Tag: Activity

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Activity Share Eerily Atmospheric “Heavy Breathing”

Acclaimed Brooklyn-based post punk outfit Activity — currently, Grooms‘ Travis Johnson (vocals, guitar), Bri DiGiola (bass), Russian Baths‘ Jess Rees and their newest member The Pains of Being Pure at Heart‘s and Peel Dream Magazine‘s Brian Alvarez — will be releasing their third album, the Jeff Berner-produced A Thousand Years In Another Way on Friday through Western Vinyl. 

The ten-song album sees the Brooklyn-based outfit crafting a blend of experimental rock, electronics and found sounds with a sense of paranoia, desperate flickers of hope and a warped reality. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Berner, the band manipulated sounds and played with room acoustics to create a feeling that’s disorientating and uneasy — like the air is thick and the walls are listening. 

Coming out of a period of increased uncertainty, the Brooklyn-based quartet — then Johnson, Rees DiGiola and former drummer Steven Levine — pieced the album together from various fragments, including clipped samples, looping guitar lines and spectral melodies. Johnson, Rees and DiGioia share vocal and writing duties, shaping material that feels both deeply personal and strangely alien. Throughout the album, there’s a sense that things could shift or fall apart at any second — nothing says one thing for long. 

In the lead up to the album’s release later this week, I wrote about two of the album’s previously released singles:

  • Album opening track “In Another Way” is a brooding and uneasy track that captures the captures an alienated and painfully lonely narrator’s desperate desire to connect with someone while struggling with the chaos and uncertainty within and without. According to the band’s Johnson, the album’s first single is “a way of letting off a bunch of aggression, rage and resentment at things not being the way they hold be, both personal and global (wishing things were ‘another way’), and feeling completely important about it, except when playing the song.” 

  • “Scissors,” the album’s second and latest single is a trance-inducing and decidedly trip-hop inspired song featuring swirling, atmospheric synths, bursts of feedback-driven shoegazer guitars and skittering, reverb-soaked beats serving as a brooding and menacing bed for Jess Rees’ dreamy delivery. “The song is about being intentionally reckless and breaking things apart, knowing you’re doing it. About not being precious, and digging into that pile of parts inside and finding a better way with what you already have,” the band’s Rees says, while adding, “I was listening to Beak> a lot at the time.”

A Thousand Years In Another Way‘s third and final pre-release single “Heavy Breathing” is a brooding and uneasy tune that recalls Depeche Mode‘s “Never Let Me Down Again,” anchored around a glistening and looping guitar line, glitchy and skittering beats and eerily atmospheric synths serving as lush bed for Johnson’s achingly plaintive delivery.

The band’s Travis Johnson says, “The song started off as this very quiet somber lullaby type thing until a friend suggested we ‘go Duran Duran’ with it. Not sure we pulled that off whatsoever but what it turned into felt right. I don’t really want to get into what the song is actually about so I’ll just say it’s to do with wishing things had been better for someone than they were.”

The accompanying video was directed by Yasmeen Night, who says “‘Heavy Breathing’ was a song that really spoke to me. There was a theme of constant movement that I felt in the music that had to make it into the visual. I was so happy when I found out the band was on board to do some stop-motion animation for the video. I expected them to run after explaining how many hours and frames of photos were involved, but they were just as excited as I was. Between the time-lapse shots and the stop motion, I think we took roughly 10,000 individual frames that were then edited into the video. There’s also this concept of playing with time – slowing down seconds and speeding up hours – combined with a metaphor for running away from or conceding to what you fear.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Activity Shares Hypnotic and Menacing “Scissors”

Acclaimed Brooklyn-based post punk outfit Activity — currently, Grooms‘ Travis Johnson (vocals, guitar), Bri DiGiola (bass), Russian Baths‘ Jess Rees and their newest member The Pains of Being Pure at Heart‘s and Peel Dream Magazine‘s Brian Alvarez — will be releasing their third album, the Jeff Berner-produced A Thousand Years In Another Way on June 6, 2025 through Western Vinyl. 

A friend asked why the album captured the strange, heavy feeling of being alive right now better than anything else. “Evil is very real and having its way, and love is also real and hasn’t lost yet,” Activity’s Travis Johnson told the friend — describing the album’s overall tone. The album doesn’t try to explain the strange time we’re living in; it simply feels like it. it’s a mix of violence, alienation, and tenderness, reflecting the surreal, dreamlike — and often nightmarish– rhythm of our daily lives. 

The ten-song album sees the Brooklyn-based outfit crafting a blend of experimental rock, electronics and found sounds with a sense of paranoia, desperate flickers of hope and a warped reality. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Berner, the band manipulated sounds and played with room acoustics to create a feeling that’s disorientating and uneasy — like the air is thick and the walls are listening. 

Coming out of a period of increased uncertainty, the Brooklyn-based quartet — then Johnson, Rees DiGiola and former drummer Steven Levine — pieced the album together from various fragments, including clipped samples, looping guitar lines and spectral melodies. Johnson, Rees and DiGioia share vocal and writing duties, shaping material that feels both deeply personal and strangely alien. Throughout the album, there’s a sense that things could shift or fall apart at any second — nothing says one thing for long. 

Last month, I wrote about the album’s first single “In Another Way,” a brooding and uneasy track that captures an alienated and painfully lonely narrator’s desperate desire to connect with someone while struggling with the chaos and uncertainty both with

A Thousand Years In Another Way‘s first single, album opening track “In Another Way” is a brooding and uneasy track that captures the captures an alienated and painfully lonely narrator’s desperate desire to connect with someone while struggling with the chaos and uncertainty within and without. According to the band’s Johnson, the album’s first single is “a way of letting off a bunch of aggression, rage and resentment at things not being the way they hold be, both personal and global (wishing things were ‘another way’), and feeling completely important about it, except when playing the song.” 

“Scissors,” the album’s second and latest single is a trance-inducing and decidedly trip-hop inspired song featuring swirling, atmospheric synths, bursts of feedback-driven shoegazer guitars and skittering, reverb-soaked beats serving as a brooding and menacing bed for Jess Rees’ dreamy delivery.

“The song is about being intentionally reckless and breaking things apart, knowing you’re doing it. About not being precious, and digging into that pile of parts inside and finding a better way with what you already have,” the band’s Rees says, while adding, “I was listening to Beak> a lot at the time.”

The accompanying video was directed by Yasmeen Night who says, “Listening to ‘Scissors’ made me feel like I was in a trance, or a dream state. In the video, I wanted to lean on the concept of coming in and out of consciousness. Opening and closing your eyes – forgetting what is real and what isn’t.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Activity Shares Brooding and Uneasy “In Another Way”

Acclaimed Brooklyn-based post punk outfit Activity — currently, Grooms‘ Travis Johnson (vocals, guitar), Bri DiGiola (bass), Russian Baths‘ Jess Rees and their newest member The Pains of Being Pure at Heart‘s and Peel Dream Magazine‘s Brian Alvarez — will be releasing their third album, the Jeff Berner-produced A Thousand Years In Another Way on June 6, 2025 through Western Vinyl.

A friend asked why the album captured the strange, heavy feeling of being alive right now better than anything else. “Evil is very real and having its way, and love is also real and hasn’t lost yet,” Activity’s Travis Johnson told the friend — describing the album’s overall tone. The album doesn’t try to explain the strange time we’re living in; it simply feels like it. it’s a mix of violence, alienation, and tenderness, reflecting the surreal, dreamlike — and often nightmarish– rhythm of our daily lives.

The ten-song album sees the Brooklyn-based outfit crafting a blend of experimental rock, electronics and found sounds with a sense of paranoia, desperate flickers of hope and a warped reality. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Berner, the band manipulated sounds and played with room acoustics to create a feeling that’s disorientating and uneasy — like the air is thick and the walls are listening.

Coming out of a period of increased uncertainty, the Brooklyn-based quartet — then Johnson, Rees and former drummer Steven Levine — pieced the album together from various fragments, including clipped samples, looping guitar lines and spectral melodies. Johnson, Rees and DiGioia share vocal and writing duties, shaping material that feels both deeply personal and strangely alien. Throughout the album, there’s a sense that things could shift or fall apart at any second — nothing says one thing for long.

A Thousand Years In Another Way‘s first single, album opening track “In Another Way” is a brooding and uneasy track that captures the captures an alienated and painfully lonely narrator’s desperate desire to connect with someone while struggling with the chaos and uncertainty within and without.

According to the band’s Johnson, the album’s first single is “a way of letting off a bunch of aggression, rage and resentment at things not being the way they hold be, both personal and global (wishing things were ‘another way’), and feeling completely important about it, except when playing the song.”

Directed by the band’s former dummer Steven Levine, the accompanying video for “In Another Way” is brooding, uneasy, mysterious and deeply indebted to cinema.

The band’s Johnson says of the video “It was shot in a neighborhood hangout, Film Noir Cinema. The owner is a big obscure movie and music guy, and it seemed perfect. Also, one of my favorite movies is Mulholland Drive, and it seemed fun to do a reference to the Club Silencio scene as a nod to David Lynch following his passing.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their Jeff Berner-produced full-length debut, last year’s Unmask Whoever, the rising experimental/krautrockff act Activity, which is split between New York and Philadelphia — Grooms‘ Travis Johnson (vocals, sampler) and Steve Levine (drums), Field Mouse‘s Zoe Browne (bass) and Russian Baths‘ Jess Rees (guitar) — received attention across the blogosphere for an eerily minimalist and uneasy sound that saw the band pair modern production, electronic instrumentation and organic instrumentation. Thematically, the album’s material touched upon paranoia, exposed character flaws and the broader capacity for growth when an uneasy truth is laid bare.

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I managed to write about there of the album’s released singles:

Sadly, Unmask Whoever was released within the first full week of pandemic-related lockdowns and as a result, the band wasn’t able to support their effort with a proper tour. But after a lengthy delay, the members of Activity will be embarking on a North American tour, which begins October 6, 2020 at Mercury Lounge. Tour dates are below — as always.

Along with the tour announcement, the JOVM mainstays released a new single, the eerily spectral and expansive “Text the Dead.” Centered around Travis Johnson’s achingly plaintive vocals, layers of percussive, almost polyrhythmic beats, mutilated samples, and atmospheric synths, the new single swoons from the weight of despair and inconsolable loss — with the tacit understanding that ghosts do linger, and that grief often comes in waves.

“My mom passed away in February. We had 24 days from when we found out she was sick with pancreatic cancer until she died. I still can’t process it honestly,” Activity’s Travis Johnson explains in press notes. “I remember her telling me over the phone, when I was losing it, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.’ I knew how awful the diagnosis was but I didn’t want to tell her and I really tried to cling to her telling me that. Throughout the day, still, I’ll catch myself thinking ‘I should tell mom about this or that’ or ‘I wonder how my mom is doing’ and get out my phone to call or text or email her before I realize that I can’t talk to her, and that I can’t talk to her about how I can’t talk to her. Knocks the wind out of me and makes me feel insane every time. That’s a picture of her when she was probably about my age on the cover. It was built on samples I’d put together and really mutilated a long time ago and forgotten about. I was going through old stuff and found it and started singing the verse melody. Then we all added our parts and subtracted others, etc. It’s not a very ‘live’ song but we all came together on it still.”

Tour:
10.06 New York NY @ Mercury Lounge
10.08 Boston MA @ Cafe 939
10.09 Philadelphia PA @ Ortlieb’s
10.10 Toronto ON @ Drake
10.11 Cleveland OH @ Mahall’s
10.12 Chicago IL @ Schubas
10.13 Minneapolis MN @ 7th St Entry
10.15 Milwaukee WI @ Cactus Club
10.19 Atlanta GA @ Masquerade
10.20 Carrboro NC @ Backroom Cat’s Cradle
10.21 Richmond VA @ The Camel
10.23 Lancaster PA @ Tigh Mary
10.24 Washington DC @ Pie Shop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past couple of months, I’ve written a bit about the rapidly rising New York-based experimental act Activity. The act — Grooms‘ Travis Johnson (vocals, sampler) and Steve Levine (drums), Field Mouse‘s Zoe Browne (bass) and Russian Baths‘ Jess Rees — have begun to receive attention across the blogosphere for a eerily minimalist sound centered around the use of modern production, electronic instrumentation and organic instruction.

The rapidly rising act’s Jeff Berner-produced full-length debut Unmask Whoever is slated for a March 27, 2020 release through Western Vinyl, and the album’s material reportedly sees its creators forming a menacing and uneasy framework with which they pair lyrical themes of paranoia, exposed character flaws and the broader human capacity for growth when an uneasy truth is laid bare. So far I’ve written about two of the album’s releases ingles — the atmospheric and uneasy, Geoff Barrow-like “Calls Your Name” and the slow-burning and achingly painful “Earth Angel.” “Nude Prince,” Unmask Whoever continues a run of minimalist singles — but may be the most krautrock-like as the song is centered around shimmering and atmospheric synths, thumping house music-inspired drum patterns, blasts of squiggling and angular guitars. Interestingly, the song is a psychologically precise narrative about a rich, powerful man, whose misdeeds are publicized, leaving his family to wonder what their own futures hold after is ruinous exposure. And as a result, the song is tense and uneasy, as it evokes a fatalistic sense of doom.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this year, I wrote about the rapidly rising New York-based avant garde/experimental act Activity. Now, as you may recall, the act which features Grooms‘ Travis Johnson (vocals, sampler) and Steve Levine (drums), Field Mouse‘s Zoe Browne (bass) and Russian Baths‘ Jess Rees have received attention across the blogosphere for a natural, minimal and intelligent use of modern production paired with organic instrumentation.

Their Jeff Berner-produced full-length debut Unmask Whoever is slated for a March 27, 2020 release through Western Vinyl, and the album’s material reportedly sees its creators ability gel with one another to reach new levels of interplay and cooperation to form a menacing and uneasy framework — with which they pair lyrical themes of paranoia, exposed character flaws and the broader human capacity for growth when an ugly truth is laid bare. “Calls Your Name” was centered around an atmospheric, uneasy and menacing Geoff Barrow-like production featuring woozy and shimmering synth arpeggios, and a relentless stuttering beat paired with half-song half-spoken lyrics inspired by C.S. Lewis’ 1945 novel The Great Divorce.

“Earth Angel,” Unmask Whoever‘s latest single is slow-burning, minimal “Earth Angel.” Centered around twinkling synth arpeggios, blasts of feedback and distortion-effected pedals, the track features what may arguably be one of the most painful sounding vocals I’ve heard in some time, as vocalist Travis Johnson’s voice stars off as a whisper before turning into a vocal cord tearing shout.

It’s a song about the freedom of a lifelong love” vocalist Travis Johnson explains. “I think we were going for a very Talk Talk Laughing Stock vibe in general. The vocals at the end physically hurt to perform… I could taste blood.”

Activity has a handful of live dates, including two NYC area dates: February 27, 2020 at Union Pool and an April 2, 2020 release party show at Baby’s All Right. Check out the tour dates below.

Live Dates:
 
02/27: Brooklyn, NY – Union Pool
04/02: Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right (Release Party)
04/16: Washington, DC – Rhizome
04/17: Richmond, VA – Fuzzy Cactus
04/18: Philadelphia, PA – Ortlieb’s
Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: New York Indie All-Star Act Releases an Uneasy and Menacing Visual for Geoff Barrow-like “Calls Your Name”

Formed last year, Activity is a New York-based avant/experimental act featuring Grooms’ Travis Johnson (vocals, sampler) and Steve Levine (drums), Field Mouse’s Zoe Browne (bass) and Russian Baths’ Jess Rees that discard the more weary connotations of indie rock through a natural, minimalist and intelligent use of modern implements paired with organic instrumentation. 

Their Jeff Berner-produced full-length debut Unmask Whoever is slated for a March 27, 2020 release through Western Vinyl. The forthcoming album’s material reportedly sees its creators’ abilities gel with one another to reach new levels of interplay and fruitful cooperation while sonically forming a menacing and uneasy framework to touch upon lyrical themes of paranoia, exposed character flaws and the broader human capacity for growth when an ugly truth is laid bare. The album’s first single “Calls Your Name” is centered around an atmospheric, uneasy and menacing Geoff Barrow-like production featuring woozy and shimmering synth arpeggios, and a relentless stuttering beat paired with half-song half-spoken lyrics inspired by C.S. Lewis’ 1945 novel The Great Divorce. In the novel, characters stuck in a grey, joyless conception of hell repeatedly deny opportunities to be taken into heaven, instead making excuses as to why they should remain in their embittered purgatory states. 

The recently released video captures this seemingly unending sensation of unease as it captures the band members in what seems to be their own personal purgatory.