Psycho freak incel tunes, entry level normie stuff, or something in between

This week from Sam and Josiah

Sam’s lawyers have advised him not to weigh in on the great merch union-busting scandal that is rocking normie punks this week, so I’m tasked once again with writing the intro to the newsletter. There’s a new meme going around where people talk about “coworker music” in a way that is sometimes funny and more often reveals a lack of critical thought on the part of the person making the joke. But it’s really just a more popular version of the “cousin movie” discourse I started on the pod. I’m now realising it may have been a mistake to hide my astute cultural observations deep within 4-hour podcast episodes hosted by two middle-aged white guys who love talking about a band that sucks. But I did a “coworker music” post and was blessed with a barrage of bots who were replying with variations on the theme of “music is my life,” which is maybe the best possible outcome of this new bot-driven internet.

Anyway, here’s what we’re listening to this week.

Stay Inside “Bon Zs”

Sam: This song is good until the horns come in, at which point it becomes really good (I’m working on my hyperbole). While I do think we need a moratorium on songs being about you, or not about you, I think we need the opposite of a moratorium on horns in this kind of emo. Hornatorium? I wonder where Stay Inside landed on the merch discourse. I could probably check but I don’t want to know because I have that creeping feeling again. Lot of cool vocal stuff happening here!

Jos: Not super stoked that you started with this one, because it’s a band fronted by a Twitter mutual, and mutual pod guest Brynn (I went on Generation Loss to talk about Ghost World, Brynn went on 155 to talk about MxPx), and while I love the act of staying inside, there are context clues that suggest this could be Sam Sutherland music, and I may be forced to be cruel about it. Or I may have to do that thing where I pretend I am pleasantly surprised because I actually like it. And hope that it’s believable enough. Okay the album art is insanely cool. Okay I actually do like this, I like how it has that rhythm where you hit the snare before the kick… must be a name for that. I’ve somehow never learned about music despite talking about it for years. This sounds like 2007 emo-adjacent music, meaning it is Sam music but in more of a Matthew Good way than a “The Fest” way. And the horns are fantastic. It’s good alt rock. Do you believe me? I’m being for real.

Glitterer “I Want to Be Invisible”

Sam: I liked this more until I saw it was Anti when I went to find the video. Why is that? I feel like Josiah really poisoned me with some version of his brain where I know he has some Anti opinion that I’d initially be like “nah dude they do like Tom Waits albums” but then I’d go back and listen to those albums and be like “hold up…” Still, this is really good! The synth line makes me feel like I’m listening to the CFNY live-to-radio sets they used to broadcast Friday nights from the Phoenix. It conjures teenage feelings of people older and cooler than me dancing in ways I cannot comprehend. 

Jos: I think you’re supposed to type out Anti-, and I don’t know if I have an Anti- take other than I think it’s sooo funny that the cool Gen. X pop-punk monsters that run Epitaph and fund their lives with Ronnie Radke and Mannequin Pussy money also wanted that Starbucks CD rack money so started making Tom Waits albums, then slowly started bumping more pretentious bands like The Locust and Deafheaven onto the roster, so that it’s just kind of a slightly more bougie Epitaph. Anyway, I’ve never listened to Glitterer because I think the band Glitter is the best non-Chris Dadge music to ever come out of Calgary (aside from, perhaps, the output of Jean-Sebastien Audet, who just so happens to be on Anti-), and I feel so much pride in calling them my friends, that I can’t listen to whatever NPR Anti- band this is. Listen to Glitter instead.

Rory in early 20s “say those precious words to me.”

Jos: In my pursuit of pretentious wanker music, I’m getting afraid that I lack the context to know if I’m listening to psycho freak incel tunes, entry level normie stuff, or something in between. But I stumbled upon this Japanese producer Rory in early 20s, and I love the name so much that I had to dig in. From what I can gather, her earlier stuff is a little more intense breakcore, but the new album 絶滅セレモニー (“extinction ceremony”) is mostly little ambient snippets with hints of breakcore and drum ‘n bass. Call it /mu/ to study and chill to. 

Sam: There was a really awful Junior Battles tour that came right around the time that the teeny tiny wave we rode on our first album was very quickly and visibly receding where Justin couldn’t make it and we needed someone with a visa or a US passport to play bass, which left us with one person, Rory, who was in their early 20s. We didn’t practise enough but assumed it would be fine as long as they learned the songs… and then they spent the entire first show pretending their tuning pedal or patch cables or something weren’t working to disguise the fact that they didn’t know any of the songs. Had to spend a week like that, including a pretty cool New York show that, in my estimation, cemented our “good guys / bad band” reputation for all our friends there. My life has been blessed so sitting in the van after that show is one of my most depressing memories.

Yung Lean and Bladee “Enemy”

Jos: Yung Lean and Bladee released a surprise album called Psykos this week, and it’s crazy how good they constantly sound despite having such an annoying fanbase (including me) and so many albums constantly coming out. This one pairs their autotuned singing and mumbles and rapping with a lot of indie rock, with backing tracks that sound like everything from Modest Mouse and Alex G to Explosions in the Sky and even The XX. It’s really good.  

Sam: The only things I know about Bladee have I have learned here and from the occasional tracks Josiah has shared I still don’t understand exactly what a Bladee track entails. Are they British? The person I have had initially conjured in my mind looked kind of like umru because they also seem cool and have a neat name, but now I am picturing a People Just Do Nothing-type situation and refuse to learn more. I’m actually still thinking about that tour. I got a job pretty soon after that. Probably for the best.