"Agender fuses the situationist sensibilities of Gang of Four with the Crass school of feminist anarcho-punk, all the while capturing a caustic metallic sheen uniquely its own." | |
"Against the dizzying clamor of insatiable cowbells, riveting synths, and pulsating bass the new single ["Top Bottom Top"] takes the band’s punk sentiments into a delightful new direction." | |
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Today, LA-based post-punk four-piece Agender share the second version of their "Top Bottom Top" remixes, this time, featuring eclectic, funky Melbourne producer, Harvey Sutherland, out now. The forthcoming four track EP, Top Bottom Top Remixes due out August 5 and available for pre-order now, will include re-imagined versions of their queer disco-club soundtrack "Top Bottom Top.," featuring some of today's best electronic DJs and producers.
After seeing the band live, Australian "neurotic funk" producer and musician Harvey Sutherland declared "Top Bottom Top" a hit and needed to get involved, resulting in his take on the track and the completion of the remix EP itself. Sutherland adds, "I tried to give it a real Liquid Liquid flavored New York disco rerub, amped up the percussion to 11 and took it to the cosmos. It’s all love baby!" In April 2022, Sutherland released the hypermodern, funky and highly acclaimed LP, Boy, which came together between tours with Khruangbin and Hot Chip. Sutherland's funk and Agender's punk join together for a fresh, irresistible take on the queer club anthem.
The second remix follows the previously released JD Samson remix, who leads feminist electro-punk group, Le Tigre. She makes it darker, sexier and longer, fit for the disco-house dance floors of New York, with Samson adding, "Let's just say this is my personality. Take it or leave it!" Le Tigre will be performing at LA's This Ain't No Picnic Festival on Saturday, August 27th. Find tickets and information here.
Today's release comes about two months after the release of their sophomore LP, No Nostalgia, out everywhere now. The band is made up of Australian lead singer Romy Hoffman, bassist Cristy Michel, drummer Christy Greenwood and synth player Sara Rivas. Together, they make schizo, synthy, paranoid, post-punk with a dash of dysmorphic desire and have been turning heads in the post-punk scene since their debut album in 2014, Fixations. Most recently, they have caught attention for the string of eye-catching music videos accompanying their single releases including the double video for "Trouble & Desire + "Womb 2 Wound" and steamy video for "Top Bottom Top." Hoffman is thrilled to re-work the track with collaborators and friends adding, "'Top Bottom Top' is a hit! We wanted to unleash the beast out to our musical friends and see what they'd do with it. Listen and find out!"
An homage to queer sex and sexuality, "Top Bottom Top" blends disco and punk underneath lyrics that repeat the playful words often used to label positions and power structures in queer sexual dynamics. It features punky guitar shreds, cow bells and subtle synth sequencers that flutter over a classic disco beat–one that BuzzbandsLA called "deliciously throbbing."
Directed by queer filmmaker, writer, designer and activist, Graham Kolbeins, the video stars Sheree Rose, an 81-year-old performance artist, documentarian, and dominatrix. The video will be featured in LA's Outfest, an LGBTQ+ film festival, showing on Saturday, July 16th at 9pm with tickets available here.
Agender will hit the stage in Oakland on August 26th at Elbo Room Jack London, ahead of their album release show at LA's Zebulon on September 9th. Grab tickets to experience them live via agendermusic.com/shows.
Harvey Sutherland's remix of Agender's "Top Bottom Top," is out now ahead of the full remix EP, out August 5 and available for pre-order now. Find Agender on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for more from the post-punk Los Angeles four-piece and connect with Harvey Sutherland on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
LISTEN TO "TOP BOTTOM TOP" (JD SAMSON REMIX) HERE
LISTEN: "TOP BOTTOM TOP" | WATCH: "TOP BOTTOM TOP"
WATCH: TROUBLE & DESIRE" + WOMB 2 WOUND"
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Top Bottom Top Remixes (EP) Tracklisting
- Top Bottom Top (David Scott Stone & Romy Remix)
- Top Bottom Top (JD Samson Remix)
- Top Bottom Top (Harvey Sutherland Dub)
- Top Bottom Top (Romy Original Demo Remix)
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Agender Bio:
It’s hard to put Agender into any box: With Australian songwriter and musician Romy Hoffman at the helm, the quartet makes schizo, synthy, paranoid, post-punk with a dash of dysmorphic desire. And fans? They revel in their sweeping existential terror that comes with a fetish for femininity.
Initially formed in 2011 as a solo punk excursion for Hoffman, Agender was born when she decided to get sober. “It started as impulsive, a way to cope with all these new, raw feelings. I played every instrument myself on the first Agender record.” But as quickly as it started as a solitary endeavor, it evolved into a trio just two years later. By 2014, the band had become known for its intense punk shows and had released its debut album Fixations via Desire Records. Since then, the queer post-punk outfit has now become a full-fledged quartet with bassist Cristy Michel, drummer Christy Greenwood and synth player Sara Rivas rounding out the band. Still, Hoffman still remains its focal point as the primary writer in the group.
Agender, however, has taken its time with releasing a new record. It’s been seven years since the band released its debut LP Fixations. In that 7-year time span, Hoffman moved from Melbourne to Los Angeles, built a life for herself in a new city, released a solo record of dark, driving electronic music, starting running two of L.A’s biggest queer parties (‘Homoccult’ and ‘Lez Croix’), and situated herself as a respected DJ. The process of No Nostalgia, the band’s second album, has also been slow and steady: the songs were penned pre-pandemic and partially recorded then, but finished during COVID. No Nostalgia came from Hoffman reaching the crossroads of oscillating between bouts of extreme nostalgia and extreme amnesia. With the record, she wanted to strip it all away. “When we live in a world where everything is nostalgic, I’m trying to imagine a world with none of that, but it’s impossible. Even if I’m just commenting on society, it’s still referential to something, therefore relies on memory, therefore I’ve thought myself into a corner. It’s from this corner that I write,” she says. In spring 2022, fans of Agender will get to experience Hoffman’s reality.
While Agender’s last two records took themselves a bit more seriously, No Nostalgia is rooted in satire. “This record is poking fun at modernity and postmodernity,” says Hoffman. “It’s satirical. It’s a bird’s eye view of where we are and the absurdity of everything.” Inspired by everything from The French Situationist Movement to Wire and Buzzcocks, No Nostalgia is a canvas painted with singular post-punk.
Introducing No Nostalgia, Agender has shared two singles ahead of its release. Last Fall, they unveiled “Preach,” an eerie, synth-heavy single laced with guitar stabs that transforms God into Goddess energy. And last May, they shared “Astro Tarot,” an ode to divine intuition and the cosmic roadmap that intrigues the psyche. The title track is Agender’s third single, and is most emblematic of the record: “For me, it’s imagining a world of no memory.”
With No Nostalgia, Hoffman finds herself meditating on existentialism. On the urgent, self-referential “Avoid A Void,” she nods to her own journey of maintaining sobriety over the last decade. “Exist in a slippery dip/Spits you out into a big abyss,” she drones. Similarly, the heart-racing “Trouble And Desire” shows Hoffman ruminating over the push-and-pull of love addiction. Over spazzy guitar riffs, “Woah Life Wow” digs deeper into searching for answers in introspection: “She’s done enough of pray, this incarnation’s saved/Waiting in a waiting room, nothing to do but wait.” Songs like “Pastiche” and “Mother Simulacra'' tackle the death of originality — the former, a tongue-in-cheek parody on postmodernism, and the latter, a realization that Hoffman’s relationships are a copy of her relationship with her mother. Agender, however, takes a moment from life’s big questions to celebrate queer love with the disco-punk anthem “Top Bottom Top.” Politics don’t escape Hoffman’s focus on the record. With “Rusher,” a track penned at the height of “Russiagate” when Trump was in office, Hoffman interprets the absurdity of politics as theater: “Space race, space race seemed so fun/Dr. Strangelove press buttons.” Over bursts of guitar fuzz, “Fact Fuck Fiction” contemplates the insanity of political doublespeak: “Welcome to the news today/Don’t know if it’s true or fake.” By the album’s closer “Extinction of Handwriting,” Hoffman is yearning for simpler times over spacey synths — an analog future instead of a digital one.
While Agender is Hoffman’s current focus, her experience in music spans more than two decades: She began her career as a teen playing guitar in Ben Lee’s pop-punk band Noise Addict and later became the first hip hop artist (and second Australian) to sign to Kill Rock Stars, as Macromantics. Later, Hoffman began making dark electro pop and house music under ROMY.
No matter what project she’s working on, Hoffman believes she’s a medium for a message: “I’m delivering something that needs to be said.”
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Harvey Sutherland Bio:
After making a name amongst Melbourne’s electronic underground, musician and producer Mike Katz released his first cassette under nom de plume Harvey Sutherland. Blending a broad array of crate-digging influences, his bubbling and neurotic machine funk has made international waves since his early 12” singles. Releasing via his Clarity Recordings imprint, Sutherland’s distinctive electronic soul and leftfield disco cuts have been championed by Gilles Peterson, Jamie xx and Bradley Zero amongst many others. Alexis Petridis at the Guardian described the music as “full-tilt, lasers-hitting-glitterball mayhem”, and he has been featured by Resident Advisor, NPR and Boiler Room.
Sutherland tours extensively alongside his acclaimed live band. He has appeared at Glastonbury, Pukkelpop, Nuits Sonores and MUTEK festivals, and performed at The Jazz Cafe in London, Panorama Bar and Contact Tokyo. He supported Texan psych auteurs Khruangbin on their recent sold-out UK/EU tour, opening at Brixton Academy, Paradiso and the Bataclan, and performed a cinematic funk suite with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Closer to home, he has played twice at Meredith Music Festival, Splendour in The Grass, Inner Varnika and Beyond The Valley festivals. A record obsessive and occasional club hound, his eclectic DJ sets span dub, disco, post-punk, oddball techno and the full spectrum of UK club sounds.
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