burst into the proceedings and superimposed over Flegel’s face to convey deep, inner turmoil and chaos. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chicago’s Ganser Returns with a Tense and Propulsive Single Paired with Badass B-Movie Visuals

Last month, I wrote about the Chicago, IL-based post-punk act Ganser, and as you may recall the act, comprised of  Alicia Gaines (bass, vocals), Nadia Garofalo (keys, vocals), Brian Cundiff (drums) and Charlie Landsman (guitar) formed back in 2014  — and with the release of their debut EP This Feels like Living, the quartet received attention locally for a art rock-leaning post-punk/noise rock sound that was influenced by Sonic Youth and Magazine. 
The Chicago, IL-based post-punk quartet’s forthcoming, full-length debut Odd Talk is an April 20, 2018 release through No Trend Records, and the album reportedly focuses on communication breakdowns — with the song’s narrators desperately seeking meaning in confusion and messiness, as though they were figuratively sorting through syllables and signals to find the right words to say what it is you want or need to say. Album single “PSY OPS” found the band walking a careful tightrope between angular Wire-like post-punk and the furious, bruising punk of Memphis‘ Ex-Cult and Nots but with explosive bursts of discordant noise, and the whole thing was held together by a rhythm section that was propulsive, frenzied and yet strangely danceable. Over that, Garofalo shouted and barked lyrics that sounded and felt like absurdist non-sequiturs. 

Odd Talk’s latest single “Avoidance” is arguably the most decidedly straightforward post-punk songs they’ve released as it features propulsive and angular bass chords, slashing guitar lines, tribal-like drumming and blasts of synths over which Garofalo’s voice rises and falls with increasing frustration, followed by a weary sort of acceptance. Interestingly, the song is about the sharp pain of miscommunication with someone you love and the exhaustion of trying to be understood when your language is just completely wrong. And ultimately, it makes communication and trying to be understood absurd and pointless. 

Centered around edited stock footage taken from 60s and 70s B movies, the video features classic muscle cars racing in a desert landscape towards an unknown end further emphasizing the absurdity at the heart of the song. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: French Instrumental Trio Jean Jean Releases Creepy Yet Cinematic Visuals for Anxious and Dread-Filled Album Single “Anada”

Currently comprised of Edouard Lebrun (drums, samples), Sebastien Torregrossa (guitar) and their newest member multi-instrumentalist Gregory Hoepffner, the Paris-based instrumental space rock/math rock/experimental rock trio Jean Jean began as a solo recording project before expanding into a duo — and as a duo the project released their 2010 self-titled debut EP, and their 2013 full-length debut Symmetry, which they supported with hundreds of live shows across the European Union, Japan and the States; but as the story goes, the then-duo wrote and recorded a follow up EP that they scrapped because something — or someone — was missing. Lebrun and Torregrossa were initially unsuccessful in their search for a third musician to further flesh out their sound, until their longtime friend Hoepffner, who had been responsible for the band’s visuals signed up to join the band, and as the band’s Lebrun recalls in press notes, things clicked right away. “He [Hoepffner] brought this glue linking the drums and the guitars, adding another level,” Lebrun says.

The band’s recently released album Froidpierre is the first featuring the band as a newly constituted trio, and the album, which was recorded in a cabin named Froidspierre (or cold stone) in the French Alps is reportedly a marked departure from their previously released work. “We were tired of complex and festive tracks; we wanted to avoid over-doing things, to stop doing patchwork and have proper songs with real hindsight. The songs are shorter because they were composed with a sense of urgency.” And while these were all very conscious decisions, it was also driven by a sense of urgency as the band’s Lebrun frequently had to take the first night bus from the suburban studio to his home in Paris. Interestingly enough, as the band notes as they were writing and recording the material that would eventually comprise their latest effort, each member of the band while being aware of the fact that they all had great creative chemistry and something musically powerful was happening, something in the air just wasn’t right.

During the third day of the recording sessions Torregrossa went out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette and suddenly he felt an uncontrollable sense of fear throughout his own body. With a racing heart, he rushed back inside without looking band. The next day, Lebrun managed to be in the exact same spot and he couldn’t shake the persistent feeling that there was a presence behind him. Just as he turned around, he caught what looked like a ghost out of the corner of his eye. Frozen in fear, he stared at this presence and got lost in its inverted human-like silhouette. As Lebrun recalls, it felt as though he were slowly sinking into quicksand until somehow he managed to get away; but he felt unsettled and uneasy throughout the rest of the night. Hoepffner felt a strong sense of discomfort as he was sitting in the studio’s kitchen — so much so that, after a few days, he made sure to never enter a room on his own. At night, he someone or something whispering his name. And while he spent time trying to convince himself that someone was trying to play an elaborate prank on him, Hoepffner couldn’t shake having impressions of a wasted life, without any rational explanation. The band’s friend and photographer Maxime slept in a room that was made entirely of stones and was once a former stable, and one night he heard a woman’s voice calling his name, and felt something lean on him, and a cold sensation overtake his entire body.

Sometimes, they all would hear strange noises and banging on the walls that kept them awake most of the night. They  all spoke about something with a beastly scream and of objects suddenly and unexpectedly being knocked down. Although it was only until after the recording sessions were complete that the members of the band shared their own experiences, the sensation of anxious, uncertain dread and fear, of being on the edge, of not being able to trust your senses and your reason. Album single “Anada” is centered around a thunderous drumming, shimmering and gently undulating synths and guitar — and while being reminiscent of JOVM mainstays Mogwai, The Octopus Project and Remember Remember, the composition evokes an unshakeable, dark, menacing and inexplicable presence that’s lurking behind you, felt but unseen. And as a result, the incredibly cinematic track feels and sounds as though it should be included as part of the soundtrack of a psychological thriller that would capture the anxious dread of our current sociopolitical moment.

Filmed by  Maxime Leyravaud and the members of Jean Jean, and edited by the band’s Gregory Hoepffner, the recently released video features some almost Stanley Kubrick-esque like footage shot during the band’s Fall 2017 Japan tour that’s split between the band capturing portions of everyday Japanese life with a surrealistic touch and the band performing live.