UK-based noise rock outfit Schande just shared their single “Gregor MacGregor,” off their just released debut LP Once Around.
The track builds momentum as Jen’s bounding guitars guide bassist Gio Villaraut’s pulsating bass line into a crescendoing wall-of-sound made all the more visceral by Ryan Grieve’s pummeling drum playing. Epitomizing Schande’s noise rock label, each time the track teases a brief respite, a towering burst of energy carries the melody further.
“The song connects to the way that we respond to each other’s experiences,” Jen explains. “It’s from an absolute place of love to want to comfort each other and get each other to see the silver linings in situations, but sometimes having that be our only reaction without outright acknowledging what the other person is going through hurts more than it helps. There was a great story on This American Life called ‘Distant Replay’ that talks about the harm in trying to make each other feel better rather than address an uncomfortable reality and I had listened to it just before writing ‘Gregor MacGregor’ so it all kind of came out in the lyrics.”
Fronted by Thurston Moore Guitar Ensemble member Jen Chochinov, Schande’s debut LP Once Around was released via The Daydream Library Series, the house record label of Ecstatic Peace Library operated by Thurston & Eva Moore.
Inspired by the works of writers such as Hannah Arendt and Adriana Cavarero, Once Around focuses on notions of personal existence and subjectivity. As Jen puts it, the record consists of “contemplations on the ways in which we do and do not disclose ourselves to each other, our responsibilities towards ourselves and others, and the ways we do or do not acknowledge the experiences of others.”
Are you rocking with Schande’s “Gregor MacGregor”?
