On May 30 Brooklyn’s post-punk stalwarts SAVAK will release their new album SQUAWK! on Ernest Jenning Record Co. / Peculiar Works Music (pre-order). Today the band is excited to share their new single “Tomorrow And The Day After” and its band-made accompanying music video that tackles themes of censorship, historical erasure, and the shifting lens of cultural memory.
About the song video, the band’s Sohrab Habibion says:
I was in a coffee shop, where I saw a student feverishly scribbling in a used paperback and was reminded of how my mother really disliked what she considered to be the desecration of books. “I don’t understand why they can’t just use a notebook—now it’s ruined for everyone else!” Years later I was a buyer at a used bookstore, where the policy was strict about not purchasing anything that had been written in. But I also started to see it from the other side. If the book is yours, then who cares what you do with it? Plus it was kind of fascinating to see what was worthy of highlighting or commenting through a stranger’s eyes.
The angle of the song is to look at that gray area between points of view and how confusing it is when you can’t understand the opposing position. The shadows, the misunderstandings, the sense that there is supposed to be a singular and correct take on the world. But these things change. The way we see history is likely quite different from those who experienced it. And the way people tomorrow see what we are living through now will probably not line up perfectly either. Today’s heroes = tomorrow’s heretics… and vice versa.
There’s also a bit of inspiration taken from and a reference to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
The video for this song gives a nod to books that are being banned. Even a cursory look at the titles in question reveals what a woefully racist, xenophobic, and transmisogynistic the idea is, let alone the flagrant attempt to curtail our freedom of expression.
SAVAK has also announced a May and June tour with shows in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., New York City and more. The band will be joined by Lupo Citta, The Whimbrels, Andy Cohen, Faraquet, Bed Maker, The Sewerheads, The Gotobeds and Skull Practitioners on select dates. Upcoming shows are listed below and tickets on sale now.
From the desk of Will Fitzpatrick, 39th* bass player for The Rock Group SAVAK
Lucky for some – it’s seventh album time for Brooklyn’s finest sons, the mighty SAVAK! Sohrab Habibion, Michael Jaworski and Matt Schulz have been fighting the good fight together since 2015, accompanied by a veritable cascade of bassists, saxophonists and second drummers. Of course, they’ve been sending missives from punk rock’s front line for much longer, having served in the likes of Obits, The Cops, Holy Fuck, Edsel, Virgin Islands, Enon and more. Still, what better way to celebrate a decade in each other’s company than by releasing their best album yet?
OK, I’ve routinely greeted every new SAVAK album with ‘this one might be their best’, but the trajectory continues. The assertively-titled SQUAWK! shows SAVAK throwing a lot of new ideas at the wall, expanding on the masterful concoction of post-punk, melodically collegiate jangle and intelligent esoterica that makes up their body of work prior to this… and all of those new ideas have stuck. Trust me, as someone who had to learn the work of 38* prior bassists for a UK tour, when I say that these songs don’t fuck around.
Let’s start at the beginning. “The Moon Over Marine Park” opens things up in style, building from undulating bass intervals into spoken word verses and a strident, instantly arresting hook. “Article, object, artifact,” intones Habibion, shortly before chiming guitars pile up – classic SAVAK, setting the tone in enticing and thoroughly intriguing fashion.
It’s followed by the soaring “Child’s Pose,” which rides a gloriously garage-punk verse before exploding into a typically classic Jaworski pop chorus (let the records show that I believe Mikey Jaws to be Clint Conley to Sohrab’s Roger Miller). That previously featured on a UK tour flexi disc alongside “Talk To Some People,” which also follows here and sees Habibion immediately setting out to disprove my Mission of Burma analogy by repeating the pop trick. Results? Equally exquisite.
Next up is “No Man’s Island,”’ which is possibly the closest the ‘VAK has ever gotten to a Lou Reed/Velvets vibe, with an already-memorable chorus bolstered superbly by guest vocals from Tanisha Badman of West Yorkshire fuzz-punkers Goo. But if that feels like new territory for the band, just wait until “American Vernacular” hits – it’s a vibe, as the kids would have it. Ambient, borderline Eno drones go up against a rising drum pattern and a synapse-silencing air of mystery to provide a perfect breather at the album’s midway point.
Side two kicks off here, so let’s cut to the chase and say that “Casual Cruelty” is so fuckin’ purposeful. No dicking around, it just gets to the point effectively and rules outright in the process. The only way you could possibly follow it is by seemingly unearthing a lost R.E.M. classic, and luckily “Tomorrow And The Day After” seems to do precisely that by way of a lilting guitar line and some gorgeously Stipe-esque vocal melodies… all through a uniquely SAVAKfilter, of course
Where can they go from here? How about a glam anthem? Verses to “Hitting Therapy” seem to summon the spirit of Mick Ronson before settling into something a little more restrained, with the band’s first documented use of slide guitar, before the thoroughly lovely “Your Mother Is A Mirror” guides us towards the finale through a mellotron haze. That’s Maria Marzaioli of the legendary Slum Of Legs providing further vibes on the fiddle there, fact fans!
What? The end already? Well, it’s always good to finish with a banger and “Empty Age” certainly bangs… albeit abstractly so. If Doug Gillard had rewritten Here Come The Warm Jets and the second side of Heroes for his own nefarious purposes, he might have come up with something this gleefully, wilfully wonderful, and if it seems like these records are heavy hitters to cite, please note that I don’t do so lightly. A hell of a way to close things out, by anyone’s standards.
Of course they couldn’t do this on their own, and a roll call of friends and compatriots all appear on The Best SAVAK Record Yet™, including longtime collaborators Matt Hunter on bass (Silver Jews, New Radiant Storm King) and Jeff Gensterblum on drums (Small Brown Bike, Coalesce). But what’s clear, thanks in particular to a dynamic mix by Travis Harrison (Guided By Voices, The Men), is that magic has been made here, and for listeners like you and me… it’s our giddy pleasure to savour it.
Tl;dr, yes I love this record. Another bona fide winner for a tremendous band, and another remarkable step forward in an increasingly fabulous oeuvre.
Yeah, I finished on the word “oeuvre.” What of it?
*approximate figures – The actual count of bass players to-date is 12 (please note that number may change by time of printing).
All previous and current bass players in SAVAK are / were:
Matt Hunter
Greg Simpson
Will Fitzpatrick
Geoff Sanoff
James Canty
Matthew Taylor
Peter Kerlin
Anthony Roman
Douglas McCombs
Nick Sewell
Matt McQuaid
Jed Marshall
Interested in playing bass in SAVAK? If so, send a headshot and $500 to savaband@gmail.com. No guarantees, no refunds, standard rates apply.
SAVAK Tour Dates:
May 7th – Akron, OH – The Cave %
May 8th – Detroit, MI – Metropolis Cycles %
May 9th – Dayton, OH – Blind Rage Festival at the Yellow Cab Tavern & %
May 10th – Pittsburgh, PA – The Government Center % & tickets
May 29th – Brooklyn, NY – Union Pool * tickets
May 30th – Baltimore, MD – Metro Baltimore * tickets
May 31st – Washington D.C. – Comet Ping Pong * tickets
June 19th – Avalon – Catskill, NY + tickets
June 20th – Hamden, CT – Cellar on Treadwell + tickets
June 21st – Boston, MA – O’Brien’s + / tickets
July 25th – Washington DC – Black Cat # tickets
July 26 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA # early show added – tickets
July 26th – Philadelphia, PA – PhilaMOCA # LATE SHOW SOLD OUT
July 27th – Queens, NY – TV Eye # tickets
% with Bed Maker
& with The Sewerheads
* with The Gotobeds and Skull Practitioners
+ with Lupo Citta and The Whimbrels
/ with Andy Cohen
# with Faraquet
Thoughts Words Action 