Uneasy Listening Music: An Important Message from ADULT.

Mindless packs, erroneous folklore, misguided shepherds, aggressive incompetence, and real life horrors blend together into this, our fourth album. Why Bother? Some will read this title, sigh and agree, while others will read the title and react with reactionary resentment and countless reasons why one should bother. A test? Why Bother? Well, if you've got a minute to spare, we'll tell you exactly why you should care. Uneasy listening music for uneasy times. A time to contextualize "folk" for our intent and advocate the importance of being folk. Folklore defines a distinctive culture, the common people, real people. Folk suggests a culture content to operate "outside"; the place where we are most at ease. With that explanation, this must be a folk record, but realistically it would probably be that kind of "folk" that conjures up images of "Deliverance", "Motel Hell's" Farmer Vincent or Leatherface's family life.

Uncomfortable, restless, disturbed, perturbed, awkward and anxious. "Why Bother?" hopes to spread the word of weird... Abnormal motivations, ready and willing. Trying to tilt the balance of over-stimulation. What is the next step if VIDEODROME is not the endgame itself? Cataloging, categorizing, sterilizing, co-opting and over-hype marketing have created a social smothering and mass indolence. If you aren't inclined to vomit, than you will probably feel worse when exposed to our brand of folk.

"Why Bother?" will be released March 20th.
Click the link above to read on, view tracklist and cover art.

[I'm kinda surprised we got this before Pitchfork... perhaps they just didn't 'bother'?]



Speaking of new, uneasy releases: Skinny Puppy's 13th studio album Mythmaker was released today. Referencing the VIVIsect VI era at times (read: less guitars, more synth doom) and featuring Mark Walk's intricate production skills (which were the highlight of their most recent work,) "Mythmaker" can be seen as both a return to form and a stride forward. Check out a little sample clip here.

[photo from Cyberoptix]

edit: I've been listening to Mythmaker for the better part of the day. "politikiL" is the stand-out track for me, reckoning some of the best moments of Rabies, followed by the quite pretty "jaHer" and the spazzy "lestiduZ" and "ugLi" (which I presume Otto Von Schirach had a latex gloved hand in.) The vocoder-laden title track "magnishift" is cheesy at times, but that's part of why we love them. It's like calling Anthony Rother cheesy. Derrr. "haZe," on the other hand, takes the melodrama a bit too far for my taste, and "pedafly" totally loses it for me with the Manson-esque bang bang guitars.

As much as part of me would love to hear them pick up from 1989, that's selfish and unrealistic as a fan. It's also counter-intuitive, considering that Skinny Puppy's music has always pushed and pulled the very limits of technology. The songs on Mythmaker morph and develop like organisms - blooming, mutating and returning to the digital ether in a storm of hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces of shrapnel. Even if you don't like the music at all (and it's not everyone's cup of tea,) the production detail is jaw dropping - which should be no surpise, as they've been perfecting the art for 25 years, and hundreds (thousands?) of imitators must be on to something.