Category: post punk

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Vacant Lots Share Slow-Burning and Brooding “Consolation Prize”

With the release of 2020’s Interzone through London-based psych label Fuzz Club, the Brooklyn-based psych duo The Vacant Lots — Jared Artaud (vocals, guitar, synths) and Brian McFayden (drums, synths, vocals) — crafted an album’s worth of material that saw the duo blending dance music and psych rock while maintaining the minimalist approach that has won the band acclaim across the international psych scene. 

The duo’s highly-anticipated fourth album Closure is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Fuzz Club. Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, the eight-song Closure clocks in at 23 minutes and continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s established “minimal is maximal” ethos — all while being a soundtrack for a shattered, fucked up world. 

“During the pandemic the two of us were totally isolated in our home studios,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud says. “I don’t think the pandemic directly influenced the songs in an obvious way, but merely amplified existing feelings of alienation and isolation. We found ourselves writing in a more direct and vulnerable way than ever before.”

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

“Chase:” Written on a Synsonics drum machine and a Yamaha CS-10 synthesizer, “Chase” is firmly rooted in their long-held “minimal is maximal” ethos but while seeing the Brooklyn-based duo pushing their sound in a club friendly direction while still being lysergic. Arguably one of their most dance floor friendly songs, “Chase” is centered around what may be the most vulnerable and direct lyrics of their growing catalog with the song subtly suggesting that at some point we will all need to dance away our heartache — if only for a three or four minutes. 

“‘Chase’ is a song about longing, about the struggle of love across time zones,” The Vacant Lots’ Brian MacFayden explains in press notes. “It’s about the desire to close that gap of separation, but also the anticipation and excitement that builds between each encounter. It’s about a sense of knowing how it should be before it is.” The band’s Jared Artaud adds, “‘Chase’ has this duality that strikes a balance between wanting to dance and taking a pill that plunges you on the couch.”

“Thank You,” a dance floor friendly banger centered around a relentless and angular, arpeggiated baseline paired with a four-on-the-floor drum machine pattern, glistening synths, angular guitar buzz and sneering vocals. But while being a New Order-like banger, “Thank You” is a bitter tell-off to a people (and situations) that have wasted valuable time. 

“‘Thank You’ was built in the framework of simplicity,” The Vacant Lots Brian MacFayden says. “It has a relentless pace driven by an angular arpeggiated bassline and drum machine pattern. A Juno-6 was used for chords throughout, a Korg M500 for the leads, and the track is brought to another level with guitars layered on top. The process of crafting this song was done entirely remotely due to the pandemic and the layers over time became more and more refined until we were satisfied with each sound source.”

“Consolation Prize,” Closure‘s third and latest single continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s long-held minimal is maximal ethos but while leaning heavily towards industrial goth with the track being centered around droning synths, wiry bursts of guitar, some efficient thump paired with vocals expressing aching heartbreak and frustration. Sonically, the song sounds like a narcotic synthesis of Suicide, Iggy Pop, and New Order.

Filmed and edited by Alexander Schipper, the accompanying video follows a leather jacket-clad Katerina Samar walking through a park. Shot in grainy Super 8 black and white film, the video employs kaleidoscopic filters and old film stock to give the proceedings a slow-burning yet trippy air.

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Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s deep tan Shares a “Blair Witch Project”-Meets-“Island of Dr. Moreau”-like Visual For “rudy ya ya ya”

Through the release of a handful of singles and last year’s critically applauded creeping speedwells EP, London-based post punk trio deep tan — Wafah (vocals), Celeste (bass) and Lucy (drums) — quickly exploded into the national and international post punk scenes: The band was featured in outlets like NME, DIY, Clash, Loud and Quiet, The Quietus, So Young, Notion, Dork, BrooklynVegan, and countless others. 

Their music has been playlisted on BBC 6 Music and Amazing Radio while receiving airplay on Apple Music Beats 1, Radio X, SiriusXM, KEXP, BBC Wales and Amazing Radio USA. And along with that, Steve Lamacq named the band his BBC 6 Music Spotlight Artist last May. Adding to a momentous year, last year the rapidly rising post-punk trio supported their debut EP with extensive touring that included an opening slot for critically applauded post- punk outfit Yard Act and the British festival circuit with stops at Dot to Dot, Live at Leads, Wide Eyed Festival, and Manchester Psych Fest. They closed out the year with the Dan Carey-produced “tamu’s riffing refuge,” which was released through Speedy Wunderground. 

Their sophomore EP diamond horsetail was released earlier this year — with a digital release preceding the physical release. They also released an extremely limited “Dinked Edition,” which featured diamond horsetail and creeping speedwells pressed together on “piss kink yellow” vinyl. (And by extremely limited, I mean it was 400 — yep, 400! — copies.)

deep tan’s sophomore EP saw the members of the British post-punk outfit further establishing their unique take on post punk in which their stripped-back, minimalist approach serves as a vehicle for songs that focus on contemporary thematic concerns, including deepfake revenge porn, surreal meme pages, furry hedonism and others.

EP single “rudy ya ya ya” is a taut, sparse and uneasy song centered around a propulsive and angular bass line and wiry guitar blasts paired with Wafah’s sultry yet ironically detached vocals. At its core, is a vicious, occasionally veiled, occasionally obvious, satirical takedown of the entirely deserving Rudy Giulliani — and old, power hungry bastards like him. The song is also a reminder of how far — and how quickly — Giulliani has fallen, becoming one of the world’s most hated, most despicable people.

Directed by Stringer, the accompanying video for “rudy ya ya ya” is a glitchy, Blair Witch Project-like visual that follows the band on a journey to a nightmarish Island of Doctor Moreau with hideous and menacing monsters in business suits.

“’rudy ya ya’ allowed me to fully realize my Island of Dr.Mareau [sic] by way of the Blair Witch fantasy and was a perfect opportunity to flex my Digital Bolex’s muscles with manic handheld movements and gritty psychedelic textures,” Stringer explains. “The end product is a haunted fever dream of a video and It’s the most fun I’ve had in the middle of nowhere at night in a long time.”

“For our rudy video we enlisted the help of stringer to direct, who caught our eye online with their excellent creeped-out gorefest references, which led to a very entertaining 12hrs in Epping Forest,” the band adds.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Thus Love Shares Satirical “Family Man”

Brattleboro, Vermont-based outfit Thus Love — multi-instrumentalists Echo Mars (she/her) and Lu Racine (he/him) and bassist Nathaniel van Osdol (they/them) — is a rising indie/post-punk trio with a bond cemented by their individual and collective experiences as outsiders looking in: They’ve ascribed to a DIY ethos that not only reflects their musical vision but their very existence as three self-identifying trans artists. 

The band can trace its origins to Mars’ and Racine’s serendipitous meeting at a local print show back in 2018, when the multi-instrumentalists agreed to collaborate on a new musical project. The band’s lineup was finalized when Mars and Racine were finally able to convince their roommate van Osdol to join the band in 2019. 

From the band’s inception, its members have lived together under the same roof, designed and produced their own merch, and even created their own recording studio from scratch. “I realize that most artists don’t live this way,” Thus Love’s Echo Mars says. “But for us, it was never really a choice. The art we make is so tied to who we are and the community we’re a part of, that this is the only way we can possibly do it.”

The trio was just starting to regularly headline renowned local venue The Stone Church when the pandemic struck and everything came to a sudden and screeching halt. “The pandemic hit everyone hard, but I think it was especially difficult for new artists like us that rely on live shows to spread the word,” Thus Love’s Lu Racine says. “At that point, we had a couple of demos and we weren’t sure what the future would hold.” 

Rather than idly wait, the band decided to take their future in their own hands. Armed with their innate curiosity and a ton of YouTube videos, Mars constructed a makeshift studio in their downtown Brattleboro apartment and the band set to work recording during the odd hours when their next-door neighbors were out and about. 

The end result is the rising band’s full-length debut Memorial. Slated for an October 7, 2022 digital release and November 11, 2022 physical release through Captured Tracks, Memorial is reportedly a remarkably self-assured and accomplished album, considering the circumstances surrounding its creation. While sonically, the album’s material draws heavily from classic post-punk and indie rock, the band manages to tap into that sound and approach and find a way to find their own voice — and to tell their story. 

Looking back now, Mars is glad the band decided to forge ahead. “I obviously would never want to go through a pandemic again, but I’m pretty confident in saying that this album would not be coming out in 2022 if we hadn’t had the forced downtime.” 

While the album does deal with grief and loss, the band’s Racine suggests that working through those feelings are a necessary prerequisite to true and meaningful healing. He points to his own process of transition as proof. “I was in a dark place for a long time even when we were making this record. I knew what I had to do, but it didn’t make it any easier. There was a long period of mourning.” Racine completed top surgery last September, an important step in a years-long journey to embrace his true self. “Even though I was struggling at the time, the happiness I feel now makes it all worth it. I will always have positive associations with this record.”

Last month, I wrote about “In Tandem,” a single that sonically brought  4AD Records‘ heyday to mind as it features angular, reverb-drenched guitar attack, glistening and atmospheric synths and a relentless motorik punch paired with a rousingly anthemic chorus. Interestingly, the song is simultaneously rooted in bitterness, heartachche and hope. As the the band explained to the folks at FLOOD, “Written in 12 hours of digestion of emotional turmoil, ‘In Tandem’ is a sonic promise to hold awareness of a fundamental truth: we are nothing but star-dust.”

Memorial‘s third and latest single “Family Man” is centered around a relentless and driving motorik punch, sinuous bass lines, bursts of reverb-drenched angular guitar attack paired with expressive baritone vocals. While continuing a run of decidedly post-punk inspired material, “Family Man,” as the band explains “is a playful commentary on internalized capitalism and the mutual hardships of the working class in a binary world. This song hints at an inevitable systemic collapse relieving all anguish.”

Directed by Wes Sterrs, the accompanying video for “Family Man” stars James Ledue as “The Beast,” a pink short suit-clad monster who rocks out karaoke style to the song in an empty studio, along with footage of the band performing the song in VHS tape fuzz and static. We also see Ledue’s Beast sitting in a chair, next to a TV. It’s a playful and absurdist video.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Flossing Shares Sultry and Menacing “All We Are”

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and sideswiped everything, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Heather Elle found themselves thrown from touring with buzz-worthy post-punk outfit The Wants (f.k.a. as BODEGA) and into a dizzying state of long overdue decompression. Aching to artistically progress, Elle felt the need to completely untether from both personal and professional entanglements: They left The Wants and a long-term relationship and quickly began writing and recording songs in their new bachelorette pad.

Elle dug up five-year old songs and song ideas written on the road and unexpectedly wrote last year’s confessional and hedonistic “Switch,” which pushed the Brooklyn-based artist to take their Flossing project further. Elle’s Flossing debut, Queen of the Mall EP was released to critical praise with critics describing the Brooklyn-based artist as a “mischievous pop poet” and the “newly appointed master of psychological provocative.”

Building upon growing buzz, Elle’s sophomore EP World Of Mirth is slated for an August 26, 2022 release through London-based Brace Yourself Records. The soon-to-be released EP continues the Brooklyn-based artist’s for being enigmatic and provocative, while excavating and proving into the self even further than before.

World Of Mirth‘s latest single, the smoldering “All We Are.” Centered around densely layered, tweeter and woofer rattling, Nine Inch Nails-meets-ADULT.-like industrial production paired with Elle’s alternating cooing and howling, “All We Are” is possess a sultry yet menacing quality that’s simultaneously irresistible and uneasy.

“Inspired by binge-watching Steven Soderbergh’s medical drama series The Knick at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — which is set in an ER in turn-of-the-century New York City — the song invokes themes of metaphysics, existentialism, pride, competition, and legacy,” Elle explains in press notes. “‘This is all we are,’ is the final line from the lead surgeon as he operates upon himself in front of a stadium of colleagues and doctors, attempting to outsmart death.”

Directed by Dylan Brannigan, the accompanying video for “All We Are” is shot through grainy VHS fuzz and emphasizes the song’s sultry yet menacing air.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bratislava’s 52 Hertz Whale Shares Forceful “Phil”

The 52-hertz whale, sometimes referred to as 52 Blue is an individual whale of unidentified species that calls at the usual pitch of 52 hertz, a higher pitch frequency than that of the other whale species with migration patterns most closely resembling it. This whale’s call has been detected regularly in many locations since the 1980s, and appears to be the only individual emitting a whale call at this frequently. This whale, which has never been sighted by only heard through hydrophones, has been described as the “world’s loneliest whale.”

Bratislava, Slovakia-based post-punk outfit 52 Hertz Whale derive their name from the “world’s loneliest whale.” And with the release of 2015’s self-titled debut EP and 2017’s full-length debut i’ve met a lot of people, which the band supported with a lengthy tour through Germany, Poland, Belgium and the Czech Republic, the Slovakian quintet quickly amassed a following both nationally and internationally.

Adding to a growing profile, the band has made stops across the European Festival circuit, including Pohoda, Colours of Ostrava, Liverpool Sound City, Grape Festival, and Sharpe Festival among others, which have been praised by the international press.

The Slovakian quintet’s highly anticipated sophomore album — and first batch of new material in five years, Present Sense Impression is slated for an August 26, 2022 release through Full Moon Forum and Weltschmerzen. “Phil,” Present Sense Impression‘s stormy first single pays homage to The Microphones’ Phil Elverum — with The Microphones’ Song Islands being the foundation from which the lyrics for “Phil” come from. Interestingly, the song has an unusual structure that eschews the traditional verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus format. Rooted in the rapid-fire, inner monologue of a seemingly desperate and crazed narrator, and enormous hooks, the song starts off with a dramatic introduction of scorching synths and guitars that sounds much like a wailing ambulance rushing to an emergency. The song’s second section is centered around thunderous and propulsive four-on-the-floor and angular guitar attack. The song’s third section is a bit more atmospheric, featuring reverb-drenched guitars, military style drumming and a blazing guitar solo. The song’s last 50-60 seconds is an explosive bang before a gentle fade out. The end result is a song that’s unapologetically frenetic and adventurous in scope.

“‘Phil” was put together during the pandemic months of 2020,” 52 Hertz Whale’s bassist Fabo explains. “‘Phil’ and the rest of Present Sense Impression were created in the solitude of the Czech woods with the help of Prosecco, in cracked version of Ableton, and in a rehearsal space filled with smoke. Through cliched teeth, chaos, drive, as well as reluctance,we’ve arrived at a fuse of the good and the bad.” The band’s drummer Tomáš adds “‘Phil’ is one of the two new tracks that don’t feature a classic chorus, much like our older stuff. We only started to make use of those with the guidance of Lazer Viking, who produced most of the album.”

Directed, filmed and edited by Palo Hedmeg, the accompanying video stars Katarína Vyskočová and follows her on a spontaneous shoot in and around a waterworks near Bratislava. We follow her as she stomps, dances and sings along with the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: British Columbia’s Blessed Share Tense and Eerie “Anything”

With the release of 2020’s self-released, full-length debut, the Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada-based art rock/post punk outfit Blessed — Drew Riekman, Reuben Houweling, Jake Holmes and Mitchell Trainor — received attention for crafting a self-assured, fully formed sound and aesthetic informed by their reverence to their community to their small, rural city, located in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley. 

Last year’s iii EP saw the Abbotsford-based act further expanding upon their sound and approach: The EP’s material featured glitchy electronics, measured drum work and guitar work that frequently shifted from chiming and cheerful to serrated and snarling with a turn of a phrase, paired with Reikman’s tenor vocals. The EP continued the long-held ethos of collaboration and community that’s been at the center of their work. The self-produced EP was recorded at Vancouver-based Rain City Recorders with vocals tracked at friends’ houses across their hometown. They then recruited four different mixers for each EP’s song — Purity Ring’s Corin Roddick, Tortoise’s John McEntire, Holy Fuck‘s Graham Walsh and the band’s own Drew Riekman.

Blessed’s Drew Riekman credits Fraser Valley’s previous generation of DIY artists with fostering a strong sense of local responsibility, pride and solidarity that the band aims to perpetuate and continue for younger generations. In fact, they do so by attending city council meetings, by booking all-ages shows with local acts and by sharing resources with younger artists leaning the ropes of recording, touring and grand application.

iii‘s material as Riekman said at the time, reflected his own experiences and struggles with anxiety, which at its worse has confined him to his home for months at a time. “I really struggled with agoraphobia when I was younger, and still do to this day,” Riekman said in press notes. Frequently, collaborating with members of their community helped create a “feeling of the world getting smaller” and served as a salve for anxiety and uncertainty. 

Blessed’s sophomore album Circuitous is slated for an October 28, 2022 release through Flemish Eye. “‘Circuitous: Of a route or journey, longer than the most direct way,” Blessed’s Drew Riekman recites. Interestingly enough, the word is a description of a profound and rare way of creating that makes their sophomore album, much like their previous releases, a singular, moving and unsettlingly committed piece of work.

Circuitous reportedly will further cement and expand the band’s status as a band’s band: a patient. eclectic outfit guided by reverence for and an intense pursuit of an internally-dictated creative agenda focused on musicality, songwriting, performance and artistic growth. The album sonically sees them sharpening their strengths and bringing more depth and expansion into their creative process: The end result is a sweeping, industrial art-rock tragedy rooted in walls of noise, tightly controlled drums, meandering ambient and staccato syncopation that was pulled from hours of jam material and hundreds of demos.

While the album’s eight tracks sprawl, thrash, burst and fall, the album’s material thematically touches upon agoraphobia, isolation, grief, the hyper control of capital and the numbness it breeds.

The album’s first single “Anything” is a slow-burning, hypnotic, and brooding track featuring looping and shimmering guitars, bubbling electronics, thunderous drumming, and a propulsive and throbbing bass lines paired with Riekman’s plaintive vocals. But at its core, is a song that incisively ridicules modern life.

“The narrative that you can be anything if you work hard enough is absurd. It ignores so many facets of life, development, geography, class, on and on et al,” Blessed’s Riekman says in press notes. “But it pits people against each other in an effort to become ‘something’, a ‘something’ that is loosely defined and shaped by personality rather than a communal vision. It creates a pedestal to put yourself or others on. You’re never good enough, because there’s always someone above you doing more. We’re reaching for unattainable lifestyles, that we don’t even need, that are hyper individualistic and negate the need for community. When you’re looking at the environment you exist in socially as a pyramid, and there’s people you want to be closer to “at the top”, that’s a net negative for anyone. The more accessible we are, and on the level with each other we are in our immediate places, the more we gain.”

Longtime collaborator and digital artist Nathan Donovan teamed up with Jacob Dutton to art direct and design original art and videos for the album’s songs, centered on a nameless, childlike robot that can make specific, subtle and uncanny expressions. The childlike robot appears on the album’s cover art — and in the accompanying video. Set in an eerie all white factory, the robot comes to life when its OS is inserted into a small disc drive behind its ear. The robot’s quickly seems to gain a sense of consciousness and self in a way that’s eerie, unsettling and all too childlike.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Death Bells Share a Brooding, Post-Punk Anthem

Since their formation in Sydney back in 2015, Death Bells — Will Canning (vocals) and Remy Veselis (guitar) — have cemented a sound and approach that blurs the lines of post-punk and garage rock, centered around Canning’s baritone and Veselis’ wiry, reverb-drenched guitar lines. The duo quickly became a maintain in the alternative/underground/indie scene both nationally and internationally.

Naturally, as the duo have grown up and matured into early adulthood, the band has morphed and transformed through the releases of their debut EP, their full-length debut and a seven-inch through Funeral Party Records and a 2019 single through Metropolitan Indian. 

The duo relocated to Los Angeles in 2018, where the current iteration of the band has blossomed: They signed to Dais Records, who released their sophomore album 2020’s New Signs of Life, an effort that saw them embracing their diverse tastes to craft expansive, hook-driven songs. As a response to pandemic-related quarantines and lockdowns, the duo secluded themselves at Bombay Beach last year, to record a live session that featured five tracks off New Songs of Life titled Live from Bombay.

Between Here & There, the Aussie-born, Los Angeles-based outfit’s third album was released yesterday through Dais Records. Recorded with Colin Knight at Paradise Studios, the nine-song album, which sees the duo adopting a collaborative approach features an experienced cast of collaborators on keys, strings, piano and backing vocals, not only represents the pair’s continued growth as artists and people; but also is inspired by the vastness, messiness and oddness of their adopted home. While featuring lyrics that the duo consider “narrative, but not autobiographical,” the album’s material ebbs and flows from harrowing to hopeful — and are born of intrigue, intimacy and a sense of “looking outward,” according to the band.     

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Hysteria,” the album’s fourth single. Continuing a run of material that bristles with urgency and immediacy, the song is rooted in the simultaneously personal and universal: the search for meaning in a seemingly meaningless, mad world — and the desire to pack up and leave everything behind.

“’Hysteria’ was one of the last songs we wrote as we were putting together the new album,” the duo explain. “It was one of those moments where the tune just figured itself out. It feels urgent, immediate and honest, and we’re very proud of it.”

“Lifespring” is a brooding and hypnotic bit of post punk featuring Vaselis’ wiry bursts of guitar, thumping four-on-the-floor, glistening synths and a relentless motorik groove paired with a rousingly anthemic chorus. Yes, “Lifespring” is decidedly inspired by — and indebted to — the late 70s and early 80s while bristling with a forceful immediacy as it describes our bleak moment with an uncanny specificity.

“We initially wrote Lifespring at a friend’s studio, before the last record was even an idea,” Will Canning explains. “I thought I had lost the stems, but discovered them recently on a USB that had been sitting in my jacket pocket for the last few years, so we were able to finally finish the song. The lyrical inspiration for Lifespring came from reading about a fairly spurious organization of the same name that were around until the mid-90s. Musically, it feels very different from anything we’ve done before; sleazier, groovier.”

The accompanying video follows a motorcyclist on a dirt road. The camera gently pulls out to give the viewer a gorgeous, cinematic view of the motorcyclist’s surroundings — before they meet up with a truck full of people.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Preoccupations Share Atmospheric and Brooding “Death of Melody”

Canadian post punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Preoccupations —  Matt Flegel (bass, vocals), Mike Wallace (drums), Scott Munro (guitar) and Daniel Christiansen (guitar) — will be releasing their fourth, full-length album Arrangements on September 9, 2022. Longtime label home Flemish Eye will handle the release throughout Canada while the band will self-release the album outside of Canada. 

Initial work on Arrangements began in the fall of 2019, when Flegel and Christiansen met up with Munro at his Montreal-based Studio St. Zo. The trio wrote the album’s material and recorded all of the bed tracks together. Wallace then joined in and recorded his parts. With all of the instrumental parts laid down, the band planned to reconvene in a few months and decided what else the songs needed.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the JOVM mainstays’ plans to reconvene in person were halted. At the time Munro was in Calgary on tour with his partner when the shutdowns began, so he wound up staying with his parents for the next 16 months. He whipped up a make-shift studio in his parents house, and the rest of the record was finished remotely with Munro and Flegel sending tracks back and forth to each other: Munro’s vocal and keyboard parts were completed in that set up while Flegel’s vocal parts were laid down in New York. Holy Fuck‘s Graham Walsh mixed the record and Total Control‘s Mikey Young mastered it. 

Interestingly, pandemic isolation helped to encourage the band to reconnect with elements of their earlier releases: Munro, holed up in Calgary with endless weed gummies, obsessively doubled keyboards on guitars and vice versa, sampled the recordings using an old Ensoniq keyboard sampler and made new parts out of the samples. While on 2016’s self-titled and 2018’s New Material, Munro was committed to making keyboards the centerpiece, Arrangements sees guitar returning to the spotlight — an instrument that he describes as much more fun and visceral to play. Throughout most of the album, Christiansen employs a unique tuning that sees him blurring and smearing his parts while Munro’s standard-tuned riffs provide melody and clarity. The end result is an album that sonically will see the band weaving their guitar-heavy origins with their more synth-based recent work to create what may arguably be their most intense and playful album to date. 

Much like its predecessor New Material, Arrangements‘ title is simultaneously literal and cheeky — a sharp contrast to their overall aesthetic. Thematically, the album is dark and direct: “The lyrics are pretty conspicuous and self explanatory on this one, but it’s basically about the world blowing up and no one giving a shit,” says Flegel. 

Last month, I wrote about Arrangements‘ first single, ““Ricochet,” a murky and dark churner featuring layers of glistening and distorted guitar slashes, rolling and lashing snares,atmospheric synth arpeggios and a propulsive bass line paired with Flegel’s mournful, embittered delivery and their penchant for rousingly anthemic hooks. And while being a slick and seamless synthesis of their earliest work and their most recent work, “Ricochet” manages to evoke the creeping, existential dread we have all felt lately — and perhaps continue to feel — during one of the most heightened and uncertain periods in recent memory.

“Death of Melody,” Arrangements‘ second and latest single is a brooding and tumbling track centered around textured, reverb-drenched shoegazer-like haze, martial, machine-like rhythms paired with Flegel’s plaintive delivery fed through even more distortion. Sonically “Death of Melody” is a one-half funhouse in hell, one-half vacillating thoughts tumbling about in the mind of an anxious, uncertain person.

“It’s about having a song stuck in your head, and having no idea what it is, and driving yourself to the brink of dementia trying to figure out what it is” Preoccupations’ Flegel explains. “It’s about knowing and forgetting, existing in the middle ground between the permanent and temporary.”

Directed by Yoonha Park, the accompanying visual for “Death of Melody” features a black and white photo of the band that looks as though it were given a kaleidoscopic, funhouse mirror treatment in which makes the band look monstrous.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Acclaimed Chicago-based post-punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Ganser — founding members Nadia Garofalo (vocals, keys) and Alicia Gaines (vocals, bass) along with Brian Cundiff (drums) and Charlie Landsman (guitar) — can trace their origins back to when its founding members met while attending art school. Bonding over a mutual love of The Residents, outsider communities and the work of John Waters, the duo developed a hands-on DIY craftsmanship that eventually carried into their band: Each member of the post punk outfit shares writing duties and they collaborate on every aspect of their creative work, including videos, album art, merch and the visuals which often accompany their live shows. 

Ganser’s 2018 full-length debut Odd Talk received widespread praise nationally and across the blogosphere with some critics comparing their sound and approach to Sonic Youth and Magazine. Thematically, the album focused on communication breakdowns — namely, the difficulties of being understood, avoidance, intimacy and avoidance. 

2020’s sophomore album, the critically applauded Just Look at That Sky found the members of Ganser thematically probing the futility of striving for self-growth during chorus — all while evoking an all to familiar manic worry and generalized sense of existential dread and doom. It’s an album that seems to accurately captures our slow-burning, omnipresent hellscape. 

Besides last year’s Look at That Sky Remixes EP, the Chicago-based JOVM have been busy working on new material — including their Angus Andrew co-produced, three-song Nothing You Do Matters EP.

Earlier this year, I wrote about “People Watching,” a woozy and expansive ripper that begins with a slow-burning and atmospheric, bass-driven intro before quickly morphing into a feverish thrash featuring slashing guitar attack, relentless four-on-the-four and squiggling bursts of electronics paired with Garofalo’s seething, irony-drenched delivery. 

Arguably the most tense and uneasy song of their growing catalog, “People Watching” captures the mad and desperate senselessness —of well, just about everything right now. 

LIARS’ creative mastermind Angus Andrew recently gave “People Watching,” the remix treatment — and the LIARS remix is bold and mind-bending rework that retains the propulsive energy, rhythm and acerbic vocal delivery of the original but transform the song into a kaleidoscopic, funhouse from hell-like club banger that sounds much like a garbled transmission beamed down from a UFO 20,000 light years away.

“We had worked on the original recording of ‘People Watching’ together at Key Club in Benton Harbor, MI so I was already super entwined with the song,” Andrew explains. “That familiarity gave me a lot of freedom with the remix. My goal was to maintain the great momentum and vocal delivery of the initial recording, but just give it all a big kick in the butt with synths.”

Nothing You Do Matters EP is slated for an October 5, 2022 digital release and a December 2, 2022 vinyl release through Felte Records.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: UK’s West Wickhams Share a Creepy Visual for Brooding “Consider Her Way”

Currently based in Richmond, UK, the self-described psychedelic, garage noir duo West Wickhams — Jon Othello and Elle Flores — originally formed in Tresco, the second biggest island of the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, UK. Tresco is famously known as the “Island of Lost Souls” and features subtropical plants and shipwrecked figureheads.

The duo’s band name is an imagined rival gang to punk style icons The Bromley Contingent, a group who followed Sex Pistols and whose style was largely influenced by David Bowie and Roxy Music.

The British duo’s overall aesthetic is influenced by a wide range of sources including Mary Shelley, Whitby Abbey, Edgar Allan Poe, Andy Warhol, abstract painting, film noir and more.

Their debut EP Consider Her Way is out now on a limited edition CD and on the digital streaming platforms. The EP’s latest single, EP title track “Consider Her Way” is a brooding bit of goth-leaning post-punk centered around angular, reverb and delay-drenched guitars and a motorik groove. The end result is a song that may bring the likes of The Cure and Cocteau Twins to mind.

The accompanying video featured edited footage from a particularly creepy and downright nightmarish Black and White version of Alice in Wonderland.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Montreal’s Teenage Witch Shares a 120 Minutes MTV-Like Ripper

Sabrina Coté is a Montreal-based singer/songwriter, musician and creative mastermind behind the DIY indie rock recording project Teenage Witch. Coté’s latest single “Jaloux” is a 120 Minutes-era MTV bop centered around a classic grunge song structure with alternating loud passages featuring fuzzy power chord driven riffage for the choruses and quieter passes with dreamy, shoegazer-like guitars for the song’s verses. It’s all held together by a simple yet thunderous backbeat paired with Coté’s icy delivery.

Sonically, the song features subtle elements of post-punk and grunge — while revealing an artist, who can shred hard and write an infectious hook.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Working Men’s Club Share a Hook-Driven Banger

Led by frontman Syd Minksy-Sargeant, the rising British outfit Working Men’s Club exploded into the national and international scene with the release of 2020’s self-titled, full-length debut. Featuring some songs written when Minsky-Sargeant was 16, the album saw the Working Men’s Club frontman processing a teenage life in Todmorden in England’s Upper Calder Valley. “The first album was mostly a personal documentation lyrically, this is a blur between personal and a third-person perspective of what was going on,” Minsky-Sargeant explains in press notes.

Working Men’s Club highly-anticipated Ross Orton-produced sophomore album Fear Fear is slated for a July 15, 2022 release through Heavenly Recordings. Featuring songs created in the shadow of terror and loss, the album bristles, crackles and pops with defiance while exploring juxtaposition: life and death, acceptance and isolation, hope and despair, environment and humanity, the real world and the digital world. And while Fear Fear reportedly documents the past two years with all its bleakness and uncertainty, the album’s material is rooted in hope and empathy. “I like the contrast of it being happy, uplifting music and really dark lyrics. It’s not a minimal record, certainly compared to the first one,” Minsky-Sargeant says. “That’s because there’s been a lot more going on that needed to be said.”

Fear Fear‘s latest single “Ploys” has received praise internationally from BrooklynVegan, Northern Transmissions, Vanyaland, NME and a lengthy list of others. And that’s not surprising. The song is a decidedly 80s New Order inspired banger, centered around a dense layered production featuring tweeter and woofer rattling 808s, glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless groove and Minsky-Sargeant’s irony-drenched vocals paired with an enormous hook.

But despite the retro sound and feel, the song is rooted in a deeply modern sense of disconnection, uncertainty, crippling insecurity and anxiety; the song essentially is the theme song to a Tinder/Hinge/OKCupid date gone terribly off to the point of not being salvageable.

The accompanying video follows a determined woman in the gym as she dead lifts. But it’s shot through a grainy and glitchy VHS-like fuzz and effects that find the weights being dropped in unison with the 808s of the song.