Today, we woke up at four in the morning with the instant acceptance that we’d be calling in sick at our day job as an admin assistant. It’s an easy enough job to get through of course, even if you’re not feeling particularly well, but it’s not as simple when your symptoms are numbness and dissociation.
From a very young age, we’ve always been told not to take on the problems of others – not necessarily to be opposed to empathy, but that we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others. It’s true, to an extent. Hypothetically, the more of something there is, the more there is to go around, right?
But for one reason or another, today we can’t help but ponder how that’s not really the way it works. In fact, when you consider the distribution of resources around the world, one could even go so far as to say it’s a classist fallacy only employed by someone perceiving themselves as higher and trying to bring order to whatever they consider lower.
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Sure, the more change you have in your pocket, the more you can give to someone that doesn’t have it, but you don’t need any change at all to pick someone up after they fall down. You would think that’d be an instinct, even if the person picking the other one up is doing worse than the person that fell down. Yet assuming this can be just as problematic, and often leads to “observer effect,” where one assumes that surely, someone else will intervene. Surely, someone else will do the thing we all think need to be done. But when we’re all the observer, waiting to someone else to step in, the gap closes and we normalize the situation. Passively. Silently. In a way we can tell ourselves, “no, we didn’t,” or at least try, with the ones successfully able to convince themselves of this going on to become the most dangerous among us, willing to do anything to preserve themselves as a willing cog in the machine.
So today we said “fuck it,” and decided to sit with those feelings and let them sink in, maybe let them inspire us in some way. What does it mean that we’re witnessing things like genocide, fascism, and technocratic theosophy on a global scale? What does it mean when we talk about our values and make donations in the face of what feels like real danger, but it doesn’t feel like we’re doing enough? What does it mean if there’s little we can do, and is that even true? Are we afraid of the work or the consequences? We don’t know, and it’s hard to admit.
“The revolution will not be televised,” and all that. It feels like so much of the ennui stems from Gil Scot-Heron’s famously misunderstood prophecy, but we don’t wanna give ourselves too much credit. Sometimes it feels like we don’t even know what we don’t know, and like the more you know, the less you know at the same time… You know?
While we stew on it, it just so happens that we’ve also got a lot of music in the inbox, so we said “fuck it” again – music always picks us up when we’re down, and there’s some pretty great stuff here from Alpha Male Tea Party, The Redneck Manifesto, NYOS, This HOLY Rodeo! and many more. Also yes, we get these… ruminations are becoming somewhat of a theme for the Tuesday Music Dumps, which has been more or less unintentional, but ‘write what you know,’ they say. They don’t call ’em dumps for nothing. If you’re still reading this, many, many thanks. We’re not sure if it’s because you love emotional trauma dumping or the quality of the music we share, but that site stats have been way, way up for the last couple months and we really do appreciate it.
Get yourself some new tunes below and hang in there:
Alpha Male Tea Party – “A Terrible Day to Have Eyes”
Hot on the heels of lead single “Battle Crab,” AMTP drop a second banger, with a twist – despite the funny title, the song is actually pretty messed up and emotional. Even so, we can’t wait to hear Reptilian Brain in it’s entirety, with the the band’s now consistent vocals showing off an even more complex side of the band.
The Redneck Manifesto – “Off the Hook”
When we first heard the album name, we thought, “oh, there’s a name…” But considering the propulsive but measured pace of “Off the Hook” , we’d say that’s a word that combines “groovy” with “pushy,” almost sounding like the indie in-between days of old Foals.
NYOS – “Get Ready”
NYOS is really one of those difficult to define bands that straddles a more mystical line between math rock and post-rock. They’ve always juggled the two in exciting ways, always pushing up, down, and sideways to create new dynamics – also, this song is just the intro, so we can’t wait to hear Growl all the way through.
Stick Men – “Brutal”
Stick Men, essentially a supergroup of King Crimson greats, are teasing what sounds like their most weirdest record yet, but also their most accessible? We’ll have to see.
Challenger Deep – Point of No Return
The metallic math rockers are back, and likely with their most focused and explosive effort yet. There’s as much shred on display as their is heart, and trust us – there’s a ton.
This HOLY Rodeo! – presents: this HOLY rodeo!’s first EXTENDED PLAY, presented by this HOLY rodeo! (a “this HOLY rodeo!” presentation)!
We don’t know how and we don’t know when, but soon, these lads are going to go viral, or pop off, or whatever phrase is used these days to convey that their boundless creativity and humor is finally met with similar amounts of success. This band is like Cardiacs meets The Pieces of Shit! and we are all about it.
God Alone. – “The Beep Test”
This band has always been on fire, but they way they sidestepped heaviness the last couple of records with math rock and experimental textures gives them a completely different edge, and this edge continues to evolves with “The Beep Test,” one of our favorites singles of the summer. Their new album is due out this October – we’ll keep you posted for sure.
TARIFFS – Goldentone Demos
Yes, straight away – that is a solid band name. But also semi-accurate, because this instrumental post-rock meets math rock keeps changing on us, rarely repeating itself while staying forward-focused. In this context, that’s exactly how we like it.
Gayt – Infinite Anything
This saucy math rock LP has some serious heat to it, with both drum and guitars that beg you to come back not just because of their complexity, but how they dance around each other and beneath the ethereal vocals.
Mold! – III
Miami’s Mold! has always been a refreshing breath of fresh air when it comes to indie and psych rock, and the last couple of albums they’ve incorporated things like lo-fi, punk, post-hardcore, and ambient, and this joyous sense experimentalism comes to a thrilling head on III.
Our Sun Becomes A White Dwarf – Marea / Abismo
This dense nugget of math rock meets punk rock will hit the sweet spot for anyone looking for something fast, crunchy, and melodic. Count us in. Way in.
Isopod Collection – S/T
Vaguely futuristic, electro-tinged emo out of the UK with lots of math rock and massive drum sounds? Absolutely, and you need to hear it – even if there are some funny moments with anime vocals, as a whole, this collection rocks hard.
Mister Yparra – Patrones Del Silencio
This vaguely psych rock and indie meets post-rock gem out of Peru is a ton of fun, and feels like it was fun to make. It also has a lot of space for a matter of two tracks, so dig in.
cotoba – form of tongue
Seoul’s jazzy math rock rising stars have made a lot of buzz recently with their covers, but on this EP they show off how competent they are when it comes to writing energetic cuts of their own.
ante – Beyond the Ages
This Japanese math rock act keeps up with a lot of the brisk, articulate, jazz sounds you would expect from the region, but also show off some punk and midwest emo influences that keep the songs engaging, and occasionally, even surprising.
cinema staff – PLASTIC YOUTH
Following up with another Japanese band, cinema staff make good on their cinematic name with prominent soaring vocals and maximalist, full-force instrumentation that shreds, but also gives you room to breathe.
Aren’t We Amphibians – “Dunce Hat”
This jumpy-in-a-good-way dose of Southern California pop-punk meets Midwest Emo has us fondly remembering the days we first discovered bands like Tiny Moving Parts, but AWA has a dash more influences from bands like Senses Fail and Taking Back Sunday.
Primaries – Nothing’s Wrong
This colossal Texas band has a sound that reminds us of Alpha Male Tea Party and Iran Iran, if they were American. Which almost sounds like an insult, but we mean it as anything but – at this rate, we’ll take as much of that as we can get, and this is genuinely high-tier stuff.
my point of you – This is My First Heist
Another Texas band, this one out of Denton, my point of you deliver a kind of frayed, frazzled, but fully capable brand of emo. It might be their first heist, but hopefully not their last.
Heliconia – Aperture
This math rock a la <>CHON act out of Yogyakarta, India has some pretty sweet chops, but they spice it up with a sense of vision and grounded-ness without lowering the BPM’s to post-rock territory.
im dead – your dead
This half magic, half piss post-hardcore project feels like the musical descendant of McKlusky and Future of the Left but in the form of a time-traveling wizard that was able to make it back from the nuclear wasteland future those bands wrote about.
Bursting – S/T
This one came as a tip from William Covert recently, and we can see why – the band’s angular yet massive brand of post-hardcore is right up our alley, reminding us of something between Exotic Animal Petting Zoo, Failure, and Faraquet.
Fisheye – Bread for Younger
This fever dream of psychedelic math rock and emo out of Melbourne sounds delirious at times, but we like the way it drives – it almost reminds us of the kind of post-punk drawls you hear coming out of Chicago and St. Louis, but with classic Aussie flavor and depth.
Wippy Bonstack – Tactile Demons
This delightfully disorienting stab of progressive jazz and math comes courtesy of the guitar player from Wyxz, and you can hear it on the Yowie-meets-Holdsworth cacophony. Which in case it wasn’t clear, is a compliment.
Sewnshut – S/T
This Winnipeg metalcore-meets-mathcore act featuring Fox Lake guitarist Zach Allard has a highly infectious sound thanks to alternate tunings, vicious vocals, and soaring song structures. The EP is currently voted as most likely to have you headbanging at your desk out of all the band’s of today’s dump.
Irk – “Toothache in Prison”
This gruesome, low-end frenzy of mathematical noise rock sounds like glassjaw-meets-Uniform-and-Unsane, which as you might imagine, makes for a barely stable but highly entertaining thrill ride.
Abrupt Decay – The Illusion of Our Choice
This violently cathartic slice of hardcore noise rock is, in a word, explosive. It also checks a number go boxes: whether you’re into the modern fury of Turian and The Armed, the brain-twisting passages of Car Bomb and Frontierer, or miss the days of Myspace DGAF-isms a la Dr. Acula andiwrestledabearonce, all of that is here.
Car Bomb – Tiles Whisper Dreams
Speaking of things like Car Bomb and explosive music, the NY mathcore legends dropped their first EP, and in the space of three songs it takes the progressive scope of Mordial and weave it into some of their heaviest, most concise tunes yet.
No Edits – No Signals Worth Sending: Live From ExEx Audio
Let’s close things up with a triple-round of excellent live albums, starting with Seattle’s post-hardcore groovers No Edits. The band sounds great here on the three presented tracks, closing with an epic performance of our favorite song off of We All End Up the Same.
Elephant Gym – Live in THE WORLD
This phenomenal live mix and performance from Elephant Gym is both a product of incredible live engineering and incredible performance. You can hear that so much of it is raw, and yet expertly balanced – it’s been a long, long time since we were this thrilled with a live mix.
Space Blood – Live at Cobra Lounge, Chicago
Our own William Covert’s borderline slapstick math rock performance art duo have finally released their live album, and of course, we love each of it’s bizarre, unguessable performances. But we’re holding out on a full length feature film from the guys, or maybe a TV show.
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