An Act of Participation: american poetry club’s New Bedroom Pop EP Survives Through GarageBand, Prophetic Collaboration, and Community
Words by Jane Lai
One week before the country shut down, I saw american poetry club at Jones Beach, a small Bushwick bar venue sandwiched between two competing bodegas and nestled under the romanticized JMZ line. Shaped like a down-sized church, wearing a dim violet light, and spacious enough for just fifteen people, frontperson Jordan Weinstock started their set by turning towards the stage and screaming into a mosaic backdrop.
I recently caught up with the band whose new EP do you believe in your heart?! came out today. Members including Weinstock (they/them), Andy Lewis (he/him), Connor Sbrocco (he/him), Kaley Macleod (she/they), Sang-Jin Lee (he/him), and Zoë Finkelstein (she/her) were kind enough to offer insight into their processes.
Weinstock performing live last year
Due to an ongoing pandemic, arms and legs of each track were conceived through wav. files exchanged by members in different corners of the country. Describing their work as “the sound of self-esteem,” the album was recorded conservatively with GarageBand mobile, ten-dollar Panasonic headphones, a Wii microphone for a High School Musical game, and whatever else was around.
“In many ways [the process] was a more fully realized version of the earliest apc albums,” said Weinstock. “It obviously sucked not being able to play and realize songs as a cohesive unit, but it also meant everyone got to really embrace their own voice in the writing process.” Pandemic or not, the band’s approach wasn’t prophetic; it simply maintained their democratic ecosystem of building music.
Accessibility isn’t just giving each member complete autonomy over parts. The album is available for a suggested donation, tabs are uploaded on Ultimate Guitar, and lyrics describe exactly what they are.
The penultimate song “the light in” is a testament to this. It was a “great proof of a concept track for what our band is all about,” Lewis notes. “As each member contributed to it [the track] seemed to fall into place very seamlessly and came out sounding exactly like what apc sounds like.” And in “the exit,” Lewis sings “we’ll go to the same parts of town but we’ll never get tired of being unbound,” climbing towards a triumphant instrumental break, pulped up with synth and guitar, and leaving room for the collaboration to move.
Leaving in some buzz seems intentional. No studio-glossed sound exists. The grainy lure and bouts of unevenness can fill an imaginative space between headphones and a yearn for live shows. A scratching wire, a voice crack, or a muffled drum is not a character of carelessness, it’s an artistic choice that reels a listener closer to the music.
The minimalist “first take” style is reminiscent of mid-2000s no-frills numbers such as Hello Shark’s early work Book Lungs and the Phoning It In series (radio call-in gigs). Paired with communal choruses and an appreciation for imperfections, final visions often existed in first drafts.
But perhaps a prime example of this was Chad Matheny’s (Emperor X) one-man performance, a clip Weinstock sent me at the beginning of quarantine. Here, Matheny is playing stage adjacent to East River Park drenched in sweat. A duct-taped mic and megaphone contraption is strapped to his body as he folds in and out of dynamic and experiences this one moment while an entire world disappears around him.
“I wouldn’t say maintaining the lo-fi sound is something we care about as much as I would say maintaining a “you can do this too” mentality is,” said Jordan. It’s a mantra as simple as extending hands towards communities and reassuring them we play on the same grounds.
Like an artist getting their feet wet by tracing, american poetry club encourages their audiences to seek out the art, mimic it in practice, and use it as a model. Don’t be afraid to embrace those influences, but never copy something verbatim. That’s like tossing the ball back to its creator. Weinstock notes how “it’s about learning that you can miss the people and places you were once defined by and still embrace and love new communities.”
Even in the age of livestreams, they make rooms feel familiar with the twang of an unplugged jazzmaster and greeting each friend entering the conversation.
do you believe in your heart?! was mixed, programmed, and additionally produced by Hannah Jocelyn (she/they) and mastered by Paul Auer (they/them). The album is released under It Takes Time Records.
Tune into their livestream show tonight at 8 pm on their Instagram and support the album on Bandcamp.
And a final note from Weinstock: Read up on Rojava and the Zapatistas. Support your local mutual aid society. Go to a protest and practice a diversity of tactics. Join a revolutionary organization. We are living in the shadow of fascism and the only way out is through robust and comprehensive communities that consciously subvert capitalist infrastructures.
