In the era of hot-takes, the notion that culture cannot progress without affordable housing is lukewarm at best. It’s not uncommon to read that a sway of artists from the late 20th century were able to work very few hours or subsist solely on the dole, allowing them both affordable accommodation and sufficient time in which to be experimental with their art. In the mid 2020s, this is simply a fantasy – one that Vermont’s Robber Robber know only too well.
After being notified by their landlord that their homes were to be destroyed, Robber Robber founders Nina Cates and Zack James endeavoured to produce a body of work that encapsulated the economic reality that faces artists in the late capitalist West. In portraying the insecurity and powerlessness of modern living, Robber Robber have returned with their latest LP, ‘Two Wheels Move the Soul’, led by the caustic single, ‘The Sound It Made.’
A metallic and violent smear of sound, ‘The Sound It Made’ is a warped noise-pop battery of groaning guitars, migraine bass and jungle-heavy breakbeats. Paired with the insouciant whispers of Cates, ‘The Sound It Made’ blends the sarcastic melodies of Water From Your Eyes with the skin-peeling tumult of Gilla Band or Prostitute. A clarion call for defiance in the face of the faceless, ‘The Sound It Made’ is as essential as it is unrelenting.
Photo by Jackie Freeman
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