While deciding what art is considered ‘important’ at a given time is undoubtedly subjective and changeable, it’s safe to say such a label is usually reserved for work of a certain size or stature. Which makes sense in a way, because how important can something be if it never breaks into the attention of wider audiences? The problem is, on the not-so-very-rare occasion, the answer to that question can be very. Extremely. Every so often here at WTD, be it through direct contact from an act or just lengthy explorations of Bandcamp, we stumble across artists who stand out for reasons that are hard to nail down. Special is probably the easiest word to use, though that’s not quite specific enough. These are bands who possess an urgent relevancy, whose music manages to capture something about our times in ways which aren’t easily described. Listening gives you that sort of sub-cellular, feel-it-in-the-marrow-of-your-bones sense of recognition you get when absorbing the very best art.
If my appreciation of Young Jesus’ last album, Grow/Decompose teetered on the edge of outright gushing, then it was only because the LA-based band are one such example, at least for me. While I’m not suggesting they deserve to be placed alongside the artistic giants of our day quite yet, there’s something about John Rossiter’s writing and vocals that captures the essence of today as I understand it. At once earnest and detached, devoted and deranged, his characters exist on the leading edge of our secular society, a wild, shapeless frontier whose inhabitants are paralysed by confusion yet subject to the age-old primitive brain-twitch that screams for transcendence.
Void as Lob is a new two-song EP from Rossiter and his updated line-up of Eric Shevrin (keys), Marcel Borbon (bass) and Kern Haug (drums), a release which demonstrates quite perfectly what we’re getting at with the whole important/relevant thing. The A-side ‘Baked Goods’ finds the narrator (and/or his brother, Steve) rising from a melancholic daze with a desperate logic, incoherent or too-coherent for us to grasp, demanding and willing and throwing himself wide open for the chance to raise above our meat-based animal existence. As on G / W‘s ‘Milo’, here the characters are delving deep into a pool of confusion with vigour, as if hoping they might break the surface on the other side and emerge into clarity.
“There is a logarithm entered backwards that acts to repeat
the right amount of existential crises from my brother Steve
the holiest of home made baked goods levitating in the street
the Steve-y cadence of losing control to access ways to see”
From here, it has a bit of everything: a scatter-gun approach to finding answers (talking to Angela and Aubergine and God and Eloise), a postmodern reality-as-an-image sort of deal (“in this drama it is raining you are standing the scene”), a maniacal, prophet-like conviction which may or may not be some sort of spiritual breakthrough (“I am the holiest of home made baked goods levitating in the street“), questions too vague/large for even the information age to explain (“tell me why, tell me why” etc.) and quasi-religious gestures that hint at something more (“lie / on / your / back / head / up / to / the / sun”). All in all, the song is a 21st century hit.
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The second track, ‘Hinges’, takes a different tack but is still very much a product of the aforementioned world. A gentle piano intro builds before giving way to an echoing silence, from which the song emerges delicate at first, with quiet guitar and cooed harmonies. Rossiter’s vocals enter with a soft croon, but soon the drums return and the guitars wheel away in frantic noise. After this breakdown, Rossiter returns with fervid sing-speak, an long-overdue eruption triggered by the internal pressure of decades-old neuroses, a hot thick plume of energy spewing from the neutral face he has worked so hard to maintain.
“I’m pretty sure I’m a kind of collection of things
scattered throughout the backyard
under the moon
pulling weirdo slow dance moves
maybe always losing it a little
I am ashamed to believe in myself!”
Young Jesus tell of a world where the capital-G God has been removed yet atheism remains a flimsy myth, its inhabitants left locked in a desperate search for something to believe in. Some manage to achieve a wide-eyed fanaticism in created powers, collapsing their existential worries into a bright white point, while others are doomed to shuffle around the fractured world, detached and ennui-filled, looking for themselves in fragments of televisual dreams.
Void as Lob is out today via the Young Jesus Bandcamp page, or on tape from Funeral Sounds. The band are about to head out on a pretty extensive tour (see below), sharing dates with Pope (marked with *) and Alaska (^), and will be bringing along a zine/experimental tape called Conceptual Beach in addition to the EP.
5/21 — Los Angeles @ The Smell
5/28 — San Diego @ Che Cafe
5/29 — Fullerton @ Intimate Warehouse
5/30 — Tucson @ Gary’s Place
5/31 — El Paso @ Boomtown
6/1 — Denton @ Rubber Gloves
6/2 — San Antonio @ Imagine Books and Records
6/3 — Austin @ Cheer Up Charlies
6/4 — Houston @ TBA
6/5 — Lafayette @ Wild Salmon *
6/6 — New Orleans @ Heavens Gate *
6/8 — Nashville @ Two Boots *
6/9 — Raleigh, NC @ Slim’s Downtown *
6/10 — Washington, DC @ Everglades *
6/11 — York, PA @ Skid Row Garage *
6/12 — Philadelphia, PA @ TBA *
6/13 — NYC @ Aviv w/ Very Fresh, Spit, Pope
6/14 — Providence, RI @ Aurora *
6/15 — NYC @ Silent Barn *
6/16 — Boston @ Ol Yeller *
6/18 — Columbus, OH @ Misfit Manor *
6/20 — Chicago @ Subterranean *
6/21 — Madison, WI @ Mickeys *
6/22 — Rock Island @ Rozz Tox *
6/23-25 — Yorkville, IL @ Summer Solstice Fest
6/26 — Kansas City @ House Show ^
6/27 — Denver @ Juice Church ^
6/28 — Albuquerque @ Dog House ^
6/30 — Las Vegas @ The Warehouse ^
6/01 — Los Angeles @ Roach Motel ^