Week of 12/16: Cassandra Jenkins, Negative Approach, Armand Hammer, Q and Not U
Eric gives us an overview on '(An Overview On) An Overview On,' Eli shows his ass about '80s hardcore, Michael doesn't know why he loves Armand Hammer, and Miranda spells out her affinity for a band.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him), Eric Bennett (they/them), Michael Brooks (he/him) and Miranda Reinert (she/her). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. On Substack, we’re also a weekly roundup of songs. Our format is simple: each of our four hosts picks a song they love and writes about it. There will be one free post every week, and more at the end of every month for paid subscribers. For the sake of your wallet, don’t start a paid subscription on Substack. Instead, sign up at the 2$ tier or higher on Patreon and we will gift you a subscription.
Cassandra Jenkins - “Hard Drive (security guard)”
Eric Bennett:
As Cassandra Jenkins’ “Hard Drive” gets into gear, she speaks the line “A security guard stopped me to offer an overview on phenomenal nature.” We’re given some details about this security guard, about her pink lipstick, her Queens accent, and her knowledge of theories on sculpture. But she’s a character in this world Jenkins is drawing us into, just one facet of the broader space.
Last month, an album was released as a companion to An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. The aptly, and longwindedly titled, (An Overview on) An Overview on Phenomenal Nature is full of first drafts, demos, instrumentals, as well as new looks into the creation of this spellbinding record. There’s an entirely new song and audio of a phone call from a man Jenkins ostensibly knows who’s become incarcerated in Garza county, Texas. These threads seem to be ones not pulled as far within the record, but we get to see them more clearly here.
The last song on the record is titled “Hard Drive (security guard)” and features the song's signature instrumental, plus an extended version of our nameless speaker's monologue. She goes off on tangents, and some of what she’s saying goes over my head, but it’s extremely pleasant just listening to her speak over this lilting, piano-based production. It adds a whole new dimension to what’s sitting just out of view within the already massive world that “Hard Drive” creates.
Negative Approach - “Can’t Tell No One”
Eli Enis:
I’ve been spending some time lately trying to better familiarize myself with quintessential ‘80s hardcore. When I got into punk music as a young teen, the ‘80s weren’t a decade that interested me. It was my parent’s decade of punk and indie music, and since I grew up in an era where bands like Blink-182, Fall Out Boy and Green Day plastered the radio, my sensibilities leaned toward punk that was harder than the late-’70s stuff and the new-wave of the ‘80s, but catchier, bouncier and better produced than ‘80s hardcore and even ‘80s pop-punk bands like The Descendants and Bad Religion. The ‘90s were more my speed, and then the 2000s, and by the time music was all I cared about, I was way more interested in what was happening around me (era-wise, not really geography-wise, as there wasn’t much happening in Rochester, NY at the time) than what had happened in decades prior.
Therefore, my high-school education of hardcore punk didn’t go much beyond some cursory Bad Brains and Minor Threat listening — and the Inside Out 7-inch because I heard Zack de la Rocha was on it. The thing that actually brought me into hardcore proper as a 20-year-old (I was into a bit of Hatebreed and Terror in high-school, but mostly just shit like Stick to Your Guns) was the incomparable energy of the hardcore live environment, so naturally, I wanted to listen to bands that I could actually see live and be able to talk about with people in the Albany music scene. I never really had a friend who was a hardcore kid, just friends who casually liked the genre even less than I did, so I didn’t have any personal guide to take me through the classics. And if someone did try to force me to listen to Black Flag and Agnostic Front and Guerilla Biscuits when I was that age, then I wouldn’t have been interested because I came into hardcore through metal (metalcore, to be precise) and most of the hardcore I first fell in love with was closer to Pantera and Earth Crisis than the fast shit from the ‘80s.
But as I’ve gotten way back into hardcore within the last year (possibly more into it now than I ever was) after about four years of semi-paying attention to what was happening, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to do my due diligence play catch-up. It hasn’t been easy because 1) nearly every release from the ‘80s is heralded as a monumental achievement by some loudmouth online, so skipping over something feels like I’m potentially leaving a gaping hole, so this is a timely process. And 2) as much as I can appreciate most of the shit from that decade way better now than I ever did as a 20-year-old, I still would much rather listen to some knuckle-beating metallic hardcore shit from the 2000s or 2010s. I just love heavy, big-boy hardcore that most people who love the ‘80s shit think is wack, so I pretty much have to train my ear to find enjoyment in musical elements that aren’t savage mosh parts and ferocious one-liners.
Most of the New York shit has always been my cup of tea even when I wasn’t actively listening to it (Cro-Mags, Leeway, Sick of It All, Bad Brains, etc.) but getting into Negative Approach has been a journey. This is a band that I’ve heard people speak about in glowing terms for years and it just never made sense to me, until earlier this week. Now I’m fucking hooked, holy shit. I think the biggest generational divide between hardcore of the ‘80s and stuff of the mid-’90s til now is the production. Frankly, even if the ‘84 riff pounds, it’s gonna sound like tin-can tuna. That makes me sound like I’m one of those millennial dipshits who thinks black and white movies are inherently bad because of their lack of color, which I’m certainly not. I can appreciate old-ass things, and I think holding art to the standards of the present time (sonically, lyrically, emotionally) is a lazy, boring way to engage with creativity.
But when it comes to hardcore — a genre that’s all physical feeling, it’s all about how it makes my blood boil now, it’s all about getting me through my workout or making me seriously consider travelling to some festival states away so I can get brain damage in the pit because the shit is just so fucking heavy how could I not? — I have different standards for what I find appealing. I’ve been able to shed a lot of that over the last year because I’m not going to shows anyways and I’m listening to all of this shit purely for myself, as I still don’t really have any friends I talk hardcore with. So I’ve almost been able to inspect these records as historical documents and not engage with them as I would, say, a Knocked Loose album, or whatever. Because I do think the extreme reverence that hardcore has for its origins is incredibly cool and unique, and I want to respect the lineage and fit all the puzzle pieces together.
That’s legitimately a lifelong project, but I want to get there, so I’m happy to announce that I now really fucking love Negative Approach. Like, holy shit, I get it. I get it. I wanted to stand up from my desk yesterday and throw my candle through my window. I wanted to go get drunk under a bridge and howl at the moon. I finally understand the feeling of this music and recognize, sonically, what makes this band such a shooting star within the genre’s 40-year lifespan. I’ve never heard any other band that sounds quite like this, and we probably never will. I’ve been running back the 7-inch and the LP for the last few days and I don’t plan on stopping, but so far, as I can imagine was the case for most newcomers, “Can’t Tell No One” is the one. That’s obvious. That’s not a novel pick, but if there are any hardcore snobs who’ve read this far and think they’re getting one over on me by scoffing to yourself about how basic it is to herald that song, you can’t touch me because I just spent four paragraphs being more vulnerable than a damn Sparse Indie-Folk Songwriter by revealing to the world that I never really gave a shit about ‘80s hardcore. I’m untouchable. I’ve also been listening to “Can’t Tell No One” on repeat for the last few days, and as I’m sure you know because you, at one time, harnessed that song’s invincibility that pierces the skin upon that initial “one, two, three, four,” shoots through your veins during the next two crashing measures, and turns you into a frothing fiend by the time John Brannon starts barking, “People try to tell me / What they think is right for me.”
So here’s my message to anyone who thinks I’m a poser for having the gall to write about hardcore for seven years despite not getting into Negative Approach until I’m 27. “Think there's some value / To what they got to say / But I won't listen to them.”
Earl Sweatshirt - “Tabula Rasa” (feat. Armand Hammer)
Michael Brooks:
After dropping “2010” last month, Earl Sweatshirt has returned with a new track called “Tabula Rasa” (feat. Armand Hammer) and he also announced a new project called Sick! which comes out in January, which is pretty fucking sick. Just the other day, I was talking with my friend and co-host Eli about insular rap and I explained that even though the majority of stuff that I hear in this realm is technically good (MIKE, Ka, etc.) I would still much rather listen to a flawed Duke Deuce mixtape brimming with energy any day of the week. As recently as 2019, I was able to listen and actually spend time with what felt like hundreds of Griselda albums every couple of months, ingesting those sluggish loops without a single snare drum in sight, but unfortunately I started to burn myself out on that type of stuff.
Earl and Armand Hammer both exist in this world but for some reason their music really does it for me. I guess as a music critic I’m supposed to know why that is, but to be completely honest with you, I have no idea! It’s kind of hard to overstate just how good Earl is at rapping at this point and when he finally steps up to the mic for the track’s third and final verse he absolutely crushes it. His delivery is patient and effortless, sometimes he rides with the beat and other times he crashes against it, creating movement and space where it wasn’t there before. I think both of the singles he’s released sound fantastic and I’m really looking forward to hearing the rest of this project next month.
Q and Not U - “Soft Pyramids”
Miranda Reinert:
Despite the fact that I spent probably too much money on a Dismemberment Plan t-shirt this year, when I listen to Q and Not U I think to myself: This is what I want The Dismemberment Plan to sound like. And they don’t sound that different. It’s cool, late-’90s DC Dischord dance punk stuff. Their first and third albums have some of my favorite album art of all time and they have one of my favorite band names of all time, but I find myself gravitating toward their second album, Different Damage, over the other two. That’s probably because of “Soft Pyramids.”
You probably don’t need me to discuss how good I think that band is, nor this song, which is why I’m here to talk about the phenomenon of spelling in songs. In general, I think it’s a tough sell. It can come off corny. It can come off as a weird gimmick. You’ve got your Fergies and your Gwen Stefanis. It's a tough comparison. I think Arctic Monkeys’ “Dangerous Animals'' is a notably bad implementation of it. Just awful and weird. That one Idles song is another particularly bad one. Spelling is worse when it’s done in a “The D, The A, The N, etc” type way. Rage Against the Machine is guilty of that in “Know Your Enemy” and it doesn’t do it for me. But Soft Pyramids opens with a staccato spelling of “soft pyramids evaporate” and I think it’s undeniably cool. Something about it being used as the intro before the instrumentation really kicks in really works for me. I think it’s better to make your spelling less cheerleader and more of a melodic device. “Soft Pyramids'' achieves that better than maybe any other song. I also like that it’s not the center point of the song, it falls away a third the way through which puts it even further from feeling like a cheat code for an anthemic song.
That’s all I got. I like the spelling in that one. “Dangerous Animals” is a dogshit Arctic Monkeys song.