Throughout the year, I’ve written quite a bit about the  Chicago, IL-based post-punk act Ganser. And as you may recall the act which is comprised of founding members Alicia Gaines (bass, vocals) and Nadia Garofalo (keys, vocals) with Brian Cundiff (drums) and Charlie Landsman (guitar) formed in 2014 and since the band’s formation, they’ve managed to build a profile both locally and nationally for a sound that was largely influenced by  Sonic Youth and Magazine paired with lyrical content that thematically was concerned with larger social concerns. In fact, the Chicago-based quartet’s critically applauded full-length debut Odd Talk focused on communication breakdowns  with the song’s narrators desperately seeking meaning in hopeless confusion and messiness — and throughout the album, each song’s narrator seems as though they were literally sorting though syllables and signals in an attempt to find the right words to say what they wanted or needed to say. 

Building upon a growing profile and an attention-grabbing year, the Chicago-based quartet’s latest single “Pastel” will further cement their reputation for crafting neurotic, tense post-punk centered around slashing guitar chords, a rolling and propulsive bass line, four-on-the-floor like drumming and punchily delivered, stream of consciousness-based lyrics and while clearly indebted to Gang of Four and Wire, the song concerns itself with incredibly contemporary issues — particularly, the nagging and unshakeable sense that no one is watching you shout desperately into the void to get anyone at all to pay attention. Everything is happening all the time and everyone is a performing all the time — and it’s all superficial and hateful. And as a result, the song evokes a creeping sense of existential panic that we all quietly feel and never really acknowledge. 

The recently released video was edited and produced by the band and features stock footage self-consciously performing in front of the camera — and paired with the tense and uneasy song, it heightens the self-consciousness of the video’s subject.