Self Improvement

Reviews

Self Improvement Syndrome LP

From Long Beach, California, SELF IMPROVEMENT is out with their second LP. Compared to 2022’s Visible Damage, this release dives further into the no wave realm, with slower tempos, sparser arrangements, and fewer heavy moments. If you like the slower parts of the CONTORTIONS, maybe mixed with a little ESG, then you’ll like SELF IMRPOVEMENT’s sound, which, in the end, doesn’t need comparison. Guitar riffs snake around beneath Jett Witchalls’s rich and compelling vocals, while bass and drums are lockstep throughout with an effective propulsion. The band also features a synth and drum machine, but they’re blended so well I can hardly tell, besides the obvious click track or one-off synth eccentricity. The overall feeling here is a skewed pleasantness, like a shaky and out-of-center photo of someone smiling. Witchalls’s vocals create this tension on a dime, coming in smoothly, then changing over a sour chord or drum clatter, as she sends the band into a diagonal spiral wherein you may cock your head to one side, intent to hear whatever’s coming next. Unique sound for the languid and perturbed.

Self Improvement Visible Damage cassette

The whereabouts of Su Tissue following the demise of SUBURBAN LAWNS have been a source of continued speculation, but after listening to this debut from Long Beach’s SELF IMPROVEMENT, one could convincingly run with the theory that Su decamped to the UK for a spell before finding her way back to the LAWNS’ hometown, where she started the band up again under a new name and with a new accent—English expat vocalist Jett Witchalls largely sticks to a Tissue-adjacent (but considerably less art school quirky) deadpan speak/sing, only allowing her austere facade to slip into more animated squirms and squeals when the band’s wound-up wiggly world rhythms hit fever pitch. ”Ashes” circles in an ominous, bass-centered loop with near-whispered voice-over narration for a steady two minutes, before abruptly shifting into a frantic finish line dash of shrieks and “I can’t believe it’s not Northwest Indiana” robo new wave writhing, and the nervous tick of the title track sounds like ’80s weirdo staple “Janitor” if it had been written by Hardcore-era DEVO, with Jett’s blank emotion chants spiking into the briefest of melting-down shouts without ever losing control. I think Su would approve (wherever she is).