“What propels Ganser as a band, for me, is what shines here: their performance of joyful apathy so often has many other moving parts underneath that suggest that they are a band of deep caring, simply unsatisfied with the hands they’ve been dealt by the world.”
Hanif Abdurraqib
The Chicago art rock 4-piece made a splash during 2020 with their sophomore album, Just Look at That Sky, finding themselves included in best of lists from that year including Vice, Rolling Stone, Paste, and more. Through the pandemic, the band remotely collaborated with other artists for a remix EP while communicating with listeners online waiting for the opportunity to play their mix of noisy post-punk with “surreal humor and dark playfulness” (Paste).
The band is deep in development on their third record after partnering with Liars’ Angus Andrew in 2022 on an EP called Nothing You Do Matters.
“Anyone can play punk rock. For Ganser, that’s no excuse for low standards. Over a pair of albums, including 2020’s marvelous Just Look at That Sky, the Chicago quartet deployed simple phrasing to make increasingly complicated thematic and artistic statements. On Nothing You Do Matters, a short EP produced by Liars’ Angus Andrew, they offer up their most sophisticated music yet.”
More on their new EP can be read in features at Rolling Stone and Creem.
Ganser is Alicia Gaines (bass, vocals), Brian Cundiff (drums), Charlie Landsman (guitar), and Sophie Sputnik (keys, vocals).
