It's an exciting day at Marina Red HQ. Chuck SJ has released a new album. Resist Recharge Revolt.
Chuck SJ, know as being 50% of BYENARY, who's EP has been on our regular playlist since discovering it a couple of years ago and is an absolutely awesome queercore punk which takes a lyrical look at the trans experience.
This new album is an absolute must for all those who love a kind of Anarcho Folky punk and who love to hear uniqueness in each song, raw emotion is each tune, a brutal honesty in each lyric and a sonorous fresh perspective.
For this new album, Chuck SJ has been hauled up in a log cabin during lockdown and emerged with a 17 track album which is out today, 2nd December 2022. The launch party will be tonight at Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney, but if you can't make it down there to hear it live, you can, like me, have a good listen on bandcamp, where you can also buy it on CD.
I'm listening to it as I write. It's quite a journey. There's a great mix of heavier revolution tunes, mellow and beautiful melodies to recharge to and a lyrical call to resist that which doesn't serve us. In the title track of the album, Chuck deals with the government campaign for us to Rethink/ReSkill/Reboot and tells us it is critiqued as an attack on the arts. The militant beat of the the overdriven guitar and drums in unison, giving the call to "Set the streets on fire and fuck throughout the night". With the sudden guitar and rhythm change at around the 3 minute mark, Chuck tells us to "Resist, Recharge, Revolt."
M4 is a beautiful melodic tune which appears to draw on the fear of death awaiting around each corner, very much an experience we all had during the Covid pandemic. The lyrics take us through the fear of driving on the M4 motorway and its perils. The song is recorded live with Chuck on acoustic guitar and vocals. The immediacy of the live recording, the raw feeling in Chuck's voice, makes us feel like we're on the journey together. "What doesn't kill you can always make art" we are reminded at the end.
Chuck has made art with this album, self-produced, they have played with different rhythms and production and musicality, giving the album a varied and unique feel. Throw Me a Bone has a bit of a reggae feel. Cabin Fever is grungy and dark. And We Love You is a spoken word poem with just a mellow rolling guitar in the background, rounded off with what seems to be a very personal voice clip message to Chuck which is beautiful. Friends telling each other how much they love each other and lifting each other up.
A true artist, Chuck has released 15 albums, has toured extensively throughout Europe and played many pride music festivals including Manchester Pride, Amsterdam Anarcho Folk Festival and LadyFest in Maastricht. They work on a variety of projects, all of which are detailed on their website https://www.chucksj.com/. This new album is an absolute must for all those who love a kind of Anarcho Folky punk and who love to hear uniqueness in each song, raw emotion is each tune, a brutal honesty in each lyric and a sonorous fresh perspective.
Check out their spoken word video: Wish We Were Here which deals with the "struggles of Intimacy during isolation. Many of this speaks outside of lockdown. We project our past experiences onto new people, we internalise misogynistic culture and in doing so lose out on real moments with one another."
Much Love
Marina xx
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