{"title":"Preoccupations","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePreoccupations is a Canadian post-punk band hailing from Calgary, Alberta. Originally known as Viet Cong, the band was formed in 2012 and consists of Matt Flegel, Scott Munro, Daniel Christiansen, and Mike Wallace.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith their unique blend of atmospheric soundscapes and intense energy, Preoccupations have garnered a dedicated following within the post-punk scene. Their music explores themes of existentialism and introspection, creating a thought-provoking experience for listeners.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKnown for their captivating live performances, Preoccupations have toured extensively across North America and Europe. They have released several critically acclaimed albums that showcase their evolution as musicians and songwriters. With each release, they continue to push boundaries and challenge musical conventions.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"cassette","title":"Cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn late 2013, Preoccupations (then known as Viet Cong) released a small-run cassette EP only available on tour. Over the course of a year, Matt Flegel and Scott Munro worked in their basement studio with a mess of old and run down equipment to build a set of fresh material. Joined by bandmates Daniel Christiansen and Michael Wallace, the band completed work on an debut cassette. What emerged from the studio was a mixture of sharply-angled rhythm workouts and euphoric 60s garage pop-esque melodies, balanced with a penchant for drone-y, VU-styled downer moments and became a hard-to-find classic. Preoccupations’s first ever release, \u003ci\u003eCassette\u003c\/i\u003e, originally a tour-only cassette, is now reissued on vinyl.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jagjaguwar","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50406686687563,"sku":"1014391","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/05afee40-a632-48d9-bc30-b2ec42e779d8_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726589259"},{"product_id":"preoccupations","title":"Preoccupations","description":"\u003cp\u003eCanadian post-punks Viet Cong have changed their name to Preoccupations and now release a new album. This time, they walked into the studio with the gas gauge near empty, buoyed by one another while the rest of their lives were virtually unrecognizable and rootless. There was no central theme or idea to guide the band's collective cliff jump. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a result, 'Preoccupations' bears the visceral, personal sound of holding onto some steadiness in the midst of changing everything. Opener 'Anxiety' articulates tension: clattering sounds drift into focus, bouncing and echoing off one another until one bone-shattering moment when the full band strikes at once, moving from something untouchable to get to something deeply felt. 'Monotony' moves at a narcoleptic pace by Preoccupations' standards, but snaps to attention to make its point, that \"this repetition's killing you \/\/ it's killing everyone.\" 'Stimulation' opens with a snarl and hurls itself forward at what feels like a million bpm, pausing for one mortal moment of relief before barreling onward. 'Degraded' surprises, with something like a traditional structure and an almost pop-leaning melody to its chorus, twisting the bigness of Preoccupations' music to sideswipe the clear, finite smallness of its subjects and events. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd the 11-minute-long 'Memory' is the album's keystone, with an intimate narrative and a truly timeless post-punk center. There's love piercing through the iciness here, fighting its way forward in each of the song's distinct sections. As always, there is something crystalline to what they've made, a blast of cold air in a burning hot place. All this adds up to 'Preoccupations': a singular, bracing collection that proves what's punishing can also be soothing, everything can change without disrupting your compass. Your best year can be your worst year at the same time. Whatever sends you flying can also help you land.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jagjaguwar","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50438162743627,"sku":"403418","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Tape","offer_id":50438162121035,"sku":"403420","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50438160449867,"sku":"403419","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50438161400139,"sku":"403417","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/c9f68439-cb88-462e-ae53-820e47b7d3e6_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726939087"},{"product_id":"new-material","title":"New Material","description":"\u003cp\u003ePreoccupations’ songs have always worked through themes of creation, destruction, and futility, and they’ve always done it with singular post-punk grit. The textures are evocative and razor-sharp. The wire is always a live one. But while that darker side may have been well-explored, that’s not quite the same as it being fully, intensely lived. This time it was, and the result is \u003ci\u003eNew Material\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection that broadens and deepens Preoccupations to a true mastery of their sound. In it lies the difference between witnessing a car crash and crashing your own, between jumping into an ocean and starting to swallow the water. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s an ode to depression,’ singer Matt Flegel says plainly. “To depression and self-sabotage, and looking inward at yourself with extreme hatred.” Typically resilient, the months leading up to recording \u003ci\u003eNew Material\u003c\/i\u003e brought a new order of magnitude to feelings that had been creeping up on Flegel for some time. He’d written bits and pieces of lyrics through the course of it, small snippets he hadn’t assigned to any one thought or feeling but were emblematic of a deeper issue, something germinating that was dense and numb and fully unshakeable. As the band began writing music, that process gave shape to the sheer tonnage of what he’d been carrying. With virtually nothing written or demoed before the band sat down together, the process was more collaborative than before. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt was almost architectural, building some things up, tearing others down to the beams, sitting down and writing songs not knowing what they were about. But for Flegel, it led to a reckoning. “Finishing ‘Espionage’ was when I realized,” says Flegel. “I looked at the rest of the lyrics and realized the magnitude of what was wrong.” \u003ci\u003eNew Material\u003c\/i\u003e builds a world for that feeling, playing through its layers and complexities while hiding almost nothing. That inscrutable side is part of the magic, here, and a necessary counterweight to the straight-jab clarity of Flegel’s lyrics. You can deep-dive the lyrics or zone into a riff; you can face it or you can get lost in it. “My ultimate goal would be to make a record where nobody knows what instrument is playing ever,” says multi-instrumentalist Scott Munro, “and I think we’ve come closer than ever, here. It shouldn’t sound robotic — it should sound human, like people playing instruments. It’s just maybe no one knows what they are.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jagjaguwar","offers":[{"title":"Grey | LP","offer_id":50497250459979,"sku":"1026785","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50497248330059,"sku":"1026786","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50497252950347,"sku":"1026784","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/d76a7edb-621f-487d-9f7a-45fc585260cb_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727727029"},{"product_id":"preoccupations-lrsd-2020","title":"Preoccupations (LRSD 2020)","description":"\u003cp\u003eLove Record Store taupe edition. Canadian post-punks Viet Cong have changed their name to Preoccupations and now release a new album. This time, they walked into the studio with the gas gauge near empty, buoyed by one another while the rest of their lives were virtually unrecognizable and rootless. There was no central theme or idea to guide the band's collective cliff jump.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Brown | LP","offer_id":50498725314891,"sku":"1094259","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/12fb6cba-fa19-4428-9e6a-400122506bf9_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727755382"},{"product_id":"arrangements","title":"Arrangements","description":"\u003cp\u003eCanada's Preoccupations return to the post-punk, post-pandemic world with \u003ci\u003eArrangements.\u003c\/i\u003e Their fourth studio album finds them restoring their roots with the singular, guitar driven, dissonant yet anthemic washes of intricate noise that has brought them international acclaim since their basement beginnings.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor lovers of all things Bowie, Branca, Spacemen 3 and MBV, progressive punk, jangle rock and mangled goth. \u003ci\u003eArrangements\u003c\/i\u003e sees Preoccupations finally and confidently inhabiting the dystopia that they have been carefully creating from their musical genesis. They are in a room with taped up windows, except for a tiny pinprick of light beaming from the otherworld onto the far wall, upside down and blurred, it's recognisable enough to fill you with warm familiarity and nostalgia of unknown origins. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Preoccupations","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50510387183947,"sku":"1166773","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50510387970379,"sku":"1166772","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/e48bc880-e056-44cb-a328-825dc9a1c9b8_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727873700"},{"product_id":"ill-at-ease","title":"Ill At Ease","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ctable width=\"71\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\"\u003e\n\u003ccolgroup\u003e\u003ccol width=\"71\"\u003e\u003c\/colgroup\u003e\n\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr height=\"20\"\u003e\n\u003ctd width=\"71\" height=\"20\"\u003eThe band’s first release since 2022’s acclaimed Arrangements, Ill at Ease also marks the group’s first release with Born Losers. The record finds Preoccupations drawing upon new inspiration, both sonically and from lived experiences, to create the dynamic eight tracks that make up the project. Ill at Ease maintains the groups signature post-punk sound that’s earned them accolades from Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan, and others, while drawing upon the nostalgia from the music of the 80’s and 90’s that served as a major influence for the album. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The well of dark things to write about seemingly has not dried up, and lyrically, it’s where I still tend to draw from. Draining all my anxieties into a song is often the only way I can get through a day. Some songs exist in a world with barren plains of burnt earth, covered in a dust of shame, dread, death, where all the things I love are things that kill me,” explains Flegel. “Some come from the perspective of another distant world, looking skyward into a science fiction ocean of space, solitude, slight hope. Sometimes I’m looking around at the world that we live in now with incredulity, hilariously dissatisfied with how it’s all turned out, and assuming that it can’t be long before it’s all over. Some songs are just a reflection of me looking down at my feet while I trudge along wondering what I’m doing with myself, and if the ground is going to fall out from underneath me at any given moment.”\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e","brand":"Born Losers","offers":[{"title":"LP - Blue","offer_id":51304703099211,"sku":"R8315-1135","price":26.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":51649967653195,"sku":"R3435-5150","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Tape","offer_id":53319930806603,"sku":"R3435-4262","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/a0773972154_10.jpg?v=1744814266"},{"product_id":"mur-ponr","title":"Mur\/Ponr","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMur\/Ponr is a double B Side which features two unreleased songs from the original 'Ill at ease' sessions. Side B. Mur Side B. \u003c\/span\u003ePoor\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Born Losers Records","offers":[{"title":"7\" - Yellow","offer_id":53183676383563,"sku":"R2068-0762","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/201375059839.jpg?v=1755260971"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_ad97f250_thumbnail_4096_6749dce7-7392-4600-9603-034ded4df050.jpg?v=1726589241","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/preoccupations.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}