LA-via-Tacoma rockers Enumclaw were among the buzziest groups to hit the blog circuit at the beginning of the 2020s with their unique slacker-rock take on grunge-pop. Yet it’s a vastly different energy that fuels co-founder Eli Edwards’ side project Casi, a punk-rap duo in the lineage of Paris Texas and Ho99o9 formed recently with his childhood friend Xay Young while back home in Washington. Their self-titled debut full-length lands on June 19 via Carpark Records, with lead single “Jumper” demonstrating just how combative the 10-track collection gets. Per the duo, the song was inspired by recent ICE raids in LA with the band channeling their righteous fury at coming face-to-face with all the doomsday weaponry the department shelled out for using our tax dollars.
“We were supposed to play our first show down in LA at a venue close to Downtown, and due to the curfew placed around the ICE protests we weren't able to do it,” the band recalls. “We ended up spending most of the day driving around the city trying to find something to do, seeing some really upsetting stuff. You’re on the freeway and a squad of 10 cop cars will fly by filled with four guys with ARs, and we’re all thinking, ‘For what?’ They were putting people’s grandparents in cuffs and kids getting teargassed—it just was all so dehumanizing. We were charged up, and it really comes through on this track.”
The track’s music video also provides a bit of context for the album cover’s shot of a midriff (á la the Home in Another Life cover) in boxing gear, as we see Edwards TKO an opponent. “We’re excited for the album to come out,” the band adds. “Everyone thinks they know what they’re doing until they get punched in the face, and like a punch, Casi is coming full force.”
Check out the visual below, and pre-order Casi here.
