Self Improvement

Self Improvement

Syndrome

Feel It

"Perhaps in the contemporary simulacra wherein copies are all copies of other copies, the sense of the fraught sophomore effort is accentuated even more so. In a world of endless repetitions and reproductions the question becomes what can or will be created next? As if on cue, Self Improvement returns with a response to this question on 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. Recorded between January of ’23 and March of ’24 at Wiggle World, which barely survived the recent LA wildfires, the record is a product of its environment in very real and sometimes uncanny ways. As a collaborative pastiche, as an embrace and rejection of genre and history, this record is both very much of its time and beyond such concepts as timeliness.The 'originality', if one may use such a gauche term, is in the collaborative effort involved in the writing and recording of Syndrome, in bringing it to the world. Indeed, 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, encoding the tumult and joy of collaboration into the DNA of the...