***Cup is TYM WOJCIK, a Polish-American drummer living in Queens, NY and originally from Houston, TX. Only five months after the release of Hiccup, psych-punker Cup is back. With Jitter Visions, his eighth release, he takes you to a place that’s simultaneously new and familiar—in the way that you might feel you’ve been here before, but can’t be sure. A nagging and uneasy feeling. A record that is at times grinding and brash, at times smooth and melodic, like the ebb and flow of a fever dream. Distorted, simple guitar riffs reminiscent of '80s punk, Help-era Oh Sees, Slaughterhouse-era Ty Segall, layered with dark synths, bright delayed vocals, and driving rhythms. Lyrics about menace that comes from without, from within, about looking around the world from your own personal head, about being a person with another person, with people everywhere doing things. About changing into the same person over and over again. With every passing release, Wojcik’s sound becomes more distinct. Fuzz-soaked punk riffs that feel like they should be played faster, stretching and skewing into off-kilter melodies over driving dual rhythms. Songs about the fact of the body, the fact of existing, the challenge of conveying meaning. A background of anxiety throughout: a reflection of our odd world and oddly, incomprehensibly growing older in it.
LP $9.75
06/29/2018
***CUP is TYM WOJCIK's reaction to a lifetime of being forced to play rhythm guitar parts. A combination of power chords, repeated endlessly, while Tym’s brother smashed on his Boss Metal Zone and did his best Cobain meets Slash impression, or a series of oddly shaped jazz chords, played at a rhythm that was never perfectly right for his dad to solo over. While Hiccup is technically Cup’s seventh release, it feels like its first, the others more artifacts that can be looked back on, marking a progression in sound that has become distinctly a thing of its own. Fuzz soaked punk riffs that feel like they should be played faster, stretching and skewing into off-kilter melodies over driving dual rhythms. Songs about the fact of the body, the fact of existing, the challenge of conveying meaning. A background of anxiety throughout: a reflection of our odd world and oddly, incomprehensibly growing older in it. The result is an album that both comforts and unsettles you, that kisses you on the forehead while punching you in the stomach, that is both floating in the clouds and slowly sinking in the pond. It’s the immediate laugh before realizing that a joke was actually incredibly sad. This is the space that Cup tries to occupy, and Hiccup is just the latest attempt to get it done.
LP $9.25
11/10/2017