Chicago trio Ganser announce third studio album 'Animal Hospital' & share lead single 'Black Sand'
WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
"[Ganser] play nervy post-punk with a groundedness and poise that suggests if your back is up against the wall, you might be able to lean on it for support." Pitchfork
"This Chicago quartet kicked up one of 2020’s most impressive rackets on their second LP." Rolling Stone
"The group effortlessly merge the unrelenting pulse of angular post-punk with the layering techniques (if not the exact sound) of shoegaze...the band turn the otherwise grotesque into something haunting and beautiful." Bandcamp
"A special kind of cackling, maniacal charisma that might have made Ganser real-deal rock stars in a different era. Maybe it could make them stars in this era, too." Stereogum
Chicago's Ganser are a band that refuse to be pinned down. Composed of Alicia Gaines, Sophie Sputnik, and Brian Cundiff, the band traffic in a taut and propulsive blend of no wave, art rock and post punk, and emerged to wide acclaim during the pandemic, with the release of 2020's Just Look At The Sky (produced with Mia Clarke of Electrelane), it's accompanying remix EP which featured contributions from Bartees Strange, Andy Bell of Ride, Sad13, Algiers, and Adam Faulkner of Gilla Band, and it's 2022 follow up EP Nothing You Do Matters (produced with Liars' Angus Andrew). Those releases earned attention from outlets like Pitchfork, Bandcamp, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, and Rolling Stone, who called the album "one of 2020's most impressive rackets," and saw the band hit the road with artists like IDLES, Mclusky and Ted Leo, alongside shows with Amyl & The Sniffers, Bikini Kill, Viagara Boys.
Today, the band are announcing their heavily-anticipated third LP, Animal Hospital, that will be released on longtime label home felte (Fashion Club, Film School) on August 29th. To mark the announce the band are sharing the album's opening track "Black Sand," accompanied by a video directed by Gaines.
WATCH THE VIDEO FOR BLACK SAND HERE
Animal Hospital, which revives the band's relationship with producer Angus Andrews, is Ganser at their most dynamic, stretching the confines of their sonic boundaries into new territory, testing the elastic limits of their sound. The band remain steadfastly committed to propulsive patterns; drums that pound exacting beats on the heart, pulse quickened by bass and guitars, synths to calm the nerves. Building endless rhythm beneath feet moving in time on a dance floor, or a sidewalk masquerading as one.
It's immediately clear that the band's instincts have only sharpened since the release of their last LP, filtering the absurd and the profound through a prism and emerging with music that refuses to believe that any one thing is true, that instead all things hold strength and secrets in their shadows, and it's only in beckoning us all to the floor and giving us purpose that we can understand the inescapable beauty of all contradictory things.
"The album is about that space between what we are and what we pretend to be," Gaines explains. "You’ve got instincts: raw, animal things—and then all these systems we build, all these dreams of being civilized or advanced or whatever. But those two things don’t always line up. And time doesn’t care. Time just keeps going. It pulls everything apart, slow and quiet like water in the walls. And we’re all just in there, making noise, trying to figure out which side of the glass we’re on."
The album's tone is appropriately set by the ferocious lead-off track “Black Sand,” led by drums that command an assembly of swirling guitars, tone like a razor's edge, shimmering, sharp, and sleek. All of it building to a fever pitch, with vocalist Sophie Sputnik taunting an unseen force “don’t speak, don’t say it, if you put in the air I might catch it.”
Sputnik says of the track:
"When I wrote these lyrics a few years ago there were wildfires, real ones. And a lot of talk around LGBTQ rights in Florida where I’m from. And it’s strange because these things, they don’t just go away. They linger. They shift. They burn, and then they burn differently. And here we are still talking about wildfires and LGBTQ rights in Florida.
And the thing about language—about ideas—is they’re alive. That’s why people get scared of them. Because once they’re out, you can’t get them back in the box. They spread like smoke under a door. Can’t be held still. That’s the power, and also the danger."
Tracklist
Black Sand
stripe
Ten Miles Tall
Dig Until I Reach the Moon
Grounding Exercises
Half Plastic
Speaking of the future,
Creature Habits
Lounger
Discount Diamonds
Plato
Left to Chance
Tour Dates
6/22 - Minneapolis, MN @ The Hook & Ladder Theater & Lounge
7/5 - Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
Ganser Links
