[Cover photo credit to Lindsey Byrnes]
LA-based Post-Punk four-piece Agender share a two-in-one video game-style video for synth-punk tracks “Trouble & Desire,” and “Womb 2 Wound” along with the release of their sophomore album, No Nostalgia, out now. The queer band, made up of Australian lead singer Romy Hoffman, bassist Cristy Michel, drummer Christy Greenwood, and synth player Sara Rivas makes “schizo, synthy, paranoid, post-punk”.
Their most recent 2022 single has been “Top Bottom Top.” This summer, the band will also release a remix EP in collaboration with JD Samson and Harvey Sutherland.
Regarding “Womb 2 Wound”, the band says:
It begins with a punch in the face. The face is that of expectation and time. The song is about a hyper-aware person striving to be an ego-less, body-less self, who can transcend pathology and their attachment to people and things. It’s a song that champions the notion that the solution to all problems is always spiritual.
Like with much of the album, Hoffman wrote the tracks and plays everything on them from synths, to drum machines, guitar, including the lead vocals and even had a hand in their production with an assist from David Scott Stone (LCD Soundsystem, Get Hustle, Unwound).
The double video is directed by Amanda Lovejoy Street and Street explains:
Agender’s latest two for one video explores what an experimental video game on attachment styles might be. The first video follows lead singer Romy the “Dismissive ” as she tries to avoid being caught by Claire, the “Preoccupied”.
The second video, Street continues:
…propels Romy into an abstract womb space aka the origin of her attachment style. We move between Romy navigating the smothering “wombs” and into a stylized relationship space where we see the attachment dynamic between her and Claire continue to play out – one where real intimacy is never achieved. George Haas from Mettagroup acts as a “therapist” to narrate and witness.
The punk-heavy 14-track album, No Nostalgia, sees the quartet “satirically examine their place in today’s fast-evolving world”.
