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It's becoming a tradition covering Ismatic Guru, the ongoing absurdist synth-punk recording project between John Toohill (Science Man) and Bran Schlia (Helmsley). Amid the Rust Belt ruins of Buffalo, New York, the duo have shared with us a track-by-track guide of our ten favorites from their forthcoming release, An Incredible Amount of Overwhelming Information, an odyssey of demented ditties in a span of 35 minutes that draws together lyrical modernism and subtly infiltrated synthetic sounds that represents a culmination of four years and four EPs worth of work, with five new songs, highly strung and far-flung.
"Baby Tooth"
John Toohill: Man, with all these early tracks, I had no clue what we were doing. I didn't even realize we were starting a band. So from my end I remember it feeling very… risk free? I just played whatever came natural.
Bran Schlia: This project all started when John came in as a guest speaker for a music production class that I teach to high schoolers. Until then, despite decades of local music activity between us, we'd never really crossed over and had a conversation. This song (and album) feels like we're learning who we are and what works best between us.
JT: Fun fact. Unlike Bran and I's experiences together, it's actually a song about being cornered at a bar or party by someone who is all yacked up outta their mind and absolutely punishing you, but you don't leave cuz, well, they've clearly got drugs [laughs].
"White Heat"
JT: First EP session again. Only thing I really remember about this song is Bran telling me to give him another improv take over what we had already laid down and thinking, Fuck it. I'm just gonna rip a bunch of wacky blues solos. Maybe I was just outta regular ideas at that point. Who knows. It turned out great and makes me seem like a way more competent guitar player than I really am.
BS: John's vocals on this are some of my all time favorite. When this song came back to me with the vocals on it, I just really felt like he nailed it. That's another entertaining part of our process, we each kind of work in secret for a while (me chopping the improvisation and later John applying vocals) and then we each get to discover what happened while we were away.
"Imposter"
BS: The beat that opens this song is inspired by some of the stuff I was hearing on Crack Cloud's self titled album. I'm a big fan of introducing a lot of negative space to the rhythm in one section and then overwhelming in the next for the sake of contrast. Truly inspired guitar twangs from John on this one.
JT: Bran's method involves recording simultaneously with writing. During the session Bran would be like "ok, now let's go back to this song and give me a new lead guitar" and I would say, "I don't even remember how I played the rhythm part anymore." I think he replied "good" [laughs]. This wack system of his really brings out the multiple personalities from a musician. It felt like I was writing a lead to a song someone else had written. It's awesome.
"What a Rush"
BS: Something happened with our second session that made things feel much more effective. Maybe John knew what to expect from my weirdo-process so he went in looser? Or maybe we just knew each other better so the creative environment was more relaxed? Whatever happened, it made for a good batch.
JT: I distinctly remember us both saying we wanted to play faster and get even more manic the second time around. Which I believe to be both our most "relaxed environments," right? Also, I had recently taken up an offer from an old pal who was in dental school to get free treatment from him as he learned at the clinic. This song is about getting your mouth absolutely torn up at the dentist.
"Mind Fever"
BS: I still can't help but laugh when I hear how warbled-the-fuck-out those first few bass notes are. I'd been doing some genre-homework, picking out stuff I wanted to try and at the same time, generating ideas that felt like they wouldn't match up at all but somehow they did. It's a kitchen sink mindset.
JT: I believe this is the EP session where before I came over you asked what I was listening to a lot, like as inspiration, and I said "nothing but spicy '50s and '60s Mambo jams" and you said, "Oh.. okay. I know what we should do." How that translates to this, I have no idea, but it works.
BS: That's right! We jammed a bunch of Perez Prada and then went digging.
"An Incredible Amount of Overwhelming Information"
BS: For the most recent EP that starts off the compilation, IV, we had too many songs and had to siphon a few off, and those are the tunes that open the compilation. I love what John brought to this one with the change up on his vocal delivery.
JT: Great opening song and album title for a silly band who crams 10,000 ideas into every ADD riddled song. You're welcome. I was worried when we put this to LP format nobody would be able to sit through 30+ minutes of this nervy shit. Figured we should open the album with some hairbrained dialog.
"Manic Vision"
BS: I need to pay tribute to the Yamaha PortaSound PSS-140 which is heavily featured on this track, and all of our albums really. It has two good settings, I believe this one is called "88 tremolo organ."
JT: Shout out to the 660 Jet Glo i play on all these songs that i got for an absolutely stupid good deal cuz it had some water damage and all the paint is fucked up. Like who gives a shit about the paint job? It plays and sounds great.
"All Life: Mystery"
BS: When John came in to track IV, I only intended for us to get five songs out of it, but we ended up with ten by accident. They all felt worthy of release, but from the beginning the plan had been for EPs and then a comp, not EPs and then an album. So we split them up and I remember John saying we had to be careful not to put all the dark ones together
JT: Was this a dark one? Was I right? What is this song about? A mystery!
"Eighteen Miles Long"
BS: Before we started on IV, John suggested I check out the band Can and until then I'd never given them a fair shot. Turned out to be a really fun discovery. I know I was listening to them a ton when we tracked these songs, but I'm not exactly sure how it influenced the ideas.
JT: There is definitely some cross section of Can and Fela Kuti meets two idiot white punk kids going on here. I was incredibly jazzed how this turned out. I would love to do a whole album of this kind of wacked groove shit.
"Man on the Ceiling"
BS: I think of this song as a guitar onslaught. Sometimes John will get going during the improvisation phase and there will be so much good material that it's hard to cut it back.
JT: You ever wake up and kind of feel like you are stuck between the dream state and waking world and you can't really move or shake it loose or fall back asleep for what's probably only 20 seconds but feels like forever? Yeah me neither.
An Incredible Amount of Overwhelming Information is out January 10th on Swimming Faith (US/CA) and Swish Swash (EU/UK).