I first became aware of Bay Area band Violent Change when I caught a friends Instagram video of a recent live performance. When a couple of weeks later one of the coolest people I know mentioned them to me I knew it was time to properly explore their gritty, vital back catalogue.
With treasure in abundance dating back to 2012 and a new album very much close by, I decided to write a few words about the self titled EP that was released in July 2020 via Sloth Mate Productions. It’s exactly the short, sharp shock of creativity and wonder that I’m living for these days, and it grabbed me from the very first note.
Opener Squandered is a revelation in its combination of groove and fractured, distant harmonies. It sounds like the band used the cheapest, dirtiest time machine imaginable to travel back to 1979 and capture the best post-punk disco track you’ve never heard, on the foggiest, murkiest day of the year. Utterly glorious and completely essential.
For this release Violent Change were operating as a duo combining core member Matt Bleyle with former RAYS man Stanley Martinez, and shades of the latters current Children Maybe Later project can be found in third track Open Space. This tune incorporates the spirit of Sixties garage psychedelia, but shot through with all the weirdness and weariness of trying to navigate life as it is today. By somehow looking both backwards and forwards in their ambitions and intent, this band keep the listener firmly in the here and now.
This is music to escape into, in search of the fragments of melody or rhythmic pulse that you know are lurking beneath layer upon layer of lo-fi haze. Production Life regularly collapses in on itself as it tumbles along, never letting you get too comfortable within its continuously shifting dynamics, and closer Dreary Example takes all that has come before and moulds it into a (fairly) cohesive whole to wrap up a truly wonderful EP that doesn’t stand still for a single second.
I am only just discovering what has come before and I’m already excited to hear what’s coming next. The Bay Area never fails to deliver us the most intriguing, beautiful music and there is no sign of that changing any time soon.
Out now via Sloth Mate Productions.
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