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Self Improvement – Syndrome – New LP
Self Improvement – Syndrome – New LP
Self Improvement – Syndrome – New LP
Self Improvement – Syndrome – New LP
Feel It Records

Self Improvement – Syndrome – New LP

$ 22.00 $ 0.00
MAXIMUM ROCK N ROLL: From Long Beach, California, SELF IMPROVEMENT is out with their second LP. Compared to 2022’s Visible Damage, this release dives further into the no wave realm, with slower tempos, sparser arrangements, and fewer heavy moments. If you like the slower parts of the CONTORTIONS, maybe mixed with a little ESG, then you’ll like SELF IMRPOVEMENT’s sound, which, in the end, doesn’t need comparison. Guitar riffs snake around beneath Jett Witchalls’s rich and compelling vocals, while bass and drums are lockstep throughout with an effective propulsion. The band also features a synth and drum machine, but they’re blended so well I can hardly tell, besides the obvious click track or one-off synth eccentricity. The overall feeling here is a skewed pleasantness, like a shaky and out-of-center photo of someone smiling. Witchalls’s vocals create this tension on a dime, coming in smoothly, then changing over a sour chord or drum clatter, as she sends the band into a diagonal spiral wherein you may cock your head to one side, intent to hear whatever’s coming next. Unique sound for the languid and perturbed.
Self Improvement returns with their second LP Syndrome —10 tracks packed with danceable bass lines, skittish R&B infused post-punk drums, excitable angular guitar riffs, and urgent political lyrics. This time around the band continues to develop their collaborative approach to songwriting and recording with producer and spiritual advisor Dylan Hadley (who played drums on the first record) helping to expand their sound with a range of textures and blips, beeps & noises—some provided by engineer Spencer Hartling as well. Within this environment various actors/characters move to the fore and recede—always in dialogue with each other.  The lyrics deal with the contradictory expectations of “marriage age” women and the music itself creates just the sort of claustrophobic environment that heightens the theme of the song—driven home by Witchalls' vocals that express the sweeping range of roles that women are expected to perform. There is a similar dynamic on a track like “Scam”, where the instrumentation provides a steady march behind Witchalls' sermon-like indictment of contemporary culture. Or “Dissolved”, where the verse and chorus musically reflect the odd mix of elation and dejection that characterizes our contemporary political landscape creating a tonal embodiment of Witchalls' lines “Hope is coming / hope is near, they’re not coming / they’re not here”. On Syndrome, Self Improvement dances upon a pleasing tightrope between influences and their own distinctive identity, easily traversing the space between modern takes on Wire or No-Wave-y dissonance a la Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and invoking the radical sensibilities (both musically and otherwise) of Crass or X-Ray Spex along the way. A document of collective action, of collaboration in production, performance, and conception, Syndrome stands out from the ready-made and formulaic music that is the soundtrack to our current cultural decline. -Ben Michaelis 


released June 13, 2025

Jett Witchalls - Vocals, Lyrics
Pat Moonie - Bass, Vocals
Jonny Reza - Guitar, Synth
Reuben Kaiban - Drums, Bass, Vocals
Dylan Hadley - Drums, Synth, Vocals, Drum Machine
Spencer Hartling - Synth, Drum Machine

Produced by Dylan Hadley
Engineered, recorded, mixed and co-produced by Spencer Hartling at Wiggle World in Altadena, California

Assistant Engineer: Isabell Hernandez

Cover art by Tim Presley
Layout design by Jonny Reza

Mastered by Mike Nolte at Eureka Mastering

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