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Ghost Canyon

Title - No Nostalgia
Artist - Agender

For those of you not in the know, it’s hard to put Agender into any box: With Australian songwriter and musician Romy Hoffman at the helm, the quartet makes schizo, synthy, paranoid, post-punk with a dash of dysmorphic desire.

And fans? They revel in their sweeping existential terror that comes with a fetish for femininity.

Initially formed in 2011 as a solo punk excursion for Hoffman, Agender was born when she decided to get sober. “It started as impulsive, a way to cope with all these new, raw feelings. I played every instrument myself on the first Agender record.”

But as quickly as it started as a solitary endeavor, it evolved into a trio just two years later. By 2014, the band had become known for its intense punk shows and had released its sophomore album Fixations via Desire Records.

Since then, the queer post-punk outfit has now become a full-fledged quartet with bassist Cristy Michel, drummer Christy Greenwood and synth player Sara Rivas rounding out the band. Still, Hoffman still remains its focal point as the primary writer in the group.

Agender, however, has taken its time with releasing a new record. It’s been seven years since the band released its sophomore LP Fixations. In that 7-year time span, Hoffman moved from Melbourne to Los Angeles, built a life for herself in a new city, released a solo record of dark, driving electronic music, starting running two of L.A’s biggest queer parties (‘Homoccult’ and ‘Lez Croix’), and situated herself as a respected DJ.

The process of No Nostalgia, the band’s third album releasing on May 27th, 2022, has also been slow and steady: the songs were penned pre-pandemic and partially recorded then, but finished during COVID.

In fact, No Nostalgia came from Hoffman reaching the crossroads of oscillating between bouts of extreme nostalgia and extreme amnesia. With the record, she wanted to strip it all away. “When we live in a world where everything is nostalgic, I’m trying to imagine a world with none of that, but it’s impossible. Even if I’m just commenting on society, it’s still referential to something, therefore relies on memory, therefore I’ve thought myself into a corner. It’s from this corner that I write,” she says.

And so, come Spring 2022, fans of Agender will get to experience Hoffman’s reality.

1. Avoid A Void
2. Woah Life Wow
3. Top Bottom Top
4. No Nostalgia
5. Safe
6. Preach
7. Astro Tarot
8. Trouble & Desire
9. FFF
10. Rusher
11. Pastiche
12. Womb 2 Wound
13. Mother Simulacra
14. This Extinction of Handwriting

Opening on the fervent synth, alt-pop urgency of the self-referential Avoid A Void (“Exist in a slippery dip/Spits you out into a big abyss”) and the angst punk introspection complete with grunge guitar riffs within Woah Life Wow, they back those up seamlessly with the funky celebration of queer love with the disco-punk anthem Top Bottom Top, the drum led early ’80s, new wave/art pop embrace of the title track No Nostalgia, the flickering synth hue of Safe and then we get the alt-punk balladry of Preach and the alt-pop rock bounce of Astro Tarot.

Next up is the drum-led, Kraftwerk-esque synth work within the heart-racing Trouble & Desire and the frantic fuzzy guitars of FFF (Fact Fuck Fiction) and they are in turn followed by the emphatic foot-tapper of the absurdity of politics as theater within Rusher, the fist-clenched, tongue-in-cheek parody on postmodernism within Pastiche, the rambunctious Womb 2 Wound, the album rounding out on the playful synth and guitar fuzz of Mother Simulacra (a realization that Hoffman’s relationships are a copy of her relationship with her mother), coming to a mighty hard earned close on the bass-led, again Kraftwerk-esque piece This Extinction of Handwriting; where Hoffman’s spoken word yearnings for simpler times are brought forth.

While Agender’s last two records took themselves a bit more seriously, No Nostalgia is rooted in satire. “This record is poking fun at modernity and postmodernity,” says Hoffman. “It’s satirical. It’s a bird’s eye view of where we are and the absurdity of everything.”

Inspired by everything from The French Situationist Movement to Wire and Buzzcocks, No Nostalgia is a canvas painted with singular post-punk.

Introducing No Nostalgia, Agender has shared two singles ahead of its release. Last Fall, they unveiled “Preach,” an eerie, synth-heavy single laced with guitar stabs that transforms God into Goddess energy.

And in May, they shared “Astro Tarot,” an ode to divine intuition and the cosmic roadmap that intrigues the psyche. The title track is Agender’s third single, which is due TK is most emblematic of the record: “For me, it’s imagining a world of no memory.”

While Agender is Hoffman’s current focus, her experience in music spans more than two decades: She began her career as a teen playing guitar in Ben Lee’s pop-punk band Noise Addict and later became the first hip hop artist (and second Australian) to sign to Kill Rock Stars, as Macromantics.

Later, Hoffman began making dark electro pop and house music under ROMY.

Official Purchase Link

Official Website

Agender @ Facebook

Agender @ Instagram

Agender @ SoundCloud





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