#American Standard

[emmieexplores2]

1953

[cerealkiller740]

1948 American Standard Heating and Plumbing

[stone-cold-groove]

An American Standard bathroom.

[lisamarie-vee]

[dustedmagazine]

Uniform — American Standard (Sacred Bones)

Photo by Joshua Zucker

“American Standard,” the title track from the new LP by NYC noiseniks Uniform, will likely dominate the attention garnered by the record. That’s justified: the song is massive, at 21+ minutes, and it’s massively unpleasant — more on those qualities below. But listeners shouldn’t neglect the rest of the release. The shorter songs that compose the remainder of American Standard are just as uncompromising, and they also foreground the band’s gift for coupling a caustic, aggro sensibility with compelling melodic structures. Rarely has noise rock been so tuneful, and then also so awfully punishing.

Godflesh and early Swans (Greed is a useful point of comparison) are clear touchstones for Uniform’s blend of noise rock and industrial music; but this reviewer also flashes on the Cows, c. 1993. Check out the one-two punch of “Shitbeard” and “Ch” from Sexy Pee Story, songs that couple brain-bludgeoning dissonance with weirdly idiosyncratic hooks. Uniform’s sound is less organic and more mechanically insidious than that bovine band from Minneapolis. The squelchy slaughterhouse is swapped for the cold cement of the factory floor — and the dudes in Uniform are driving a steam roller across it, grinding through waves of spilled sulfuric acid.

A more metallic array of factory apparatus is appropriate to American Standard, named for the famous brand of mass-produced plumbing fixtures. As much of the record’s pre-release chatter has indicated, the title track thematizes vocalist Michael Berdan’s long struggle with an eating disorder — and the horrifically long sessions of purging he has done over numerous toilets. The song extends, stretching out inexhaustibly. Berdan does not spare us: “My forehead rests / On dried piss / And twists of hair / […] An acrid film / On the water / I’m consumed / By the stench.” The images are stark, immediate. They need no figural amplification.

The music takes on that task, churning and moving in waves, an inexorable force that dramatizes regurgitation. That rhythmic structure is the song’s dark heart (or gut), but past the ten-minute mark, there is a break into a more dramatic passage, punctuated by a big riff. You can imagine the song’s I-speaker, a barely veiled version of Berdan himself — shattered, driven by impulse’s perverse excitements. One could call the long passage cathartic, but that term’s access to the idea of purgation is both exactly right and exactly wrong. Because after six minutes, the song explodes into a bright, surging river of sound, and Berdan rides it, shouting, narrating there the I-speaker’s particular variety of physical purging.

The listener is presented with a sort of problem. Clearly that last section of the song is the climax, and the musical effect is indeed cathartic. It thrills and it exhausts. We know that the binge-and-purge dynamic of some eating disorders is damaging and destructive. But the skill with which Uniform (including Berdan’s longtime bandmate Ben Greenberg and an expanded rhythm section of Mike Sharp, Brad Truax and Michael Blume) has constructed and performed the song implicates us in its galvanic lifts and kicks. We can’t help but be roused, even pleasured by it. And that’s the thing: there’s an addictive force to some eating disorders, a distorted “I want” that is very, very hard to resist. Uniform’s smart and forceful engagement with those concepts and feelings makes “American Standard” a terrific and terrifying song. It’s hard to hear, but it’s also hard to forget, or to stop.

Jonathan Shaw

[chronivore]

1959

[vaultsnakes]

New York Kitchen Photo of a small open concept kitchen in an urban setting with a dark wood floor and a brown floor, flat-panel cabinets, white cabinets, marble countertops, a white backsplash, marble backsplash, white appliances, an island, and gray countertops.

[bouncinghedgehog]

A few thoughts on toilets

It seems to me that as one ages some “little” accommodations become far more significant than they might in youth. Take toilet height for example. A measly 2 inches when trying to stand with old, aching joints can seem require a mountain of effort. Our 6 month temporary abode had an old style toilet — rim of the bowl a scant 14 inches off the floor. The apartment we moved out of had already been…

[wheremymindgoeswandering]

A few thoughts on toilets

It seems to me that as one ages some “little” accommodations become far more significant than they might in youth. Take toilet height for example. A measly 2 inches when trying to stand with old, aching joints can seem require a mountain of effort. Our 6 month temporary abode had an old style toilet — rim of the bowl a scant 14 inches off the floor. The apartment we moved out of had already been…

[samusique-concrete]

uniform. american standard. holy SHIT.

[kimkimberhelen]

Clemency (2024)

this entire album is a harrowing listen but also a rewarding one

[bule180]

つい先日、洗面所の蛇口からのポタポタ水漏れを修理しましたが、今度はトイレ（コーラー社）がおかしくなりました。国産の汎用部品で直ると良いのですが…。

[lisamarie-vee]

[spilladabalia]

Seven Mary Three - Water's Edge