Desire Choir

Description

Desire Choir is the debut album by Non Plus Temps, a post-punk collective from Oakland, California. Andy Human and Sam Lefebvre began writing the album in 2021. They recorded the drums and bass on an old tape recorder in a warehouse in West Oakland. Influenced by a "communist interpretation of collective music" and by the variable combinations of post-punk and dub from the On-U Sound label, as they write in a pamphlet accompanying the album, Non Plus Temps emerged as more and more singers and players sought affinities in the social isolation and unrest of the pandemic era. The result combines various instruments (sax and saz, synths and bells) and production techniques into a sound that evokes a sky of broken bright beacons, as heard in "Endless Jetty Night," the nervous meditation by the Residents that closes side A. Opening the album, "Continuous Hinge," featuring singer Amber Sermeno, is a bejeweled backbeat from Stanley Martinez's electric alto, while "Facts Sound Like Myths" introduces a flipping dub paranoia. The album was mastered by Mike Kriebel. Non Plus Temps features members of Naked Roommate, the World, Famous Mammals, and Preening, among other Oakland-based groups. For fans of the On-U Sound label, Tuxedomoon, This Heat, Annie Anxiety.