In one month, Detroit post-punk greats Protomartyr return with Hotel Usona, the new album that they recorded with Dave Fridmann, a producer with a whole lot of classics under his belt. We already posted lead single "Sounds We Cannot Hear," and now Protomartyr have a new one called "Feed The Sewer," a supremely ugly skronk-rock freakout that manages to be oppressive and cathartic at the same damn time.
The phrase "feed the sewer" means "take a shit," right? That's not what Protomartyr literally have in mind on this one. Instead, the lurching, guttural track is about the forces of enshittification at work on our everyday lives. Let frontman Joe Casey explain it:
The title comes from a line of dialogue in a Peter Greenaway movie. The sentiment of the song is that artificial intelligence is against humanity. The belief is that people are often willing to destroy the world in exchange for convenience. The lyrics are the usual mish-mash of political fears, personal grievances, literary references, and poop jokes. The music is very loud, like a data center.
Actor Nate Varrone, from Maddie's Secret and one episode of The Bear, starred in the video for "Sounds We Cannot Hear," and he's back for the surreal "Feed The Sewer" clip. This time, director Andrew Theodore Balasia captures Varrone paying $50 to watch the security-cam feeds at a motel where lots of insane shit is happening. Balasia says:
Loneliness in the age of surveillance is the theme we explored for this video. The motel becomes a physical microcosm of data collection, each room a profile — each guest willingly paying to stay in a room that is being monitored by strangers.
The banality of what’s being observed becomes its own source of unease, stripping away spectacle until all that remains is the dull, unsettling desire to connect with anything.
Check it out below.
Hotel Usona is out 9/25 on Domino.
