Earlier this year, D.C. post-punks Bottled Up shared the hot-and-cold post-punk single “The Reverie,” which they’re following up today with a more unhinged take on their beach-ready sound, titled “Kilo.” With the band citing everyone from Suburban Lawns to Prince as influences, the new track is a whirlwind of sounds and ideas perfectly tuned to this moment of uncertainty. “‘Kilo’ is about the masks we wear to blend in with the rest of the world, and the inner struggle we endure to hide our emotions as they bubble to the surface,” the band’s Nikhil Rao shares, citing one of two current reasons we’re all wearing masks.
The jagged new track will appear on the group’s LP Crystal, duo out in the fall. Speaking to the song’s recording process, Rao continues: “When we were writing the instrumentals and vocals, I was guiding the guitar work to sound like a lost Devo or Suburban Lawns song with angular twists and turns that drift into breaths of fresh flowing air. As we kept building on this song, a sort of Krautrock vibe emerged and it became more hypnotic. I started to embrace that direction by adding gusts of synths to the mix to accentuate the movement and energy through the track. There’s so much music out there, and I love how the band can take genres like post punk or krautrock, and flip them into something fresh and new.”
Stream the new track below. Crystal is out October 16—pre-save the record here, and pre-order it here.
