Electronic post-punk trio The Wants return today with their sophomore album Bastard. Evolving far beyond their acclaimed 2020 debut Container, the NYC-based trio craft a sound that defies easy categorisation—a self-styled “No Wave / No Pop techno punk” that feels both familiar and startlingly new.
Following a successful run of sold-out UK and EU shows for Container, The Wants’ Madison Velding-VanDam and Jason Gates welcomed synthesist/bassist Yasmeen Night (of NightNight) in 2021. Together, the trio transformed The Wants’ sonic architecture into something more dangerous and sublime, where industrial rhythms collide with spectral melodies and raw punk energy dissolves into waves of digital distortion. Drawing from a deep well of influences across decades and genres, The Wants forge an unlikely alliance of sounds that feels both radical and inevitable.
Bastard was deeply influenced by personal tragedy. Shortly after Christmas 2019, Velding-VanDam received news that his father had been found dead in his Michigan trailer, having been deceased for eight days. The aftermath of this discovery—finding hoarded belongings, towers of empty liquor bottles, oxycodone containers, and grime-covered photos became the emotional backdrop for the album’s creation.
The recording process was an exercise in controlled chaos, capturing the band’s raw live cohesion while embracing digital manipulation. The album pulses with the tension between Velding-VanDam’s midwestern roots and his New York City existence, exploring disconnection in an age of endless connection. This duality manifests in the music itself—organic instruments wrestle with electronic ghosts, while traditional song structures are dismantled and reassembled into strange new forms.
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