Something’s stirring in Boston. The city’s experimental punk scene is suddenly yielding bright and vicious results, with bands like Guerilla Toss—not to mention Quilt and Speedy Ortiz—spinning with such wild abandon that they’ve managed to escape the orbit of Beantown. The Channels are the latest group to emerge from the fray, releasing their second EP, Disposable Camera, next month on Designer Medium. We’re premiering the video for single “Pill” this morning, and its confusion and hazy sense of unease feels like a summation of last week’s horrorshow in Cleveland and a weekend that saw the entire country covered in a heat dome.
Like “The Same Thing,” Disposable Camera’s lead single, “Pill” is a clattering assemblage of shaking, hoarse-throated guitar work and ringing percussion that’s not dissimilar to Dublin’s Girl Band. Where that band’s singer Dara Kiely sounds like he’s at the mercy of the music’s fury, The Channels vocalist Wes Kaplan stands just outside of the madness, his voice lightly double-tracked as he calmly works his way around the sound like a lawyer describing the scene of the crime. The dispassion of Kaplan’s voice is unnerving, but it’s also what keeps “Pill”’s energy from melting into itself. Similarly, the video’s slow tracking shots—imagine gentle left-right scrolls—mitigate the uncomfortable tension of seeing an otherwise idyllic outdoor setting taken over by day-glo. Check it out below.
Disposable Camera track list
“Pill”
“Symptom Vintage”
“I Saw Myself Flat”
“Happens Everytime”
“Wade”
“The Same Thing”
Disposable Camera is out August 19 via Designer Medium.
