The original record is a highly composed piece of modern intense sound palettes presented to the listener without comment. With a range of effects manipulating the instruments, one hears whale burps, gentle bells, karate chop sound effects, answering machine tones, wooden knocks, dark screams, melting silver, David Lynchian clapping prayers, and non-random filamentary noises. The pieces eschew melody, instead opting for complex patterns of prioritized noisy offerings.

I sat down with Sam and Ben and asked them to speak on three subjects ranging in philosophical importance as they smoked yellow American Spirits in the dressing room of the Knitting Factory Brooklyn. Ben sat on the left of a small, indeterminately brown couch in a warm sweater and his trademark Moscot-ish glasses. Sam sat on the right, wearing a fedora and stroking his red beard.

On Insects

Ben: There’s a small bug I thought was called a silverfish, but I don’t think it’s actually called a silverfish.
Sam: I think you are thinking of the earwig.
Ben: No, it has more legs than an earwig.
Sam: The silverfish has, like, millions of legs.
Ben: Yeah, it doesn’t have as many legs as a silverfish. Maybe it is a silverfish. I think that things is cool as hell, because it’s basically translucent and that’s pretty dope.
Sam: I like moths. Especially the big ones that are almost birdlike.
Ben: The ones that are as big as your face.
Sam: Huge moths. They are pretty awesome. Because they aren’t as precious and beautiful as butterflies. They are kind of funky and prehistoric.
Ben: And hairy.
Sam: And hairy and nasty, but they are also graceful and smooth and shit.

On the Masculinity of the Saxophone vs. the Guitar

Sam: The electric guitar is more masculine. Let me interrogate my assumption. I think the way the saxophone actually functions is more ephemeral. Maybe not, though. Maybe the guitar is more ephemeral.
Ben: I think the saxophone is more masculine than the electric guitar.
Sam: Really? I feel like the saxophone is at its like, all-time-highest of emasculation. (Laughs)
Ben: I think the guitar is, too. I think it’s been washed out. I mean, we’re doing the same thing with our guitar as we’re doing with our saxophone in this band, in the way that we treat it with pedals.
Sam: Maybe the saxophone is more masculine because it’s, like, single. In that it’s not a chordal instrument. It’s not diffuse.
Ben: It’s very direct.
Sam: It’s direct and linear.
Ben: And vocal.
Sam: It has a bastille wale quality to it. And the guitar is a space with multiple erogenous zones. (Laughs)
Ben: I think it might depend who’s playing it, probably.
Sam: True. Well, no one plays the saxophone. That’s, like, totally not true and kind of true! (Laughs) Do you know what I mean? The saxophone is this thing that’s looked upon with absolute cultural saturation. People are just like, ‘The Sax.’ Which is the thing I’m living down every second of my life. But at the same time, on our scene, we’re the only band that carries a saxophone. Except for Little Women. What other bands carry a saxophone?

On Genesis P-Orridge

Ben: I think that Genesis P-Orridge is sort of one of the last of their generation of insubordinates, which is really inspiring to be around. [He] has definitely been through more for what [he does] creatively than almost anyone who is making weird stuff these days. I think there is a huge debt to Genesis P-Orridge. Not just from us, but from bands that don’t sound anything like us. It’s a really hard thing to sum up and I think that’s the way that Genesis wants it.
Sam: In the sort of ‘Last Of’ column, I was reading an article about ‘chillwave’ the other day. They talk about how there’s this thing where the Internet creates this post-critical atmosphere because everything is hyper-temporary so nothing can become important and then be challenged. So there’s no point to anything being challenging or negative or critical because it’s like, nothing’s important. If it’s just not important in the first place, then why challenge it, just post another track and keep going. There was a time before that, where there was this quality of this edifice that seemed really important that could be eroded and disintegrated and fucked with to the effect of creating, like, all this commotion and shit! Psychic TV and Throbbing Gristle, the extra-musical social commotion around it that is as tangible as the music itself. Somebody from that time can bring that with them, and no one in this moment can kind of produce that all of a sudden.
Ben: I think people are sort of looking for the next art riot, over and over again, every minute of every day, and it’s just not coming. It’s kind of positive, because there is a greater acceptance of the variety of sounds that people want to make, and people want to make a wider variety of sounds than they did before. I think we can attribute the opening up of that field to early industrial and early noise.