Carrying on from yesterday’s Le Guin theme, the first in a series of posts where I pick my top three tracks from a random record, in this case the self-titled debut album from New Orleans hardcore band Ekumen.
Every track on Ekumen is great, most of them are extremely short, and the band makes a lot of room for wild noise and brutal lyrics without ever forgetting the Mike Watt dictum that you’ve got to keep people moving. The Ursula K. Le Guin connection – the band is named after her interplanetary alliance, and this album’s song titles refer to concepts from her Hainish stories – provides an overlay of information without getting in the way of what the songs ask you to feel.
It was tempting to put ‘Nearreal’ on this list for the way it sets the whole thing off right with that heavy, descending riff pulling you into the conflicted space Ekumen occupy, a space where you’re still trying to give a fuck as an adult who has survived long enough to have the temptation to stop giving a fuck. ‘Kemmer’ almost made it on here too for the way the high-end stutter of its verses crashes out into a more traditional punk rock gallop: “I never thought I’d end in a place like this”.
Those tracks sketch out Ekumen’s position in the world, but the three songs selected below give more of a raw impression of how they feel about it, whether they’re raging against the quiet complicity of the crowd, asking where they’ll live on the other side of gentrification, or working to keep faith in our ability to live a better way.
TRIPLE MIX
If you enjoy this album, make sure to check out Ekumen’s contributions to this split record with Heel Turn. At least one member of the band thinks these are the best songs they’ve released. The more I listen, the more I think they might be right.
Blue Box // Recorder 