Give me post-punk through the lens of dream-pop any day. I’m listening to Karate, Guns & Tanning‘s new single “Graffiti Children” and it’s taking my inner punk on a wild ride into the cosmos and that’s exactly where my mind wants to be right now! It’s just psychedelic enough to feel like an acid trip and not like a bad recreation of the Summer of Love. It’s just dreamy enough to woo my inner 80s child without sounding like the ballads I lived for in a past life. And it’s punk enough to make me laugh in the face of the authorities that want me to conform so that they feel more comfortable living in their facade. It’s the latest single off their album Concrete Beach that comes out on March 26th, and you can pre-order it here. Today I’m happy to share this ride with you and I hope “Graffiti Children” gives you some peace in your own mind for just under three minutes.
This one is a love song. An overwrought feeling of a new relationship, obsessive and intense, but you know there’s no way it will last. You take the ride anyway. The halftime lyrics refer to iambic pentameter – a reference to Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet. Obsessed lovers who didn’t end up together. It sounded a lot more punk and chaotic until we brought the guitar in – it added a layer of depth that we really loved.
Lyrics:
Trash our minds this way
Tint the dark delay
When we meet halfway
Through the neon rain
Blanket the voice box in your vacant urgency
Step back a few shapes
Take the torch from the breeze
Make the beat seedy
Imprint the sound into your need
Fracture synthetic the arts in blue
Talk at us
In iambic
AH AH AH AH (x4)
Blanket the voice box in your vacant urgency
Step back a few shapes
Take the torch from the breeze
Make the beat seedy
Imprint the sound into your need
Fracture synthetic the arts in blue (x2)
Talk at us
In iambic
AH AH AH AH (x4)
Dash and tag the trains
Paint our name in rain
Blinded fortune game
Chroma colored days
Blanket the voice box in your vacant urgency
Step back a few shapes
Take the torch from the breeze
Make the beat seedy
Imprint the sound into your need
Fracture synthetic the arts in blue
Blanket the voice box in your vacant…
