Detroit-based post-punk outfit Protomartyr — Joe Casey (vocals), Greg Ahee (guitar), Alex Leonard (percussion), and Scott Davidson (bass) — have become synonymous with caustic, impressionistic assemblages of politics and poetry, the literal and oblique over the course of five albums — 2012’s No Passion All Technique, 2014’s Under Color of Official Right, 2015’s The Agent Intellect, 2017’s Relatives In Descent and 2020’s Ultimate Success Today.
Protomartyr’s sixth album, the Greg Ahee and Jake Aron co-produced, 12-song Formal Growth In The Desert is slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Domino Recording Co. Although the band’s Joe Casey had a humbling experience staring at awe-inspiring Sonoran rock formations and reckoning with his own smallness in the scheme of things during the recording sessions at Tornillo, TX-based Sonic Ranch, the album’s title isn’t necessarily a nod to the sand and sun-blasted expanses of the southwest. Detroit or anyplace else on Earth can be its own desert. “The desert is more of a metaphor or symbol,” Casey says, “of emotional deserts, or a place or time that seems to lack life.” The desert brings an existential awareness that is ultimately internal.
The “growth” referenced in the album’s title came from a period of profound, life-altering transitions for the band’s Casey, including the death of his mother, who struggled with Alzheimer’s for 15 years. Now, 45, Casey had lived in the family home in northwest Detroit all his life. In 2021 though, a rash of repeated break-ins signaled that it was time to move out. Protomartyr’s music — this time more spacious and dynamic than ever before — helped pull Casey up. “The band still being viable was very important to me,” Casey adds, “and it definitely lifted my spirits.”
Having long served as the band’s unofficial musical director, Greg Ahee knew what Casey had been going through and the challenges he’d been processing, and as he was conceptualizing the music, he thought about how to make it all “like a narrative film.” The cinematic sensibility also manifest itself in Casey’s song-as-story-like lyrics, which see him critiquing ominous techno-capitalism, processing aging, the future and the possibility of love. But the underlying them as Casey describes it, is a testament to “getting on with life,” even when it feels impossibly hard.
Post quarantine, the band regrouped with an understandable sense of uncertainty, questioning if and how to continue after the turbulence of the past few years. They found themselves channeling that ambivalence to hone a song they named after a chapter from a 1950’s teen dance manual. “Elimination Dances,” Formal Growth In The Desert‘s second and latest single refers to a game where “‘you get tapped out when you lose the dance,” and that felt an apt metaphor for just surviving. “Life is a struggle, but “you might as well keep dancing until the tap comes,” Casey says.
Fittingly “Elimination Dances” is a cinematic yet tense and uneasy waltz built around rolling and propulsive drumming, angular and wiry bursts of guitar and a sinuous bass line paired with Casey’s urgent, snarling delivery. The song partially recounts Casey’s experience feeling small in the vast and indifferent desert, the existential acknowledgement of time and the struggle to survive with your dignity and wits intact.
Directed by Yoonha Park, the accompanying video follow dancer Kota Yamazaki doing repetitive choreographic patterns that grow outward — but have to be done faster to keep pace with the song. “My dad once told me ‘Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end the faster it goes,” Yoonah Park explains. “That idea along with the lyrics led to the idea of a choreographic pattern that repeats as it grows outward in an expanding spiral. The choreography repeats with each cycle but has to be danced faster and faster to keep pace with the ‘pale youth’ until eventually devolving into chaos. I recently learned that the toilet paper quote was actually by Andy Rooney.”
Protomartyr will be supporting Formal Growth In The Desert with an extensive intentional tour that includes a two night stay at Bowery Ballroom — June 15, 2023 and June 16, 2023. It also includes a two night stay at one of my favorite rooms in Philly, Johnny Brenda‘s — June 17, 2023 and June 18, 2023. Check out the full list of dates below. Also, there’s a pre-order link for the album, which is also below.
PROTOMARTYR TOUR DATES (NEW DATES IN BOLD)
Tue. June 13 – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
Wed. June 14 – Montreal, QC @ Fairmount
Thu. June 15 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Fri. June 16 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Sat. June 17 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
Sun. June 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
Tue. June 20 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
Wed. June 21 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
Thu. June 22 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
Fri. June 23 – Nashville, TN @ Blue Room
Sat. June 24 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway
Mon. June 26 – Oklahoma City, OK @ 89th Street
Tue. June 28 – Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole
Wed. June 29 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
Sat. July 1 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
Sun. July 2 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Moe’s Alley
Wed. July 5 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
Thu. July 6 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
Fri. July 7 – Seattle, WA @ Crocodile
Sat. July 8 – Spokane, WA @ Lucky You
Tue. July 11 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
Wed. July 12 – Madison, WI @ High Noon
Thu. July 13 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
Fri. Aug. 4 – Genk, BE @ Absolutely Free Festival
Sat. Aug. 5 – Haldern, DE @ Haldern Pop Festival
Sun. Aug. 6 – Frankfurt, DE @ Zoom
Mon. Aug. 7 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Wed. Aug. 9 – Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2
Thu. Aug. 10 – Nottingham, UK @ Rescue Rooms
Fri. Aug. 11 – Cardiff, UK @ Clwb lfor Bach
Sat. Aug. 12 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
Mon. Aug. 14 – Eindhoven, NL @ Effenaar
Tue. Aug. 15 – Hannover, DE @ Indiego Glocksee
Thu. Aug. 17 – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen
Fri. Aug. 18 – Bodo, NO @ Parkenfestivalen
Sat. Aug. 19 – Trondheim, NE @ Pstereo
Thu. Oct. 19 – Galway, IE @ Roisin Dubh
Fri. Oct. 20 – Limerick, IE @ Dolan’s Warehouse
Sat. Oct. 21 – Dublin, IE @ The Button Factory
Mon. Oct. 23 – Manchester, UK @ YES (The Pink Room)
Tue. Oct. 24 – Bristol, UK @ The Trinity Centre
Wed. Oct. 25 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds
Thu. Oct. 26 – London, UK @ Electric Ballroom
Sat. Oct. 28 – Rouen, FR @ Le 106
Sun. Oct. 29 – Antwerp, BE @ Trix Club
Mon. Oct. 30 – Groningen, DE @ Vera
Tue. Oct. 31 – Hamburg, DE @ Banhof Pauli
Wed. Nov. 1 – Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz
Thu. Nov. 2 – Berlin, DE @ Hole44
Sat. Nov. 4 – Athens, GR @ Gagarin 205
Mon. Nov. 6 – Munich, DE @ Strom
Tue. Nov. 7 – Zurich, CH @ Bogen F
Thu. Nov. 9 – Paris, FR @ La Station
Fri. Nov. 10 – Lyon, FR @ Marché Gare
Sat. Nov. 11 – Annecy, FR @ Le Brise Glace
Mon. Nov. 13 – Bologna, IT @ Locomotiv Club
Tue. Nov. 14 – Torino, IT @ Spazio 211
Wed. Nov. 15 – Marseille, FR @ Le Makeda
Thu. Nov. 16 – Montpellier, FR @ Le Rockstore
PRE-ORDER FORMAL GROWTH IN THE DESERT
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