Topographies

Topographies is a post-punk / shoegaze band formed in 2018 in San Francisco by Justin Oronos, Jeremie Ruest, and Gray Tolhurst. The band merges the lockstep rhythms and pulsing synths of 80s coldwave and post-punk (taking cues from bands like Asylum Party and The Chameleons) with the lush guitar work and hazy textures of shoegaze.

The band’s debut LP, Ideal Form, released on Funeral Party Records in 2020, synthesizes and clarifies the band’s aesthetic in eight drum-machine and synth-heavy tracks, accompanied by Ruest’s ethereal guitar work, the nimble basslines of Oronos, and Tolhurst’s poetic lyrics. The album was engineered and produced by Chris King (also a member of LA-based band, Cold Showers) and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studios in New York.

Tolhurst (whose early exposure to music came from his father Laurence Tolhurst, drummer / keyboardist of The Cure) draws on his dual fascinations of independent music and 20th century poetry to craft songs and lyrics that seek to explore the complex map of occurrences that situate and shape a life. Ideal Form is concerned with the projections human beings place upon experience and the impossibility of a perfectly realized existence.