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The world is a mess. Some conscientious artists are trying to contend with the chaos, however, by crafting work that provides both levity and reckoning for an audience hungry for resolve. Well, thank whatever’s holy for Automatic, because revolution pairs best with sick minimalist post-punk beats you can bop to. The LA-based trio has been steadily gaining traction since their 2019 debut, opening for major acts such as Tame Impala, IDLES, The Marías, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs over the years. All of which has led up to their third and latest album, Is It Now?, released in September via Stones Throw Records.
I met the ladies of Automatic—co-vocalists Izzy Glaudini (synths), Lola Dompé (drums), and Halle Saxon (bass)—on a warm Saturday afternoon ahead of the album’s release to throw heavy balls at tenpins over pizza and lemonade at Glendale’s Back Alley Bowling. We chatted about their career while railing against the US government and lambasting the imperialist agenda more broadly—you know, girly things. Judging by her dominating score, Saxon may have discovered a hidden talent or was simply (perhaps strategically) keeping her skill under wraps. “I have vague memories of maybe this happening in the past,” she said slyly when asked if she was aware of her bowling prowess. I finished in third place, a lovely second alternate.
Afterward, the band and I huddled by the lone pool table in the farthest corner of the bowling alley bar to talk shop, contending with the hubbub of PA announcements, children shouting, and the unmistakable crack and crash of a periodic strike. Inevitably, the conversation turned to the most crucial subjects: inspiration, punk ethos, the spirit of counterculture, and bongo usage on the new album. “It’s a lot of the same ingredients as our previous albums,” projects Glaudini. “Bass- and drum-driven, kind of janky and upbeat, cinematic synthesizers… Maybe it’s a little more politically minded because of the world we’re living in, but we still like to keep people moving their bodies and dancing.”
“Maybe it’s a little more politically minded because of the world we’re living in, but we still like to keep people moving their bodies and dancing.” — Izzy Glaudini
The women of the guitarless trio are playful, witty, thoughtfully irreverent. They treat their craft and its subject matter with attention and respect without ever taking themselves too seriously—no pretension here, folks. The project is also undeniably civically focused, and they’re not at all shy about confronting the volatile new realities of contemporary culture in their music. Many of the band’s minimalist pop melodies serve as a framework for biting social commentary that confronts the agonies of an imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchal society, to borrow a phrase from bell hooks.
For example, on “Terminal,” the poignant closing track to their new album, Glaudini notes that the band wanted to give Jordanian vocalist and painter Diana Quandour space to “express feelings about the imperialism and the Palestinian genocide. We figured it’d be great to have someone who’s actually Arabic sing [in Arabic].” Quandour, who co-wrote the song, belts powerfully and assertively on the track. Glaudini also mentions that “Terminal” was inspired by The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up.” “We really liked that song,” she adds, “and we thought [something like] that in Arabic would be great.” They were right.
We’re living in a time and place where ease is a luxury and a privilege that many of us cannot afford. The women of Automatic are dealing with the heavy shit head-on. When asked about their influences on the latest album, the girls chuckle. “I remember affectionately laughing at Izzy because she had this huge book that was called something like ‘Oil, Money, and War,’” says Saxon. “War, Oil, Power,” Glaudini clarifies with a smirk. “I did a lot of reading about the American industrial war complex,” she adds, “like I was writing a fucking paper or something.” Her reading clearly impacted “The Prize,” a song which directly tackles the political influence of oil. Glaudini talk-sings her way through it with her signature detached monotone vocals: “In Baku, oh, they stole it / In Ramadi, they stole it / In Princess Town, they stole it / In Port Harcourt, they stole it.”
Automatic is known for droning synths, driving bass lines, and hypnotic, prominent drums. Their sound often spills over into synth-pop, new wave, krautrock, and electroclash in interesting and unexpected ways. The band has drawn sonic comparisons to a wide range of artists, from the proto-punk grit of The Stooges to the electronic cool of New Order and the modern indie darlings Wet Leg. Yet, despite these varied reference points, the threesome manages to carve out a distinctive, deviant pop sound all their own. Dompé must inevitably shoulder some weight of the ongoing post-punk legacy, bestowed upon her by her father and Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins—how could she not?
The music may sound deceptively simple on first listen, but it is, in fact, intricately substantive. Automatic’s pared-down arrangements have range, too. They’ve got everything from trance-like tunes like “Turn Away” and “Automaton” off their sophomore album, 2022’s Excess, to danceable dystopian bangers like the hit “Too Much Money” from their 2019 debut album Signal. The group also experiments with song structure in their sound, a time-honored tradition of their punk roots. A fondness for mantra-like repetition can be heard on early tracks like “I Love You, Fine” and “Humanoid,” as well as “Highway,” whose only lyrics are, “I drive all night / I drive all night / I drive / I drive all night / I drive all night / I die.”
Automatic’s work is equal parts referential, subversive, silly, and nuanced. It’s also deliberately assembled with great skill and finesse. The band’s carefully curated aesthetic—a blend of late-’70s/early-’80s punk, retrofuturism, and Pop Art—is a visual representation of those eras’ cultural shifts toward youth counterculture, along with the media saturation and consumerism that came with it. I guess serving polished, chic looks is to be expected from a band whose music has been featured on runways for Céline, Givenchy, Miu Miu, and Hermès. They light up accordingly when asked about aesthetics. Visuals are essential to the band, almost as much as the music itself, they say. To the question of aesthetic importance, Dompé responds, quickly and decisively, “right after music.”
“Music is our excuse to give you visuals,” Saxon playfully chimes in. “Just kidding.”
“We’re always happy if we inspire other people, especially women, to play music. When they see us, it doesn’t seem so impossible to pick up an instrument and write songs.” — Izzy Glaudini
The band is particular about directing said visuals, adds Dompé. “We like to curate it to the detail.” This dedication to a consistently cool, conceptual look is a core part of their identity. Admittedly, my recent viewing of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains may have shaped my line of questioning. Apt and serendipitous, given that it’s a 1982 film about a guitarless three-piece punk band of teenage girls, with a fiercely political framework and kick-ass aesthetic, who take aim at the very industry that wants to package them. Sound familiar?
The fact that this setup still sounds unique is telling: The “girl band” sadly remains a notable peculiarity in this industry, making all-female acts noteworthy enough to warrant an almost mandatory acknowledgment. However, Automatic don’t seem bummed by the topic; in fact, they appear to revel in it. “We’re always happy if we inspire other people, especially women, to play music,” says Glaudini. “[When they see us,] it doesn’t seem so impossible to pick up an instrument and write songs. When I started playing music, I had to obsessively look at Dee Dee from the Dum Dum Girls or other female musicians who did it. I’d read their interviews, and they’d be like, ‘Yeah, I didn’t know what I was doing,’ and that gave me permission and made me feel like I could pursue this. Passing that down is cool.” By giving others permission to create, the band becomes part of a lineage of artists who don’t have all the answers, but are brave enough to try.
Central to the punk movement (and riot grrrl, which particularly encouraged so many women to play music) was the tenet that only having a basic understanding of instruments shouldn’t be a barrier to forming a band. The members of Automatic recount their first show in LA with glee and pride, recalling a moment that was punk and DIY to its core. The venue was the now-defunct Ham and Eggs in Downtown LA, which Saxon describes as being the size of a closet. “They just did not give a fuck,” she says. Glaudini adds that getting the show was challenging, but the venue’s spirit was what mattered: “You didn’t have to have any experience to play at this bar.” During the first song of their debut performance, the band accidentally played over a Siouxsie and the Banshees track from their pre-show playlist, which they forgot to turn off. “People said that it sounded purposeful,” says Saxon. “It lined up somehow. It was a miracle.”
“I do love the moments when our songs are awkwardly minimal, because it makes the audience uncomfortable. It’s hard for women to take up space in the world.” — Lola Dompé
Automatic are local LA girls through and through, well-versed in the city’s storied, multifaceted musical lineage. Their playlist they made for our site in 2022 of “Apocalyptic Songs From Fellow LA Bands” reads like a masterclass of the city’s most subversive, experimental, and idiosyncratic artists like The Gun Club, X, and Suburban Lawns, among other, more contemporary groups. According to Glaudini, this history is crucial. “Those are the best bands of the underground in Los Angeles history,” she explains before singling out the ’80s punk and post-punk scenes. “That period of time was really rich for music, and there were all kinds of weirdos making music. It’s the secret sauce; they were all really weird.”
While Automatic started with a raw, nascent energy, nearly a decade of playing together has allowed the trio to grow into their instruments and develop a cohesive rapport, one that’s evident in their confidence on and off stage. With Is It Now?, the trio continues to use their infectious grooves and sharp wit to address the atrocities and hypocrisy of modernity while fighting nihilism one dancy, minimalist, synth-driven post-punk track at a time. As far as Automatic’s trademark minimalism, Glaudini puts it best: “There’s more space and more thought behind what we put in. It’s not like manspreading over everything.” “It’s more intentional,” adds Dompé.
This approach creates a sound that’s both spacious and purposeful. For Dompé, minimalism is a deliberate act of defiance. “I do love the moments when our songs are awkwardly minimal, because it makes the audience uncomfortable,” she says. “It’s hard for women to take up space in the world.” This idea of occupying both literal space on stage as well as expansive audio space is a “vulnerable” thing to do, Dompé goes on to say, making the band’s stripped-down approach not just an artistic choice, but a ballsy one.
The group’s sonic sparseness is a profound idea that connects directly to their guitarlessness. “Guitar has always been such a masculine thing,” Dompé explains. “And then also in every female band, I feel like everyone expects them to be shredding on guitar, and that always annoyed me. That’s not really who I am.”
“I actually hate when people over-the-top play and show off,” adds Glaudini. “I think it’s really cheesy.”
They aren’t ruling guitar out completely for the future, though. When asked, “On a scale of one to 10, how overrated are guitars?” Glaudini’s answer is surprising: “I’d say zero right now. When we started, I would’ve said nine, but now, I’m like, ‘Can we get a guitar going somewhere?!’ We are gonna do a country album next,” she adds sarcastically.
Speaking of what’s left out, a key part of Automatic’s ethos when starting was a clear idea of what they wanted to avoid in their music, such as certain sounds, instruments, and even specific words. “When we started out as a band, we didn’t know exactly what we wanted, but we had a lot of ideas about what we didn’t want to do,” Saxon explains. This included a strong aversion to writing traditional romantic love songs, a deliberate choice to avoid being defined by a male presence. As Saxon states, “I didn’t want to have really anything to do with men in the songs, not that we hate men or anything.” Glaudini adds that Saxon even had a rule that the word “tonight” couldn’t be in any of their songs. Saxon notes that having such rules was helpful because it “forces you to be creative,” even though they’ve relaxed some of them for the new record.
“When we started out, we didn’t know exactly what we wanted, but we had a lot of ideas about what we didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to have really anything to do with men in the songs.” — Halle Saxon
Addressing political turmoil in their music feels most urgent and possibly obligatory for Automatic. Glaudini explains, “We kind of feel like it’s somewhat of a responsibility for people making art or music to engage with the world we’re living in when there’s such turmoil here politically with fascism, Christian nationalism, and everything that’s going on. It feels silly to just completely ignore that and write happy little songs—not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
This drive to speak out stems from the intense emotional toll recent years have taken on them—on us all, really. As Saxon puts it, “We wanted to be able to say something because we have a chance to.” She explains that the band would feel “weird letting this moment pass without expressing anything about the intensity of what’s going on.” For the band, it’s instinct; they find it unnatural to write superficial songs.
Automatic points to an existential weariness, a longing for resolution where there isn’t one. And yet, the band embodies what resistance looks like in a world that often feels hopeless. In the end, as Saxon explains, the album is ultimately a product of its time. “If anybody looks back and finds it on some rotting CD in a basement,” she laughs, “they’ll say, ‘This is from the time everything was fucking crazy.’” FL
