Tag: synth punk

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Albums of the Year 2025

JOVM turns 16 this year. And for first handful of years, my Best of List was an annual tradition until about 2014 or so. Between 2014 and 2020, it became sporadic and then it stopped. I haven’t done one of these in several years. There was a part of me that wondered if it really mattered much. And then life happened. 

So here we are in 2026. And with the year starting in earnest, let’s check out my best of 2025. 

  1. Big Fish Fyra liter stoft
  2. Tan Cologne Unknown Beyond
  3. Moondaddy Dove Tapes
  4. Sessa Pequena Vertigem de Amor
  5. Preservation Brass & Preservation Hall Jazz Band For Fat Man
  6. Silk Daisys S/T
  7. The Circling Sun Orbits
  8. Gabriel da Rosa Cacofonia
  9. Yoo Doo Right, Population II & Nolan Potter Yoo II avec Nolan Potter
  10. bat zoo The Upward Bird EP
  11. Public Circuit Modern Church
  12. L’Eclair Cloud Drifter
  13. Gloin All of your anger is actually shame (and I bet that makes you angry)
  14. CIVIC Chrome Dipped
  15. Population II Maintenant Jamais
  16. White Birches A New Reign
  17. Anish Kumar and Hagop Tchaparian Kino EP
  18. Friendship Commanders BEAR 
  19. The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation
  20. SHOLTO The Sirens
  21. S.C.A.B. Somebody In New York Loves You!
  22. Pierpont & Hegeleson Of Time
  23. RORO and snapir Colors Left
  24. St. Panther Strange World 
  25. Nation of Language Dance Called Memory
  26. Quad90 S/T
  27. Slumbering Sun Starmony
  28. Tunde Adebimpe Thee Black Boltz 
  29. Quad90 S/T
  30. Die Spitz Something To Consume
  31. debdepan LOVERS & OTHERS EP

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Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: poor effort. Shares Throbbing “talking mouth (on & on)”

Salford, UK-based singer/songwriter Matty Dagger is the creative mastermind behind the rising British synth punk project poor effort. Emerging last year with a run of pithy singles that included “You’re Wrong, I’m Right (Symphony)” and “HRMC,” which received coverage from DIY Magazine and Louder Than War, as well as airplay on BBC 6 Music. Those two singles saw Dagger quickly establishing a sound and approach that saw him parting trippy beats and pencil-sketch riffs with relatable humor. While being a barrage against a surrender to bleakness and hopelessness, the Salford-based artist has specifically set out to cultivate a distinct environment of lo-fi storytelling.

The Salford-based artist built upon a growing profile by playing with a rotating cast of musicians in venues across the region, including Colours Hoxton and The Eagle Inn — with more shows scheduled throughout the rest of this year.

Dagger’s Dean Glover-produced poor effort self-titled EP reportedly sees him dipping in and out of alternative hip-hop, post-punk and electronica while inspired by Benefits, Sleaford Mods and Kate Tempest and lengthy lockdown periods in which he put self-taught production techniques and poetry to tape.

The debut EP is slated for an October 3, 2025 release through Manchester-based Home Taping in partnership with EMI North. The EP will feature the previously released “City of Hope,” which received airplay from BBC 6 Music, BBC Introducing Manchester and Radio X. The EP’s latest single “talking mouth (on & on)” continues a run of material anchored around a minimalist as maximalist ethos that reminds me a bit of JOVM mainstays The Vacant Lots. Featuring a throbbing and propulsive bass line, driving beats and a glistening synth melody, the song’s instrumentation serves as a woozy bed for Dagger’s laconic delivery.

Thematically, the song address the chaos of communication overload and how “conclusion arrives before irony does in the slow death of nuance,” according to Dagger.

“At first ‘talking mouth’ was a lot faster and more of a thrashy garage punk song, but I struggled to get the chorus to feel right at that pace. I slowed the tempo down and found that this let it breathe a lot more while still maintaining its distinct drive,” the rising Salford-based artist says. “The synth melody and sequencers then transformed the nature of the song completely. The initial recordings are still lying around somewhere, maybe I’ll put them on the bonus compilation in 2050.”

Fittingly, the accompanying video features Dagger and band performing in a studio, shot in a grainy security-style footage with an explosion of handwritten song lyrics and musings, typed out words, Polaroid photos and more.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: DVTR Shares a Mischievous and Breakneck Ripper

With the release of their debut EP, 2023’s BONJOUR, the French Canadian JOVM mainstays DVTR —  Le Couleur‘s Laurence G-Do a.k.a. Demi Lune and Gazoline‘s,  Kandle‘s Xavier Caféine‘s and Gab Bouchard‘s JC Tellier, a.k.a. Jean Divorce — burnt up the Canadian indie scene: The EP amassed a plethora of rapturous reviews, landed on a number of Best of 2023 Lists and earned the duo a handful of awards in Québec. 

Last year saw the duo building upon the momentum of the previous year, with an expanded edition of their debut EP, BONJOUR (BIS), which featured two bonus tracks that I wrote about on this site:

The Montrealers supported both the original and expanded editions of BONJOUR with a frenetic tour schedule that included an Asian and German tour. They closed out the year with a sold-out show at Montréal’s Les Foufounes Électriques and Revelation of the Year, Punk Album/EP of the Year and Animated Video of the year award wins at last year’s Gala Alternatif de la Musique Indépendante du Québec (GAMIQ).

The duo begins 2025 with the breakneck and mischievous “Né pour flâner (Born to loiter), a song that further cements the duo’s uncanny knack for mosh pit friendly, catchy hooks, punchily delivered vocals and furious synth and guitar riffage.

The accompanying video features footage shot while the band was touring across Germany and Asia, capturing their raucous and goofy energy.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms
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Live Concert Photography: Son Estrella Galicia Presents: Brooklyn’s Rock Party at Baby’s All Right 1/31/25 feat. MSPAINT, DAZY and AMI

Live concert photography of MSPAINT with DAZY and AMI at Baby’s All Right last month.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Trentemøller’s Hard-hitting Remix of A Place to Bury Strangers’ “Fear of Transformation”

Late last year, New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — released their seventh album Synthesizer through Dedstrange. 

While Synthesizer is the album’s title, it’s also a physical entity, a synthesizer specifically made for the album — and a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl. The album’s cover art doubles as a circuit board and functional synth for curious and enterprising fans. “It’s pretty messed up, chaotic. But it feels really human,” the band’s Oliver Ackermann says. 

In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. The album celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community. 

The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The new lineup which featured Ackermann and his friends John and Sandra Fedowitz was especially inspiring for Ackermann. “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says. “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.” 

The album captures the band at a place of reinvention, where they take a carefully honed sound and approach and crack it wide open to gut its then reimagine it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also built a new instrument — the synthesizer at the core of the album’s overall sound. 

Synthesizer may arguably be one of the band’s most live-sounding albums to date, accurately capturing the rawness and explosiveness of the band in a live setting, which is a fitting for a band that is best in a live setting, where the material takes on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. “We’re artists,” Ackermann says, “Going to shows and bringing that imperfect and beautiful DIY ethos is important.” 

Album single “Fear Of Transformation” is a snarling and scuzzy New Wave/goth punk synth-driven ripper featuring layers of oscillating synths, a relentless motorik groove, explosive bursts of feedback paired with the band’s long-held penchant for rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and Ackermann’s punchy delivery. 

Thematically, the track focuses and delves into the struggle of overcoming internal barriers. As the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann explains, “Sometimes fear builds up and pins you in a cage. A conversation occurs in my head where I have to convince myself to just fucking do something to break out of it.” The song embodies that internal dialogue, capturing the battle between the compulsion to avoid fear and the push to confront it. And as a result, the song is a raw, uneasy and intense conversation with the devil within.

Acclaimed Danish producer and multi-instrumentalist Trentemøller recently gave “Fear of Transformation,” the remix treatment. The Trentemøller remix adds harder, big beat era-like beats, which manages to add an even darker, industrial electronica-like feel to song. The thematic conversation with the devil at the core of the song has much higher stakes: Damnation and destruction or salvation, which will you choose?

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: DVTR Tackles a Québecois New Wave Classic

With the release of their debut EP, BONJOUR, the French Canadian JOVM mainstays DVTR —  Le Couleur‘s Laurence G-Do and Gazoline‘s,  Kandle‘s Xavier Caféine‘s and Gab Bouchard‘s JC Tellier — burnt up the Canadian indie scene: The EP amassed a plethora of rapturous reviews, landed on a number of Best of 2023 Lists and earned the duo a handful of awards in Québec. 

Earlier this month, the duo released an expanded edition of their debut EP, BONJOUR (BIS), which featured “Les Olympiques,” a punchily breakneck ripper an anchored in scathing sociopolitical commentary — but while seeming to draw from The Hives, The Strokes and The White Stripes among others. 

The expanded EP features a cover of Dolbie Stéréo’s 1982 Quebecois New Wave classic “Pied de poule,” which also appears in the musical of the same name. Anchored around a chugging synth-driven groove and punchily delivered shouts, Dolbie Stereo’s original is an in-your-face anthem. DVTR’s cover subtly modernizes the Quéecois New Wave classic while retaining the original’s in-your-face punchiness and irresistible groove.

The accompanying video features footage shot at a sweaty and bonkers DVTR show.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: A Place to Bury Strangers Shares Pulsating Synth Punk Ripper “Fear Of Transformation”

New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — will be releasing their seventh album Synthesizer on October 4, 2024 (digital) and October 25, 2024 (vinyl) through Dedstrange.

While Synthesizer is the album’s title, it’s also a physical entity, a synthesizer specifically made for the album — and a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl. The album’s cover art doubles as a circuit board and functional synth for curious and enterprising fans. “It’s pretty messed up, chaotic. But it feels really human,” the band’s Oliver Ackermann says. 

In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. The album celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community. 

The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The new lineup which featured Ackermann and his friends John and Sandra Fedowitz was especially inspiring for Ackermann. “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says. “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.” 

The album captures the band at a place of reinvention, where they take a carefully honed sound and approach and crack it wide open to gut its then reimagine it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also built a new instrument — the synthesizer at the core of the album’s overall sound. 

Reportedly, Synthesizer is arguably one of the band’s most live-sounding albums to date, accurately capturing the rawness and explosiveness of the band in a live setting, which is a fitting for a band that is best in a live setting, where the material takes on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. “We’re artists,” Ackermann says, “Going to shows and bringing that imperfect and beautiful DIY ethos is important.” 

In the lead-up to the album’s digital release on Friday, I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles:

  • “Disgust,” an eardrum shattering aural assault, anchored around explosive wailing feedback and distortion pedaled guitar lines paired with a relentles motorik groove featuring an arpeggiated bass line weaving in and out. But there’s subtle refinements, including some of the most rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly choruses and hooks I’ve heard from the band in some time. “‘Disgust’ is a song I wrote that was inspired by the way I used to perform ‘Got That Feeling,’ a song by my old band Skywave,” Ackermann explains. “There was a long riding open note on the bass that enabled me to play the whole part with my fist in the air.  I wrote this song just on open strings so it could be played with just one hand: dumb and fun.” 

  • “Bad Idea,” a track anchored around a simple yet hypnotically looping drum beat and woozily oscillating feedback-driven guitar lines. John Fedowitz’s plaintive yet punchy delivery weaves in and out of the stormy and soundscape, which helps to evoke the vacillating, almost nauseating unease of self-doubt. “Bad Idea” showcases the raw creativity of the band’s bassist John Fedowitz. “He came to the studio with a simple looping drum beat, thinking he didn’t have any good ideas — thus, this song was his ‘bad idea,’” the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann says. “We each penned some lines on paper, and he sang the ones that resonated. After a few instrumental passes, the recording was complete. The result is an innovative track born from spontaneous collaboration and a touch of self-doubt, turned into something uniquely captivating.” 

Synthesizer‘s latest single “Fear Of Transformation” is a snarling and scuzzy New Wave/goth punk synth-driven ripper featuring layers of oscillating synths, a relentless motorik groove, explosive bursts of feedback paired with the band’s long-held penchant for rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and Ackermann’s punchy delivery.

Thematically, the track focuses and delves into the struggle of overcoming internal barriers. As the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann explains, “Sometimes fear builds up and pins you in a cage. A conversation occurs in my head where I have to convince myself to just fucking do something to break out of it.” The song embodies that internal dialogue, capturing the battle between the compulsion to avoid fear and the push to confront it. And as a result, the song is a raw, uneasy and intense conversation with the devil within.

Created and directed by Chad Crawford Kinkle, the accompanying video for “Fear Of Transformation” follows a teenage boy, who sneaks out from his parents’ house to go to his first furry party — but he has a deep secret: he’s a werewolf. And he winds up going on a bloody rampage.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Emotional Response Records‘ Typical Girls compilation series derives its title from the legendary British all-female punk/post-punk outfit The Slits, who gleefully proclaimed “Who invented the ‘Typical Girl'” as they attacked gender and sexual stereotypes back in 1979. Obvious, if you’ve lived long enough and have gotten to know real, human women, you’d discover that the “typical girl” is a bunch of bullshit.

Inspired by the bold and pioneering women of punks and post-punk’s fist wave, the Typical Girls compilation series has proudly highlighted remarkable women making remarkable music. Volume 6 of the series features the finest female-led acts in contemporary punk, indie rock and darkwave from all over the planet. Volume 6 features tracks from:

Typical Girls Volume 6‘s latest single “Landscape Shift,” is by Memphis-based duo Optic Sink, an which features Nots‘ Natalie Hoffmann and Ben Bauermeister that specializes in a genre-defying sound that morphs from cold wave to psychedelia to distorted noise rock, often within the same song. Thematically and sonically, the duo fragment and reassemble sounds, concepts and verbal constructs while attempting to find beauty in the journey despite what the final resolution may be. 

“Landscape Shift” is a bracingly icy, minimalist track centered around skittering Casio synth-like beats, Hoffman’s deadpan delivery and woozy and pitchy synth oscillations. Sonically, the song evokes, the sense of having the rug yanked out from under you — and being in a brutal and mad, mad, mad world that makes no sense.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: ADULT. Releases an Uneasy and Cringe-Inducing Visual for Glitchy “Fools (We Are . . .)”

Throughout their 25 year history, acclaimed Detroit-based multimedia and electronic music production and artist duo ADULT. — the husband and wife team of Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus — have a sprawling catalog of material released through  Mute Records, Ghostly International, Thrill Jockey, Third Man Records and a list of other labels that has seen the duo obscure and blur lines between genres and styles in a cohesive fashion in the album format.

“but for this we wanted something that’s falling apart.” Becoming Undone, ADULT.’s ninth album reportedly sees the duo explicitly aiming for that goal, while simultaneously rejecting and reflecting the planetary discord that inspired and informed it. Written between November 2020 and April 2021, Miller and Kuperus kickstarted the creative process through additions to the rig: a vocal loop pedal for Kuperus and Roland percussion pads for Miller. They also reconnected with some of their earliest influences including Test Department and Throbbing Gristle’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats, which helped spark a series of fruitful and frenetic sessions, centered on themes of impermanence and dissonance. “We weren’t interested in melody or harmony since we didn’t see the world having that,” ADULT.’s Miller bluntly reasons.

While there are still plenty of the dance floor bangers the duo is known for, Becoming Undone is also informed by deep, personal loss: Kuperus’ father died during the height of the pandemic, just before the duo were about to start working on the album. As his hospice caretakers, she and Miller faced the banality finality, surrounded by objects drained of meaning — “the joy of having a body, but also the drudgery of having one,” they say.

The end result is an album that crackles with revulsion and dissent, and it seemingly equal parts exorcism and denunciation, centered around a breadth of vocal effects: Kuperus at times sounds alternately indignant and possessed, decrying the crimes, fears, and failings of a deluded, broken world. “Humans have always been pretty terrible,” Kuperus explains. “But every year the compromises of culture just accelerate.”

“Fools (We Are . . . ) is a glitchy and uneasy bit of EBM centered around stuttering beats, dense layers of arpeggiated synths paired with an unhinged and desperate vocal performance by Kuperus, who sings lyrics describing the sensation of being stuck in a seemingly endless and foolish loop of the same ol’ things while everything around them falls apart.

The recently released, self-created video for “Fools (We Are)” is a surrealist fever dream featuring a clown in a bathroom. Initially mischievous, we see the clown playing with the toilet paper and sanitary toilet seat covers, before she daintily pretends to use the toilet. The video turns increasingly surreal when the clown goes through the repetitive actions of having to use the bathroom — with all the toilets backing up and overflowing. It’s a menacing and unpleasant nightmare.

The video’s concept can trace its origins to an idea to combine Kuperus’s recurring performance of the clown/fool theme and a series of drawings that Miller had always waned to turn into a sculptural installation — The Golden Fountains. “Inspiration came from performances by Paul McCarthy’s ‘Painter’ to Bruce Nauman’s ‘Clown Torture.’ The sculptural work of Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ to Robert Gober’s ‘Two urinals (in 2 parts),’ and the album artwork of Fad Gadget’s ‘Incontinent.’” The duo explain. “The toilet is a universal motif, a shared human situation or in some cases shituation. We are all fools in one way or another, from war to waste to societal trends in ridiculous human behavior.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Pleasure Motel Releases a Sensual Visual for Thumping and Propulsive New Single

Dave Tudi is a Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who has been the creative mastermind behind a number of musical projects I’ve written about throughout the course of this site’s nine-plus year history. His latest project, Pleasure Motel is a minimalist synth pop project with a sleazy and menacing, industrial-leaning sound that recalls Ministry, early Nine Inch Nails and Suicide. 

Tudi’s latest Pleasure Motel single “Love Songs” continues a run of minimalist and propulsive tracks centered around arpeggiated synths, relentlessly thumping beats, an infectious hook and mantra-like lyrics delivered with an icy and ironic detachment. Unlike his previous released Pleasure Motel work, “Love Songs” may arguably be among the sleaziest and most debauched songs of his growing catalog. And if doesn’t stir lust deep in your loins and in the reptile brain, there’s something wrong with you. 

The recently released video is split between sensual, black and white stock footage of young couples making out and hooking up, and sleazy red-filtered footage of a sunglasses wearing Tudi singing the song’s lyrics. The visual manages to continue the project’s DIY ethos  — cheap, fast, sleazy.  

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Prettiest Eyes Pay Homage to John Carpenter in Visual for “Mr. President”

Over the past few years, I’ve written a bit about the Los Angeles-based synth punk act Prettiest Eyes, and as you may recall the act which is comprised of San Juan, Puerto Rico-born, Los Angeles, CA-based founding members Pachy Garcia (drums, vocals), and Marcos Rodriguez (bass, vocals) along with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico-born, Los Angeles, CA-based Paco Casanova (keys, synths vocals) can trace their origins back to San Juan, where the band’s founding members played in a number of local bands before relocating to Los Angeles to seriously pursue music. Casanova independently relocated to Los Angeles and joined the band to complete its lineup. And with the release of a couple of EPs and their first two albums,  2015’s Looks and last year’s Pools, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays firmly established a reputation for crafting sleazy and primal synth punk that throbs with a muscular insistence.  

The band’s third full-length album, the aptly titled Vol. 3 was released earlier this year through Castle Face Records, and album single “Nekrodisco” was a off-center, post apocalyptic ripper, seemingly inspired by Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO!-era DEVO. Interestingly, the album’s first single “Mr. President” is a minimalist track centered around howled mantra-like lyrics, industrial clang and clatter and a relentless motorik groove that seethes with uncertainty and menace. 

Directed and edited by Andrew Frescas, the recently released video further emphasizes the song’s murkiness and menace — and interestingly enough, finds the video’s director and the band collaborating to pay homage to John Carpenter’s They Live!

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Los Angeles Synth Punks Prettiest Eyes Release Sleazy VHS-Styled Visual for “Nekrodisco”

Comprised of San Juan, Puerto Rico-born, Los Angeles, CA-based Pachy Garcia (drums, vocals), San Juan Puerto Rico-born, Los Angeles-based Marcos Rodriguez (bass, vocals) and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico-born, Los Angeles, CA-based Paco Casanova (keys, synths vocals), the Los Angeles-based synth punk act Prettiest Eyes can trace their origins back to San Juan, where Garcia and Rodriguez played in a number of local bands before relocating to Los Angeles to seriously pursue music. Rodriguez relocated independently and joined the band — and within their first couple of years together, the act released a couple of EPs and a couple of albums, including 2015’s Looks and last year’s Pools. Both albums established the band’s growing reputation for crafting sleazy, primal, synth-based punk that throbs with a nasty, muscular insistence. 

The band’s third full-length album, the aptly titled Vol. 3 is slated for a June 24, 2019 release through Castle Face Records, and the album’s latest single “Nekrodisco” is a sleazy, cretinous stomp featuring  a muscular and insistent motorik-like, chugging groove, buzzing synths, Garcia’s vocal delivery, which alternates between shouted commands, whispers and howls paired with jagged hooks. And while the new track will further cement the Los Angeles-based synth punk act’s growing reputation for off-center, post-apocalyptic rippers, the track also manages to sound as though it were inspired by Q: Are We Men? A: We Are DEVO-era DEVO. Directed by Shane McKenzie, the recently released video is grainy, distorted VHS scuzz and snow, complete with the members of the band vamping and strutting throughout. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of founding member Natalie Hoffman (vocals, guitar, synth) with Charlotte Watson (drums) and Madison Farmer (bass), the Memphis, TN-based punk rock  act Nots quickly rose to national prominence with the release of their full-length debut, 2014’s We Are Nots, an effort that sonically drew from 60s garage rock, 77-era punk, thrash punk, No Wave and New Wave. 2017’s sophomore effort Cosmetic found the act expanding upon the sound that first caught the attention of the blogosphere and elsewhere, while lyrically commenting on sociopolitical concerns — in particular, the album focused on the rough and complicated edges of desire, deceit and distortions. and how they impact appearances and your sense of reality.

Last year, the band went through a significant lineup change with longtime keyboardist Alexandra Hoffman leaving the band. Understandably, the threat of the band losing Eastburn’s hammering synth progressions resulted in some growing pains for the band. But when the newly constituted trio arrived at Bunker Audio to recored material with their longtime friend, collaborator and engineer, Andrew McCalla, each member fully embracing the band’s new identity and approach. Rather than completely abandon the noisy synth attack aspect of their sound, Hoffman decided to take up synths. Slated for a May 10, 2019 release through their longtime label home Goner Records, the band’s forthcoming album, the aptly titled 3 should be seen and understood as something altogether different from its predecessors.”Once we really leaned into the space that being a three-piece afforded us, our writing started to make better sense and connect,” the band’s Natalie Hoffmann explains in press notes. “It made for a more interesting record than if we stayed comfortable and safe in the way we were writing.”

Reportedly through the entire album, the band explores themes of lost control, societal division and strife, the loss of reality in performance and how exhausting it can be to navigate the blurry lines between playing an actor/performer and playing human. And while continuing in a similar heady thematic space as its predecessor, the band’s forthcoming third album was recorded live — but with an intense, improvisational energy to the proceedings. 3’s first single, “Half-Painted House” is centered by a propulsive bass line, wild squealing feedback and synths, shouted lyrics, shouted lyrics and a mosh pit friendly hook — and while bearing a resemblance to Cosmetic, the hypnotic track may arguably be one of the darker songs they’ve released to date, as the song is “about being stuck in a haze of repetitive cycles while change proves to be both stubborn and elusive. The veneer of what it looks like to be ‘normally functioning’ during these tumultuous times is peeling to reveal a mind struggling to keep from turning against itself,” Hoffman explains in press notes.

Nots have confirmed a handful of SXSW sets and a couple of live shows. There will be more coming in the near future; but in the meantime, check out the live dates below.

Live Dates: 
 
3/14: Austin, TX – Levitation – Hotel Vegas – 5:45PM
3/15: Austin, TX – She Shreds – Saraha Lounge – 1:20PM
3/15: Austin, TX – Goner Records – Beerland – 1:00AM

3/29: Memphis, TN – Bar DKDC

5/25 – Memphis, TN – B-Side Bar (Album Release Show)
More To Come…