Scrutiny, by Fashion Club

Scrutiny

by Fashion Club

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kitgarcia If you are a fan of early Drab Majesty Careless-era or The Victoriana, give this album a listen. Fashion Club invokes their own modern swirly dimension awash in reverb and fretless bass. Favorite track: Phantom English.

scorpio111580 I've only had this album for a few hours, but already, I'm obsessed. I've played it a mere 4 or 5 times, but already can tell, it's gonna be the biggest part of my Summer soundtrack. I really love it! As interesting lyrically as it is sonically, it's just so easy to get lost in the intensity of it's world. Dark and kind-of dreamy, complex, atmospheric... it's a really immersive listen! Very well done. Favorite track: Dependency.

teraley I waited until I had the whole album before I listened thoroughly. I played bits of all the available songs and knew I wanted to immerse myself in the soundscape. The melodies, haunting synch and bass tracks weave a tapestry over some deeply personal lyrics. Much love for this work. It gets deeper, more profound with each playthrough (at least a dozen times so far). This will be in my permanent rotation and I'm very much looking forward to the live performance/release show at the end of July. Favorite track: Dependency.

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
- Limited edition of 563
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WE WILL NOT BE REPRESSING THIS COLOR AGAIN. THE IMAGES YOU SEE ARE NOT ALWAYS GOING TO BE THE GUARANTEED LOOK OF THE VINYL PRODUCT, BUT IT WILL BE DARN CLOSE.

Includes unlimited streaming of Scrutiny via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
- Limited edition of 555
- Full-color inner art sleeves
- Glitter & Gold colored vinyl

WE WILL NOT BE REPRESSING THIS COLOR AGAIN. THE IMAGES YOU SEE ARE NOT ALWAYS GOING TO BE THE GUARANTEED LOOK OF THE VINYL PRODUCT, BUT IT WILL BE DARN CLOSE.

Includes unlimited streaming of Scrutiny via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 14 days

edition of 555 15 remaining

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$23 USD or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Single disc inserted into a jewel case with an 6-panel booklet.

Includes unlimited streaming of Scrutiny via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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edition of 500 17 remaining

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Streaming + Download

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1.	Pantomime 03:46	lyrics	buy track
How deeply your morality sways When confronted by your day to day How freely you can flaunt the pain But when you’re out of lines And right and wrong all fall behind Can you justify Your cruelty to the world? Are you terrified Of your own words? You’ll pantomime A feeling that you rehearsed To quantify your work How quickly your focus shifts Two or three days and then you’re on with it It’s not a lie You say at least you tried But the guilt will only grow And you’ll ask yourself Can you justify Your cruelty to the world? Are you terrified Of your own words? You’ll pantomime A feeling that you rehearsed To quantify your work
2.	Failure 04:22	lyrics	buy track
Uncertainty Spreads like a disease And the closer you are to me The harder you are to believe Tell me it isn’t true Sell me the lie like I’m the fool And then some new failure Could change my mind How gracefully I’ll receive the critique And the closer you are to me The harder you are to believe Tell me it isn’t true Sell me the lie like I’m the fool And then some new failure Could change my mind Could darken the outcome Could keep me in line And I’ll base all my value On distorted truths Convince myself This is the best I can do
3.	Dependency 04:17	lyrics	buy track
When the conversations swings Back towards bad tendencies Say I’ve got my grandmother’s eyes And my grandfather’s dependencies Six wasted years A departure from humanity And I worked hard Just to miss out on a great opportunity Well, is it chemical, or is this really me? What is it that makes my sense of discipline so weak? In moderation every impulse is on repeat At least now I can blame bad thoughts on my dependency You weaponize your brain What good is a weapon if it drives you insane? All your radical thoughts are the same I tell you to dismiss them, but then I’m to blame You’re an animal caged You can only pretend to behave Try to engage You can feign salvation all day Well, is it chemical, or is this really me? What is it that makes my sense of discipline so weak? In moderation every impulse is on repeat At least now I can blame bad thoughts on my dependency
4.	Scrutiny 02:47	lyrics	buy track
Your world all gilded gold Will fade away And under the cold facade No god, no love in the decay The hand up to heaven Reaches nothing in the clouds Scrutiny Brings the spectacle down Shattered glass Transparency Smoother on the surface now When the cracks run deep, deep, deep The hand up to heaven Reaches nothing in the clouds Scrutiny Brings the spectacle down Oh, Judgement, judgement it carries no weight The poor devil’s got enough on his plate Working piously day to day To fill your heart with misguided hate
5.	Feign For Love 03:24	lyrics	buy track
Feign for love Mistake the beauty until it’s right If you fake it enough Your callous thoughts can escape the light Vague intent Force the issue until it’s right If you take it as it’s meant This ugliness can’t escape the light But are you listening? But are you listening? But are you listening? But are you listening? Faith for love Softens the image in your mind If you hate it enough You can look until you’re bline Consequence Forced to the back of your mind If you push it even deeper and deeper down You might leave it all behind But are you listening? But are you listening? But are you listening? But are you listening?
6.	Reaction 02:55	lyrics	buy track
Day to day Through ignorance feigned You claim you don’t know why What you do gets a rise Say something to break the tension Say your opinion like you think it’s real You just want a reaction You say the opposite of what you feel Escape the blame Where no one knows your name You hide but don’t know why What you do gets a rise Say something to break the tension Say your opinion like you think it’s real You just want a reaction You say the opposite of what you feel
7.	Chapel 05:13	lyrics	buy track
You won’t admit that you’ve grown A guilty conscious if you make it on your own Say they’re right till they’re pacified You’re no good when the pressure is high You hear yourself saying the truth But still you won’t believe that it’s you Your naivities fake But you still feel like you’re lying So at the end of the day What’s the point of trying? You’ll never see it But the chapel walls are filthier than your bedroom You’ll never see it But the chapel walls are filthier than your bedroom Step back into your world Just an imposter with a false sense of worth Biting your nails until the time arrives You’re placed back where your infancy thrives You hear yourself saying the truth But still you won’t believe that it’s you Your naivities fake But you still feel like you’re lying So at the end of the day What’s the point of trying? Oh, when it’s over Look what you’ve got to show Oh, when it’s over Who will even know? Your naivities fake But you still feel like you’re lying So at the end of the day What’s the point of trying?
8.	Phantom English 03:21	lyrics	buy track
In new terrain With imported pain An incoherent mess Makes you hopeful again But that’s not what intellectuals do You’ve let your fear get the best of you But still passing by two people in love You hear phantom english on their tongues Well, say what you want There’s loneliness in company But I just lost sometimes Or I don’t find the joke all that funny You can’t object To a chance that few people get But lying dormant, waiting for a stage Please don’t make me engage You’ll ask for what you need But lack the confidence to say it properly Well, prepare to feel dumb With guilty english on your tongue Well, say what you want There’s loneliness in company But I just lost sometimes Or I don’t find the joke all that funny Well, say what you want If the silence is incomprehensible I just got lost for a time In a thought I found too reprehensible To say out loud And deal with the consequence To push such a weight into the world Well, I’d rather stay silent
9.	All In Time 03:36	lyrics	buy track
What’s a lie you held too close? To let go, what hurts the most? Oh, the pattern of abuse It cycles back to you Oh, the well of truth Dries up in your youth But you love them So you let it go But you love them So you let it go Useless body you become If you forget where you’re from The challenge of living Like you think that you deserve Holding court for every move If you can’t judge yourself, Who judges you? But you love them And even though You think it’s over You can’t let go Like mountains melt away And an ocean grows All in time All in time

about

[Written by Sasha Geffen]

Honesty is connective. When you dissolve barriers to the truth inside yourself, you also erode the walls that keep you separated from other people. There's a certain painful beauty in cutting back to yourself, in cleaving away layers of deception until the structure beneath your ego is laid bare. Scrutiny, the debut album from Moaning's (Sub Pop) Pascal Stevenson under her new solo alias Fashion Club, explores the mind's complex relationship to morality, and the way structures of power tend to replicate themselves through unexamined habits. Through lush, dense curtains of sound, the album unfurls a series of searing questions: What’s a lie you held too close? Can you justify your cruelty? Are you listening?

Stevenson began writing the songs that would become Scrutiny toward the end of 2018, as Moaning embarked on a European tour in support of their critically acclaimed first album. Connecting directly with live audiences night after night reinvigorated her relationship to making music. Between shows, in the back of the band's tour van, she traced early drafts of Scrutiny's instrumentals on her laptop, planting the seeds of what would bloom into her captivating solo debut.

In early 2019, about a year after getting sober, the Los Angeles-based musician began the process of threading lyrics into the songs she had written on tour. She found herself in the midst of a deeply generative period of self-reflection. "Not having that veil of intoxication all the time confronts you with an opportunity to inspect a lot of things about yourself," she says. The writing process also provided an opening for her to consider questions of ethics, responsibility, self-deception, and power more broadly -- questions about how deeply systems of social control can take root.

Throughout Scrutiny, Stevenson reflects on the ways that people tend to fortify hegemony while posing as if they are dismantling it – especially in social media spaces, which prioritize image-making over constructive change and genuine connection. "In arts communities, and in culture more broadly, you’re confronted with a lot of people who are performing morality surrounding social issues instead of actually caring," she says. "To be somebody that’s Black in a predominantly white industry like indie rock, you realize how what people project about who they are and how they treat other people is so at odds with how they actually feel."

While concocting Scrutiny's dreamlike art-rock palette, Stevenson drew inspiration from artists working during the incipient decades of the synthesizer’s lifetime, like Kate Bush, Brian Eno, and Wire's Colin Newman – musicians whose work bridges the gap between disarming experimentalism and pop pleasure. The album similarly channels the influence of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s tactile, material production on Janet Jackson’s late ‘80s albums Control and Rhythm Nation 1814, records that exploded the potential of digital music-making and entwined the sounds of new technology with the currents of the body.

Songs like “Phantom English,” balanced by a bright synth lead and cavernous bass line, and “Chapel,” whose echoing production evokes infinitely expanding space, transmute digital instrumentation into physical impact – sounds you feel deep in the bone. Bent treble patterns and a driving rhythm section propel "Pantomime," the album's opening track and thesis statement, toward its piercing hook, while the towering drumbeats and hypnotic chorus of "Feign For Love" recall the far-reaching, reverb-heavy arrangements of Spellling and Iceage. The album's swirling layers and unconventionally weighted instrumentation point to the reorientation of the psyche Stevenson tracks in her lyrics; the music's form skillfully illustrates its content.

Scrutiny marks the first time Stevenson has assumed the lead role in a musical project, and reflects her coming into her own as a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. "I’ve been making music since I was 14, and I’ve never been the front person in a band until this one," she says. "Trying to take myself out of that behind-the-scenes role was uncomfortable at first. You have to imagine yourself completely differently. To make that shift in your mind is hard. Especially if you have built something up in your mind about how the person that fronts a band has to be perceived. It felt really good and freeing to be in control, because I trusted myself. When you get to a certain level of confidence, you can be more free."

Through Stevenson's adventurous arrangements and gripping pop peaks, Scrutiny follows the way a mind can come to know itself – to clear away its protective illusions and ease into greater attunement and clarity – and extends an invitation for anyone listening to pursue the same.

credits

released June 17, 2022

℗ + © 2022 felte
All songs written, produced & mixed by Pascal Stevenson
Recorded @ Tropico Beauty in Los Angeles, CA
Engineered by Greg Hartunian
Additional synthesizers on “Scrutiny,” “Reaction,” and “All In Time” by Sasami Ashworth
Drums by Nikolas Soelter except on “Failure” by Sam Kauffman-Skloff
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri @ Black Knoll Studios, New York
Photography + Design by Matthew James-Wilson & Pascal Stevenson
Glove Painting on inner art sleeve by Katie Tilford

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