SUNKING

 “At its core, this is experimental music,” says Bobby Granfelt. “There’s elements of jazz and indie rock and hip-hip and electronic music, but ultimately, sunking is all about exploring the nooks and crannies between those genres, about throwing out all of the rules and expectations in search of something completely fresh and original.”

On Smug, the LA duo’s captivating debut for ANTI- Records, it’s safe to say they’ve found it. Crafted piecemeal over the course of several years, the collection is wildly inventive and utterly hypnotic, filtering the pair’s bold vision and virtuosic musicianship though the brash, DIY ethos of an underground punk band. As mesmerizing as it all can be, there’s also something perpetually unsettled about the music here—sometimes it’s a dissonance or cacophony that craves resolution, sometimes it’s a groove that resists fitting neatly into any recognizable time signature—and that’s by design. Nothing is sacred, nothing is precious.

Commitment is the name of the game for Granfelt and bandmate Antoine Martel, who first bonded over a shared love for progressive jazz, punk, shoegaze, and underground electronic music while still in high school. Over the years, the powerhouse drummer and keyboard wizard would collaborate in a variety of configurations—most notably as members of the sprawling Seattle collective High Pulp, which garnered a cult following and rave reviews on the strength of its “nuanced amalgam of funk, jazz-fusion, and R&B” (The Stranger) and “expansive, cinematic, intricately detailed sound” (KEXP)—but sunking always remained distinct from any of the pair’s other projects, in large part because it always remained just the two of them.