Brooklyn art-punks Bodega have revealed the follow up to their acclaimed debut album Endless Scroll with a new full length, Broken Equipment, out via What’s Your Rupture?, out on March 11th next year. Ahead of it’s release the band have released a new video for lead single track Doers, a track which pokes fun at Daft Punk – it’s central mantra being “bitter, harder, fatter, stressed out.”
Of ‘Doers’, the band’s Ben Hozie explains “Sometime on tour near the end of 2019 I found myself reading and watching a plethora of self-help books and Youtube vids. This started from a genuine desire for spiritual and physical improvement but I soon started noticing how advertisements everywhere were utilising the language of self-help. I was being programmed.
“‘You don’t have time to cook dinner tonight because you are too busy crushing it as a doer —> You are creating next level content and don’t have time to hang out w/ friends or family this weekend so download this app and have ready-made food delivered to you for 29.99.’ This ideology of constant productivity forces you to treat your own body, mind, time, and friends as products to mine ——> As a result the world becomes a smaller, duller place. All artists (all people) desire to be productive : ‘Function is the key.’ Yet… If a photo is taken of you in the woods: for all millennia you’ll always be stuck in the woods.”
Typically angular and even anxious, it’s built on punk/funk foundations, with splashes of synth thrown in and guitar veering between chattering chords and soaring riffs, with the vocals this taugh, spoken, urging chanting. It’s an exciting prequel to something that could be special.
The accompanying video, directed by Ben alongside BODEGA co-founder Nikki Belfiglio, and drawing inspiration from Ryan Trecartin, Hype Williams and Slipknot – continues to take aim at the 21st century’s incessant productivity/positivity cycle.
Ben continues “For the advertisement (music vid) for the track we teamed up with our old pal Joe Wakeman (who used to perform with me and Nikki in BODEGA BAY). We shot at the old abandoned IBM offices in Kingston, NY (where Nikki and Joe were born and raised) and a gym and a parking garage in Bushwick. The video stars Dr. DOER, a misunderstood monster who simply wants to issue directives and inspire his team of ghouls to #greatness.”
