bagel fanclub Find A New Type of God While I Try To Interview Them

bagel fanclub is the meeting of two minds across the Atlantic: On the west is River, an enthusiast of esoterica whose catalog spans post-noise pastiches and dense braindance, as well as the founder of Retrac Recordings. On the east is Caybee, more commonly known as Apollo Bitrate, a chiptune artist informed by experimental sampling technique, hardcore kicks and psychedelic effects. Despite the wide geographic gap, in bagel fanclub they find immense synergy. Loud synths, bright melodies, and grooves so deep you can stick a knife through it. Electronic fascination permeates it's nothing new, in not just how many different ways they can portray and layer mangled sine waves, but in its surprisingly divergent approach to one of the internet's most loved genres- 'breakcore'.

Dispensing of cliche in many senses, it's nothing new is unlike its unassuming title. Hardcore kicks are molded into something alien, breaks are seldom used without heavy chopping and distortion unseen in form since the reign of Venetian Snares. It is also extremely weird. I flew them out to an uninhabited island to interview them, reveling on psychedelic nothings all the while. That last part may be my fault. Oops!

Melissa Thyme Monroe: So before I continue, I thought I'd let you two know that I spiked the water supply in the local area with ayahuasca.

Caybee: I hope your dealer's reliable. Don't wanna end up in the ER again.

MTM: I can assure you it's all safely and sustainably made. I got a local guy to make me some back of house. Still might puke though. Can't get that out of the plants.

So tell me a little about bagel fanclub!

It is at this point that River, seemingly already tripping balls, stands up from their chair.

River: bagel fanclub is an electronic band formed in in late 2022, they make music with computers and generally whatever the fuck they want in general. bagel fanclub is not a joke, you don’t show it to your friends ironically or put it on at parties to get laughs. It’s not for laughs. You either like it or you don’t!!

MTM: Please keep it down, my aunt's sleeping in the attic.

River: Most people don’t, statistically. but we forgive them. I met Caybee through Retrac, and after inevitably collabing on one track, they said “hey that was really fun, let’s continue to do that, and also grow closer as really good friends” and now fast forward and we’re on our third album!! We make whatever we want. A lot of it happens to be breakcore but we’re trying just to make music we want to hear, being ourselves every step of the way. It also just so happens we’re incredibly similar in many aspects.

Like, name another electronic band comprised of two queer agender furry mentally ill stoners.

They pause for a moment before replying as if someone had told them an answer.

Oh really? I’ll have to check them out. Any questions?

MTM: Yeah, what was that?

River: It was a good answer.

MTM: Erm.. Anyways, Caybee, what's it's nothing new about?

CC: it's nothing new essentially began as a follow-up EP to our second album to mirror that album's pre-release EP! We were hoping to focus in on some of the more concise genre-bending of encore county ground over a short period of time, but we ended up making too much material to not just release an album. We wanted to make an album that almost felt like a compilation of multiple different bands while still trying to create a cohesive breakcore record.

MTM: You seem to describe this record as 'breakcore' but it has a lot more going on inside it. One of my favorite moments thus far is the transition to 'psychedelic trance', which sounds almost nothing like the rest of the album. Can you speak to your eclecticism here a bit more?

CC: So, it's nothing new in contrast to our previous albums really came as a result of us being tired of electronic albums getting pigeonholed into just "oh, here's a compilation of random songs we need to put on a CD or on Bandcamp". So we really wanted to create something that's the antithesis to just sticking to the same genre over the course of an entire album in hopes of getting on a DJ mix or whatever. bagel fanclub kinda always came out of us deciding to make breakcore while coming out of weird DIY genreless scenes. I think River would be able to speak on 'psychedelic trance' a bit more specifically if, uh, you're hanging in there.

River: I should be g-

River freezes still.

River: Good...

CC: ...but that song essentially started out as a bridge between two sides of the record (one more danceable and the other more progressive and psychedelic), which led to an obscure Burmese pop song getting interpolated and turned into, uh, whatever you hear on the final album. Speaking of psychedelic...

I dunno it's not kicking in for me. Do you have any more water?

I pour Caybee another glass of DMT-laden branch water. It looks off to the side at a rapidly confused River.

River: Ironically, I am playing some shows in the US in the first half of June to promote the album, so I'll have to still find out a way to work these into a set anyhow.

MTM: Right, you are touring!

River: It’s going to be so nice to spread music I’m proud of, made with a buddy I greatly respect and enjoy. I wish Caybee were there, for sure, but it’s going to be so nice to spread music I’m proud of.

CC: We got my tickets to come over to the US and play and everything, but then the election happened, which could be a discussion in of itself.

MTM: Oy vey, best not to do that while the branches are kicking in.

River: Yeah... It's scary. But it gives me all the more hope that people will resonate with our music when it’s played live in front of them. There’s lots of hidden emotions beyond the chaotic surface of it all.

Oh great, I think it’s kicking in for me. I’m getting vulnerable.

CC: Goes back to the discussion earlier and all that. I guess we want to see more appreciation for electronic albums that are willing to build up a cohesive emotional narrative over the album's runtime as opposed to just "going hard" or whatever.

MTM: Right, and hardcore especially tends to have that problem, no?

River: True, I don’t listen to a lot of hardcore actually, but I assume since it’s such a DJ-heavy genre you’re not gonna have albums that flow like how our album does… How the hell would you drop 'mutant hell fishing' in a set and expect the crowd to be alive by the end?!

CC: Yeah, hardcore's always seemed to be a genre about singles and/or DK mixes as opposed to full albums. That actually ties a lot into Retrac's philosophy as well as an album focused label, hoping to encourage more eclectic uses of the genre.

River: I personally think there’s a lot about breakcore that resonates with me in my own mental struggles, it makes it a really meaningful platform for me to jump off of when making music, if that makes sense. Even if I make harsh noise, I still chop it up and turn it into a break for sampling later.

MTM: That explains a lot of what I've heard off the album. It seems to very much use noise as a percussion—speaking of which, the breaks here are refreshing to hear as someone who's listened to a lot of amen breaks. Was there any deliberation on break usage here?

CC: Definitely! Something that interests me a lot when making breakcore is shaping things into breaks myself. A lot of what you hear on it's nothing new consists of noise (as River said), foley sounds, random songs we've cut and pitched and smeared with effects, even random things we've just recorded and so on. We could probably move into a sort of Matmos direction if we wanted. We're going to make breaks out of human brain dust next. Where did River put the drill...

MTM: Careful now.

River: I was uh... using it.

River smiles wider than they oughtta.

River: But yeah, if you listen to our first album how are your cars driving, you’ll notice there’s like no Amen Break! This was deliberate. I think the Amen is still hidden in it somewhere but I don't think you’d be able to pick it out without poking around in the stems. then with our second album encore county ground we were like 'okay now Amens can be on every track for a more “classic” breakcore sound', which is funny because there are several moments where it sounds like a UFO taking off. Citation needed. This third album, we kinda wanted to try and use modern or at least forward-thinking sounds as percussion, you can hear it especially on the track 'new jack swing' which breaks down into that weird hyperpop-esque breakdown— Ok I need the barf bag.

River heaves at their left side before lurching upright slowly.

River: No, no no, wait, I’m good. I just.. I just thought about hyperpop for too long. Okay. Yeah.

But yeah, we wanted to hone in on the sound design a little bit more on this one. We had to split the last track’s project file in two because we both have shitty laptops, but also because we were using the nifty plugin Vital for nearly every sound, then resampled it, rinse and repeat.

MTM: You two have quite the process. it's nothing new often does sound like a program being taken to its limits, so I'm pretty vindicated on that being literal. Hey River, what inspired 'psychedelic trance'?

River: We put in the liner notes of our first album, as a nod to Rephlexian producer Bogdan Razcynski “If you don’t pay for this, then don’t complain when we start making psychedelic trance”. I found out someone had downloaded our album with the name your price option set to zero, then immediately knew we had to get in the studio to make 'psychedelic trance'. I wanted an excuse to do some really modern/trendy style chopped, bitcrushed vocals so I just rapped a bunch of nonsense. Then Caybee and I had our friends do layers of vocals in the parts where I wasn't rapping.

The bagel fanchoir is now disbanded but there may be a reunion tour.

CC: You might be familiar with this song if you've spent any time listening to Burmese pop radio. Not kidding!

MTM: Oh?

River: I don't actually know if the song we interpolated was a hit. I doubt it? The guy was famous and notable but I'm not sure how successful this particular track was… But yeah, I just found a random, super low quality rip of this Burmese pop tape from the 70s, then the second track started playing and it was the most beautiful melody I had ever heard. Of course I don't speak Burmese so I'm not sure what he was singing, but I started listening to hella Burmese pop/rock music from the 70's/80's ever since.

CC: I hope Gwen's lyrics about having intercourse with alien plants can live up to the original Burmese lyrics, truly.

MTM: Speaking of intercourse...

The both of them lock gazes with me in surprise.

MTM: You do know what series of paintings your album art parodies, right?

River: ...'funny trust fall moments vol. 12', right...?

They chuckle and shift back into their seats.

CC: I learned about 'Men In The Cities' through The Ascension's cover art and it really resonated with me, much like the no wave scene in the 80's as well. I think some people might stylistically see it as a strange thematic choice and it's definitely a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but it was an incredibly deliberate choice in part for making intense art while everything falls apart around me. For the first album where I would really present being a queer furry beyond the subtext of the music. I definitely want to learn more about it myself, but I think you're the first person to pick up on it not just being a random parody. I really appreciate that!

MTM: It's certainly refreshing to hear queer aesthetics be forefronted in this day and age, so I figured I'd sniff it out and found a lot of resonance there. It does mean a lot when I see things like this, and I'm sure others agree.

I think Caybee, you had a couple? River...

River belches extremely loudly, holding their stomach before cracking an awkward smile.

CC: Er, still not really feeling anything honestly. On the other hand I think I might have to carry River out of here. Maybe I need your dealer's number..?

MTM: Yeahhhh, you don't want to do that. I had one guy take too much and form a cult in Alberta for some reason. Something about rats.

it's nothing new is available for pre-order on Bandcamp and will be out on June 14th on streaming services.

it’s nothing new, by bagel fanclub

7 track album

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