by Myles Tiessen (@myles_tiessen)
“Born to die / World is a fuck / 鬼神 Kill Em All 1989 / I am trash man / 410,757,864,530 Dead Cops”
This surrealist string of unassociated phrases, harkening back to a Tumblr-era anarchist meme, is the thematic glue that holds Supreme Joy’s sophomore album together.
410,757,864,530 Dead Carps is as idiosyncratic as the original phrase. It strings together an amalgamation of distorted garage punk, lengthy psychedelic jams, and anxious ambient explorations, but, under the guidance of band leader Ryan Wong, Dead Carps is a laser-focused example of sonic and thematic cohesion.
Much of Dead Carps is incredibly accessible and just straight-up fun to listen to. The deconstructed jangle-pop of “Into The Mirror” sounds like what would happen if you threw Sonic Youth into a threshing machine and separated the most essential, raw ingredients. Throughout the song, Wong challenges the listeners’ notion of identity within an economic system that encourages the commodification of ourselves; “Deny the identity / To make yourself fulfilled / You are not what they named you.”
Similarly, “No Peace” deals with social alienation. Over the snarling screams of what sounds like a guitar on fire begging to be put out of its misery, Wong explores the fragility of social happiness at the expense of economic systems. Where is peace in a system inherently violent?, asks Wong. The entire band is right there behind him, as the cyclical bass line expresses a similar anxious spiral of thought, and the extended guitar solo is their last act of resistance before the song collapses under its own weight.
The album’s centrepiece is undoubtedly the nine-minute opus “Does It Explode?” With its hypnotic rhythm and orbiting, jangly guitars, the song’s undying energy taps into the same primitive moxie that drove early art-rock and proto-punk pioneers. Wong sings/talks his way through the track, referring to his mental decomposition and malaise.
As the song grows into a crescendoing volcano of noise, it slowly turns and morphs into a haunting atmosphere of sharp guitar strings and feedback that sounds like a synthesizer, or maybe it’s a synthesizer that sounds like feedback. It’s a moment that simultaneously feels like a concession and a sense of freedom. It’s acceptance, or at least as much acceptance these art-punks will allow, expressed through the beauty of noise.
Supreme Joy’s uncertainty around the commodification of art and the hypnosis of capitalism’s spectacle is expressed through a similar form as the “Born to die/ World is a fuck” meme. It’s an artistic expression of dissatisfaction through the absurd yet delicately profound. By giving decay a little sunlight, something can begin to grow.