BATHS
Comfort can be a crutch or a conduit for a creative breakthrough. For Baths, it’s led to a level of artistic confidence and stability that’s allowed him to produce his finest work. Enter Romaplasm, a profoundly emotional record steeped in the at-home obsessions of LA’s Will Wiesenfeld.
“I’m not as emotive with real world things as I am when I’m neck deep in anime, video games, books or comics…” Baths says. “I wanted to be honest with myself that this is where my heart lies and where I get the most emotion out of life. I wanted a record that mirrors those emotions but in an indirect way.”
In his own singular style, Baths has created his own post-modern take on Romanticism. Romaplasm bears a similar emphasis on emotion and individualism. You can see the hallmarks of the movement’s stress on awe—and like many of the great Romantic artists, he confronts the gnawing chaos of life with a focus on beauty and the sublime. As the German painter, Caspar David Friedrich once affirmed: the artist’s feeling is his law.
“That’s where my head is at right now,” Baths says. “Anime and fantasy overdoes that too. It’s about taking ideas as far as you can even if they don’t work out. I’m trying to capture feelings that might be more obscure when translated to music, but always seem to resonate with me.”
For as long as Will Wiesenfeld has been Baths, he’s been trafficking in perfect—or, more often and more interestingly—near-perfect pieces of pop. After attending Hamilton High School’s vaunted music academy, the classically trained singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, first emerged in 2009, after a stint as [Post-Foetus] and the birth of another, still-active project known as Geotic.
His music, which merged the glitchy, punishing gloom of L.A.’s beat scene with sunnier melodies and vocals that often drifted into falsetto, was an instant sensation. It was as experimental as it was comforting, a warm blanket made from the rarest linens. Publications like Pitchfork heaped praise on his debut album, 2010’s Cerulean, which codified the sound; Obsidian, which followed three years later, in part chronicled Wiesenfeld’s recovery from a ghastly illness, and was even more well-received.
Romaplasm exists in the emotional crevices that are left unexplored in polite company or at stilted cocktail parties. Less outwardly grim than the darker half of Obsidian—but twice as bittersweet—this LP reimagines approachable pop songs as pieces of scaffolding that can be lived in, expanded and retracted, or torn down entirely.
The opener “Yeoman” could slide into Top 40 radio rotation, except for how tactilely you feel each component part, like Baths is constructing the record right in front of you, in real time; “Superstructure” marries an earnest and straightforward vocal to a track that’s glitchy and propulsive and could soundtrack the climax of a gritty art film.
As with any artist who toys with name and identity, Wiesenfeld’s nods to a life that is truly personal (rather than persona) are given extra weight, extra attention. When he sings, on “Human Bog,” “Queer in a way that’s failed me / I’m not enough of anything,” it’s dripping with the sort of despair that’s won only through years of lived experience. Wiesenfeld is an artist who, through his work as Geotic, has carefully deconstructed songwriting into its basest parts; as Baths on Romaplasm, he reassembles the pieces of his musical and personal lives in the most piercing ways imaginable.
As always, Baths is unafraid to run counter to his surroundings: delicate when others are posturing, gripping and visceral where others drift into the digital morass. But this record is not about contrarianism, or about rejecting the status quo. It’s about centering the things that are important to you, and doing so in the most honest way possible, even if that means fucking things up a bit along the way.
“In making this record, I wanted to be as self indulgent as possible. To not think too hard about what I was doing stylistically as much as honing in on what material felt inspired and felt really good to make,” Baths says. “Those were the only things that I wanted to pursue.”
NO JOY
Stop trying to define No Joy. In six years, the noisy Montreal quartet has released a compelling and critically acclaimed discography and shared the stage with some of this decade’s most influential acts. Yet, no one can quite figure this band out.
Tagging No Joy as “shimmery infectious dream pop” doesn’t work since the band’s live shows are so brutal that it has them sharing the stage with bands like Deafheaven and Fucked Up. Classifying them as“doom shoegaze” doesn't work either since the band has created records so complex and sonically mature they transcend genres. Nostalgic yet new, loud yet quiet; No Joy’s conflicting reputation cannot be classified because it’s in constant evolution.
This year, No Joy will be releasing a series of EPs as a creative "fuck you" to everyone who told them they need to play quieter, needed to show their faces more onstage, who told them they should only include the girls in the press photos; pigeonholing No Joy won’t make them any easier to understand. This is no stopgap; this is a series of statements from a band that clearly are trying to defy definition. The Drool Sucker EP (via Topshelf) is the first of the series.
Drool Sucker was recorded quickly in a barn in rural Ontario with Graham Walsh (Viet Cong, Metz, Alvvays) and Brian Borcherdt, who respectively make up the band Holy Fuck. This is the most electric No Joy has sounded, the energy from their live shows transcending into the recordings. Singer Jasamine White-Gluz is not only exploring her range vocally, but these are some of the most emotive performances to date.
No Joy's debut album, Ghost Blonde, was one of the standouts of the shoegaze revival in 2010. 2013’s sophomore release, Wait to Pleasure, proved to be their sonic breakout success, while last year's More Faithful solidified No Joy as one of the genre's strongest innovators. Throughout all of these major releases (as well as their collection of EPs and singles) it's almost as if No Joy want to keep you guessing.
$20 at the door. Ages 18-20 by advance ticket only.
No photo/video allowed. Advance ticket sales end one hour before doors.
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