We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Laughing At The System

by Total Control

supported by
The Chosen Juan
The Chosen Juan thumbnail
The Chosen Juan Fell in love with this track the moment I heard it.

(The first track sucks tho) Favorite track: Luxury Vacuum.
Class War Imprint
Class War Imprint thumbnail
Class War Imprint Music is beyond this universe. Message is perfect for our times.
Seriöse PR
Seriöse PR thumbnail
Seriöse PR INCREDIBLE!!! With this album, you will NEVER AGAIN have no erection guaranteed! Favorite track: Luxury Vacuum.
Nicholas Kennedy
Nicholas Kennedy thumbnail
Nicholas Kennedy Expectations subverted massively tbh Favorite track: Her Majesty, Budgie.
Louis Jagger
Louis Jagger thumbnail
Louis Jagger TC keep up their run of having the best album covers in the business. Music's pretty good too. Favorite track: Her Majesty, Budgie.
Matt Andrew
Matt Andrew thumbnail
Matt Andrew they've... they've done it again... they've bloody done it Favorite track: Luxury Vacuum.
more...
/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £5 GBP  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Repress Ltd. 500 copies.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Laughing At The System via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £10 GBP or more 

     

1.
2.
3.
Vanity 02:22
4.
Vote Cops 02:17
5.
6.
7.
8.

about

However you might try to find the words for it, Total Control's caustic charm is stunning and oblique. A sensible account of the band typically focuses on its parts—the associated groups, the touring configurations, etc.—as if finding ways by which Total Control is divisible gleans critical information for breaking through their cryptic sheen. With tonic, wry twists, and forever employing aphoristic brevity for the comic/cosmic dynamite that it is best reserved for, the band seems to indulge this with each new release, or tour, or whatever's put on the counter. The bands European tour tape from 2015 was a sure reminder of this.

Their new 12", 'Laughing At The System,' is a succinct statement, but it feels like the sharpest thing they've ever assembled. Written and recorded over the past couple of years in various lounge rooms, bedrooms, and rehearsal studios, across Melbourne, regional Victoria, and Western Australia, Al Montfort, Daniel Stewart, James Vinciguerra, Mikey Young, and Zephyr Pavey are—for the record—all accounted for in the process.

'Laughing At The System' is bookended by a title track in two parts. The scattered mania of the opener is an unsettling beginning, with cascading madhouse-riffs somehow finding a ricocheting unison. The closing part has the familiar head-charge of Total Control's most gnashing moments, with the guitars balancing the equation between running-too-fast and drinking-too-fast in one queasy commitment. With a brilliantly acerbic wit, we're implored to gather that there's some equivalences here. And it's this kind of impulse that's kept up throughout the 12".

Drizzled with Vinciguerra's fraught fills, which have the rare quality of being unmistakably his in both electronic and acoustic form, this punctuation comes in and out of focus between elegiac moments and breezy experimentation, the latter including the elated instrumental 'Cathie and Marg.' Throughout, Stewart scripts a tumultuous wake for a flatlining reality, forever nudging the listener to second-guess themselves about the sincerity and intent. Far from cynical, but earnestly neurotic, the potency of the atmosphere that Total Control has mustered across 'Laughing At The System' registers as a deeply commanding, though bleak, psychedelicism for the future.

Japanese release on 15/01/2018 through Big Love Records.

credits

released December 8, 2017

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

A L T E R London, UK

PLEASE READ BEFORE ORDERING!

All items are sent first class domestic and international priority with Royal Mail. You do NOT get a tracking number. if you want a tracking number then please order from our website.

EU customers may face customs charges and additional VAT. We are not liable for these charges.

Contact: info@alterstock.org
... more

contact / help

Contact A L T E R

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Laughing At The System, you may also like: