By Vlada Stark, Cover Photo By Marsello Mikel
It’s 2008 and your mom starts shopping at thrift stores and all your clothes become second-hand eventually. You’re not yet old enough to know why you were taken out of ballet classes, why you moved across the city to live in a rented apartment, or why your parents are fighting over a stack of papers in the middle of the dining room. All you really aspire to be is your neighbor’s oldest daughter, Oksana, who watches you on weekends while your mom works extra hospital shifts. Oksana teaches you English better than any textbook or worksheet, even the words your mom doesn’t want you to learn. She wears cut-open graphic tees, ripped leggings, fur vests, and feathers in her hair. Sometimes she’ll even show you how to do her smudged-out, careless eye makeup while listening to music you never thought could exist. She burns you a CD with tracks from Ladytron and Le Tigre to play on the Hello Kitty boombox your dad thrifted for your birthday. When you get home, your mom wipes the makeup off your face, but you still beg her to buy you lipstick.
It’s 2023 and you and your friends are perpetually broke, yet you waste your twenties away with whatever is left after scraping for rent. You have absolutely no idea how you’re going to get an ‘acceptable’ job once you graduate in the spring because no one ever responds to your resume. You developed low-grade anxiety while grocery shopping because the prices grow more and more outrageous, and you’ve begun to dig through your mom’s bins of clothes she refused to ever give away (you’re very grateful). You hopelessly wish to live in L.A., but you’re starting to come to terms with Vegas’ mediocrity.
Your friends spent a hot afternoon getting ready to see The Hellp open for Yves Tumor; artists you’ve been following for what seems like lifetimes. Your friend broke your already-dying blowdryer while The Dare ‘Sex’ EP played in the background, and she promised to buy you a new one on Amazon Prime Day since that’s the only way she’ll be able to afford it. While you sit outside and smoke a Camel Crush, you plan how you’re going to sneak into Sick New World in April to experience Snow Strippers live. You still think of Oksana often, realizing you’ve matured into her style, music, and even pessimism. It’s bittersweet.
October 10th, 2023 – Yves Tumor was on their enigmatic North American and Europe Tour promoting their new album Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds), and their first West Coast stop is Las Vegas at Area 15. Their opener, The Hellp, and their atypical blend of self-contained irony and inscrutable music just on the edge of noise indicate a repeating pattern of disillusioned youth in economic distress and their appeal to experimental electronica.
The Hellp’s tagline “more than noise, but not quite music,” is a better explanation for the band’s electronica flavored with rock and country essences than any combination of adjectives and metaphors that could possibly be smashed together in a desperate manner. The duo, Noah Dillon (vox) and Chandler Lucy (producer), have finally trekked outside of performing live only in New York and Los Angeles. With the backdrop of Kim Jong Un, Lord of the Rings, and Giorgia Meloni, their set was a dynamic mix of memorable tracks including “California Dream Girl,” “Meant to Be,” and, of course, “Tu Tu Neurotic.” Though their sound is unnamable, their atmosphere of carnality and absurdism has enslaved them under the internet-trendy label of “indie sleaze,” the term now being used to refer to post-recession hipsters and late 2000s’ adaptation of electroclash.
The romanticization of the now-coined indie sleaze era is far more than another nostalgic, vapid .com trend, but perhaps a reenactment of the Great Recession youth culture’s hedonistic response to soaring inflation and housing market failure. There may be an expectation of gloomy, perpetually sad themes in music, fashion, and other forms of art as a signal of an upcoming recession. However, the real worrying signs may be skinny scarves and worn-in leather jackets contrary to whatever Fox economist or Joe Biden insists.
The alternative culture response to the 2008 Great Recession was of unbridled self-indulgence. Party culture, especially the photography of party culture and its permanence through posting on the still-naive internet, skyrocketed as a reaction to the lack of financial security and future prospects. A relatively tamed version of 1990s’ electroclash, a fusion genre of techno and punk, surged (electroclash also initially began as a response to the wavering political stability at the turn of the millennium, but that’s an entirely different essay) with underground acts such as Peaches and Crystal Castles suddenly surfacing to web popularity. The atmosphere of the era was an escapist yet resentful attitude towards a failing system.
As the U.S. once again succumbs to the same poor economic conditions, youth culture’s vindictive stance has once again reemerged and stolen heavy inspiration from the Great Recession era’s alternative scene. Cheap digital cameras became a trend overnight to document the excessive curation of nighttime detachment and gratification. The renewed adoration of American Apparel, which remained internet lore for over a decade, has brought back ripped tights and flirtatious inhibition. Again, electronically experimental acts such as The Dare, Snow Strippers, and The Hellp are the soundtrack to this unrestrained evocation.
Though the indie sleaze label is malaligned with this current alternative music scene, a playlist is linked below with emerging artists of the neo-electroclash genre.
ASTR0MAG 