by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Harrison Colby has worked on a great deal of Wisconsin’s indie rock records over the last six years, producing records for Soul Low, Platinum Boys, Soup Moat, and beyond. He’s also played in Sex Scenes, Rexxx, No/No, and The Delphine, but today he’s stepping out on his own with The Beat Index, a new project that resides somewhere between synth punk and synth pop. The band’s debut album, Volume One: Juvenilia, is due out July 31st via No Coast Records (Thee Oh Sees, Red Mass, Cave Curse) on limited edition cassette and digital with the first 25 copies ordered accompanied by an 8-page zine.
The record’s first latest single, “World of Want” is full of dreamy electronics and synth punk jitters. It sounds like late era Devo sucked into the pop lens of new wave and eventually a mountain of electronic pulsating rhythms. The song is big and fuzzy, but robotic and motorik in its groove, with Colby bouncing between sounds both human and alien. Colby’s lyrics sing about commodification and those fixated on buying happiness, opening with the lines, “Doesn't matter if all my basic needs are met / There'll always be this hole and I haven't quite filled it yet / I don't care if I've already got the latest one / I don't have every color and every next generation.” As the song warps away from the psych pop edge into something far more electronic, it’s wildly tripped out video follows suit, with an out of body trip to the grocery store.