art punk – Queen City Sounds and Art

Genre Is Death, photo courtesy the artists

On “Attractive People” Genre Is Death sound like they took a time machine back to 1980s New York (their hometown) and got to experience bands like Live Skull, early No Wave and Pussy Galore firsthand and shed obvious influences on their return to our era. What we hear is a caustic and noisy, haunting and thrilling song that weds mechanistic rhythms to discordant guitar and a hypnotically driving bass line to create a different kind of musical darkness with which the band shreds shallow aspirations and lifestyle over substantive living and creating. The lyrics are minimal, mostly “You don’t have a life/You just want to be attractive” and “It’s just a lifestyle” that can seem general but when combined with the music’s headiness and confrontational sound it speaks to anyone that recognizes certain social phenomena in the culture when there seem to be people who like the association of cool within a subculture or parasocial attachments without having to do anything to actually be so and live in a way that commits to something real which requires actual effort more than being attracted to the image of authenticity and accomplishment. Watch the video for “Attractive People” on YouTube and follow Genre Is Death at the links below. The band’s LP is out May 1, 2026 on In the Red Records.

Genre Is Death on Instagram

Genre Is Death on Bandcamp

La Sécurité’s new single “Bingo” sounds like it got dropped out of the early 80s No Wave scene with strong, funk-adjacent bass lines and guitar that sounds as much like a textural tone as minimal riff. Keyboards have a quality like something out music for an old video game and the lyrics are delivered in short couplets to build a surreal impressionistic narrative. The words seem to utilize the seemingly random quality of the game Bingo and the disconnected quality of modern life and how it can be like a game you’re forced to play with distinct but arbitrary rules and in which few actually get to win as if winning could possibly be everything or fully satisfying for an actual, analog human being. But in the video directed by Philippe Beauséjour there is a refreshing use of images seemingly cut out and animated like a collage that both enhances the impression of disconnection and the visual aesthetics of another era. There is something undeniably fascinating and thrilling about the mix of styles and moods that makes the song immediately relistenable. Watch the video for “Bingo” on YouTube and follow La Sécurité’ at the links below. The band’s new album Bingo! will become available on June 11, 2026 for digital download and streaming with a vinyl pre-order that ships in December.