Introducing the Post-Punk of contemporary American duo Sweeping Promises.
Having released their debut album 'Hunger For A Way Out' just before the first lockdown in 2020, Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnugare aka Sweeping Promises are due to embark on a European tour in May. Definitely not to be missed, be sure to check them out in your city if you get a chance...
How are you feeling in 2022?
A little dark. Ideas: solidarity with Ukrainian citizens and all those on the ground who fight against invasion and colonization; maybe scalar planning is better for leftist imagination than degrowth; questions of digital music/art and value are finally coming to a head; interested in what comes after what Mónica Belevan has termed "Covidian Aesthetics" (e.g. the joker, the labyrinth, cringe, the big scam); does being in our 30s mean finally reveling in the company of plants?
How did you meet & where did your name come from?
We met in the early days of college. We made music for 12 years before Sweeping Promises. The name came from how we were feeling at the end of 2019.
We're in love with 'Hunger For A Way Out' - tell us about the concept behind the album ?
Thank you! We wanted to make an album that sounded focused yet fun, traveling in roads less traveled by punk. We recorded the album in an abandoned concrete science lab, which made us feel clinical and sly.
Punk has often been a response to the times, the last couple of years have been crazy, is that why post-punk is the best it's ever been?
Post-punk has been a rather diagnostic movement since the late 70s. We do think there are many barriers to creating punk music now, as questions of work and space and infrastructure make it hard for musicians to come together, even though a general spirit of resistance (or resentment) is there. That said, we believe there are many interesting developments within post-punk, like the rise of the surreal midwest (neo-Devo corpo punk is breaking new artistic terrain), the super literariness of UK bands, the raw excellence of the Australian scene.
Outside of music where else do you find that inspiration arises?
Film, we love it all. Our recent kicks are Korean police procedurals, Giallo, and Bollywood. Sometimes we think about music in terms of "shooting a scene"! We are interested in ancient histories of senses, alchemy, magnetism, and mesmerism, not so much as matters of belief but as spatial figures of thought. Caufield is indeed a new age music fan - if you couldn't tell from the last sentence - but we believe our music comes from a basic place.
Follow Sweeping Promises on the following platforms:
- Bandcamp
- Spotify
- PSYCHIC GARDEN
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