“Don’t listen to your every word/don’t listen to your tone” was, fittingly, the most difficult line to extract from “Metonymy”, the new single from Brooklyn psych-shoegazers Turnip King. The track, which begins comparatively clearly with the biting, “I want to die before you/‘cause I can’t live without you,” stuffs its lo-fi spectrum with shredding guitar and airy drums until, bordering on cacophony, it rejects attempts to grasp it from one point or another. Surrounded by wails, only the staunch kick drum of the rhythm section grounds “Metonymy”‘s dreamy melodic structure.
Its accompanying video, streaming above, runs a parallel thematic track. DV and VHS footage—sometimes blown out, blocked out, or composted beyond recognition—resolves into various scenes around Brooklyn and the band’s alma mater, Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson. While those locations provide an overall feeling of unity, artifacts analogue and digital (notably a spinning cube a text that alternated between “TURNIP KING” and “VIDEO CALIBRATION”) grant the enterprise a sense of unreality.
In literat ure, a metonymy is a device that allows a part to stand metaphorically for a whole. If “Metonymy” stands for Laika, Turnip King’s upcoming album, it should prove a vexing, alluring record of a digitally-distorted, technologically-colonized reality.
Turnip King tour dates
June
26 BROOKLYN at AVIV W/BIG NECK POLICE
28 MT. TAURUS IN COLD SPRING NY
30 HARTFORD CT at THE WHITNEY HOUSE W/ JACK?+MAPLE BROWN
July
01 HADLEY MA at TUBECat S
02 BOSTON MA at TBA W/ ELLEN FROM PALEHOUND
03 MONTREAL at TBA W/ MAL DEVISA
04 PETERBOUROUGH CANADA W/ HEat HERS
05 DETROIT (HAMTRAMCK) BBQ at LUMPKIN LODGE
06 CHICAGO at THE BURLINGTON
07 INDIANAPOLIS at STat E ST PUB
08 LOUISVILLE at HAY MARKET WHISKEY BAR W/ CHER VON
09 OXFORD OHIO at A HOUSE
10 HARRISONBURG VA at CRAYOLA HOUSE
11 WASHINGTON DC at BABE CITY W/BUENO
12 PHILADELPHIA W/CLEO FROM GIRLPOOL, OLD MAYBE, AND WHat NERVER
16 JERSEY CITY at THE DOPENESS W/ NO FRIENDS+MORUS ALBA
17 BROOKLYN at BOHEMIAN GROVE W/ NO FRIENDS
18 LONG ISLAND at TBA W/ NO FRIENDS
