Based in New York, experimental duo Wreck and Reference make an undefinable brand of music that owes debts to punk, noise rock and electronic music but refuses to pay up, instead fleeing to some post-genre hinterland to work outside of such worries. Their latest record, Absolute Still Life, out now via The Flenser, finds them as ambitious and strange as ever, probing into the dark and bizarre realities of life in the digital age.
The result is record strung between chaos and order, the electronic aspects kicking into patterns that nonetheless possess and unhinged edge. As such, the songs serve as the perfect encapsulation of a system gone haywire, a malfunctioning machine that does not break down but instead proliferates into absurd territories, creating a world that could be a comedy or a horror but, ultimately, is just our own.
We managed to ask Ignat and Felix a few questions about the album, so read on below.
Thanks for taking the time to speak with us. How are the days in the aftermath of releasing a new record?
Ignat: I can have some relief now. Not worry about posting stuff on social media as much. Not cranking out email interviews at breakneck speeds. The album release cycle is stupid. Admittedly, if you want anyone to listen to your music, you have to work for their attention, but that’s not why we do music. It’s a small sacrifice to make so we can go back to writing and recording and releasing. So, I’m mostly looking forward to that.
Felix: We tried to avoid the whole racket by just paying some people off the dark web to hack our tracks into some top Spotify playlists, but they just took our bitcoins and ran. Still, it’s nice to have anyone at all hear our work and connect with it, so worth all the hassle in the end. We’re really looking forward to playing more live shows as well.
If anything could be said to define the Wreck and Reference style it is its very refusal to adopt one, shape-shifting from record to record and burning the concept of genre. Is this fluidity and tendency to change a conscious effort on your part, or merely a natural side effect of how you work or see the world?
Ignat: I think it’s funny that everyone always asks this but no one bothers asking bands why they bothered getting out of bed to make the same record over and over. I like surprising myself when I write, like, can you get something out of yourself that you didn’t know was there? I’m sure some in the audience hate that. You spend a lot of time acclimating yourself to an artist, adapting yourself to a world where cucumbers are green and the sky is blue. Then they do something stupid and there’s an annoying inconsistency in the facade of reality that you have to expend effort smoothing out.
More specifically, I wonder if you could talk a little more about why an electronic direction felt right now? For me, there’s something digital, computerised about the whole experience that goes way beyond sound. Like the way the opening track just starts right away, as though you’re just tuning in to something that’s been playing all the time. It’s overwhelming in that way, because not only is it an unsettling, surreal place but it’s far bigger than you know.
Felix: We didn’t discuss this much beyond the decision to do all electronic drums on this one. What you’re describing sounds very much like the Internet, or at least certain corners of it. Log on and get 1000 gallons of sewage hosed directly into your eyes. But then you just scroll a little and forget about it all. It’s real and unreal and unrelenting and instantly avoidable all at once.
I think there’s a tendency for the weirder, heavier stuff to push into other worlds, be it for metaphorical use or plain old escapism, but for all of the alien imagery and distorted sounds, I came away from your record convinced that it’s a slice of realism. Do you have any thoughts on the realism/escapism divide? Is Absolute Still Life set in our world?
Felix: I think your read is correct, but I’ve never cared much for escapism. Fantasy, sci-fi, horror, superheroes, etc. all do very little for me. They all try to say something about reality, but they feel the need to spectacularize it. Just give it to me straight.
Ignat: We are big into realism, the hyper-human, the minutia. Although, abstractions can be nice because they lend a more poetic scene. There’s some balance to strike there.
I have to ask about the title and cover. What does it mean to you? I’m seeing a horror story of late capitalism, where even the finest objects, the carrots dangled in front of us, are mouldering and rancid.
Felix: A horror story about late capitalism seems redundant, no? Are people writing fairy tales about late capitalism? There is unparalleled splendor in this world and there is bottomless misery and abjection as well and all of it is rotting.
Ignat: Someone, and I would guess even a good number of someones, is probably out there writing fairy tales about capitalism. Capitalism hardly needs a fairy tale. It’s a system that depends on people being willing to exalt the worst parts of themselves, to become removed from an interconnected human reality, into a purely selfish one. Raw human baseness. That seems incredibly real and in no need of metaphor.
I’m interested in the use of cynicism in art. I read an interview with Joe Casey of Protomartyr where he wrestled with the tension being a songwriter and a cynic, someone disillusioned with everything yet driven to get up on stage and sing about it. Do you think there is some degree of hope in the very act of creating and performing art, however cynical that might be? Or is it just another layer of irony?
Felix: I don’t really understand this tension, unless you actually expect the songs you write and perform to have any meaning or effect. And recognizing that it won’t isn’t really an excuse not to do it. In any case, you should only be writing songs if you are compelled to do so, not as a means to some end. If you try to push something through your writing, the product is no longer a song, it’s a jingle.
Ignat: I’m not sure how much of a say we have in any of that.
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Finally, we always ask this, but could you name four or five artists you think we should know about, however old, new, popular or obscure?
Felix: The only artist anyone should be listening to for at least the remainder of the year is David Berman. Pausing to listen to the new Richard Dawson would be acceptable.
Ignat: I liked the new Body Meat record. The Body and Uniform collaboration seems like it’s going to be a heavy ripper. Show Me The Body was good too. If your band name doesn’t have the word body in it, I am not interested.ᐧ
Absolute Still Life is out now via The Flenser and you can get it from the Wreck and Reference Bandcamp page.
