by Conor Lochrie (@conornoconnor)
Joyer are brothers Nick and Shane Sullivan who are quietly making some of the finest recent slowcore music. Their latest album, Sun Into Flies, is their third full-length and the first not to be self-released, instead being issued through Z Tapes, the Slovakian label run by Filip Zemcik which has become a byword for quality lo-fi and bedroom pop releases. Their last album was 2019’s Peeled but they’ve hardly been absent since. Earlier this year, they curated and released a Bernie Sanders benefit compilation which raised over $700 for the Sanders presidential campaign (if any Democratic candidate was going to come close to indulging in some downtempo slow rock, it would have been Sanders); they also provided a cover of an Alex G song for an absolutely stacked (63 songs) tribute compilation to aid disaster relief in the Bahamas.
A sense of conscientiousness also fills the album, concerned as it is with our (inevitable) ecological collapse. They treat us to images like “Rotten fruit hanging from the ceiling fan” on “Gond” (surely not a Dungeons & Dragons reference?). Even the album’s name is disconcerting and evocative, its meaning elusive. When they sing, they consistently sound like Phil Elverum: Joyer also has his knack for making everything he says, regardless of the words or form, sound innately meaningful; it’s why the record burns with a wistful melancholia throughout. A song like the whirring and fuzzy “Blistered” also recalls The Microphones’ earlier recordings.
The album was mixed and mastered by Bradford Krieger at Big Nice Studio but none of their slow naturalism becomes too polished by his presence. They still wallow in the bleakness of slowcore, its style feeling both apt as a soundtrack for the dire state of the U.S. right now and also for their words of ecological anxiety. Both were film majors at college and Sun Into Flies flows at the pace of arthouse cinema, like the unknowable visions of Andrei Tarkovsky with the slow-burn movement of Lucrecia Martel; sonically at times their tentative introspection reminds one of Spencer Radcliffe’s lo-fi masterpiece Looking In. On “East Kill” and “Gas” the dour delivery of the lyrics sometimes never rises above a murmur, overwhelmed by the purposefully messy and despondent instrumentation.
The record’s best track “Forget” plays a clever switch on the listener. It begins as if Joyer are emerging above the slowed and sludgy parapet, to explore melodic and poppy territory; after thirty seconds this all ceases, trading in for a spoken word piece dripping in slowcore malaise. “Dud” and “Astray” follow and are similarly lighter to the beginning of “Forget,” but their lightness is sustained. The vocals are clearer and crisper accordingly, the atmosphere more hopeful. “Windswept” is another foray into different territory, an electronic composition containing hazy percussion and swooning synths.
“Concrete” is the purest slowcore track, the drums and guitar bare and sparse, the playing tired and nervous. It sounds like the excellent Bad History Month as its minimal sound unfolds over time. “Even Here” returns Joyer to their essential aesthetic to close the record, all melancholic guitar lines and gloomy vocals. To listen to Joyer is to miss live music: not of the large concert arena type, nor a neighborhood bar show, but simply just a wonderful house show; that house show your friend had heard about through another friend of a friend from one town over, just two college brothers steeped in 90’s slacker and emo rock, wanting to give it a go themselves.
(It should be noted that all of the digital album proceeds on Bandcamp were matched by the band and donated to G.L.I.T.S, an NYC-based organization that provides community support and housing for Black trans folx.)