by David Wilikofsky
We all know the feeling; you wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed, rinse and repeat. Weekends flash by, wasted staring at screens and watching TV. Before you know it, it’s been a year. Two. Three. We’re merely cogs in a machine, spinning until we break and are discarded. Coronavirus may have upended some of these rote routines, but there’s still an undeniable rhythm to life in the new normal. These routines can be comforting at times, but also become suffocating. Patois Counselors sophomore outing, The Optimal Seat, speaks to the cogs among us, examining our lives with equal parts humor and pathos.
The Optimal Seat perfectly captures and ruthlessly skewers the modern condition, and nothing is safe. The band takes jabs at media and technology, from our addiction to our screens to our consumption of vapid reality television. There are also hints of life in late stage capitalism: grueling, inconsequential desk jobs, an obsession with efficiency. We don’t even need to leave the house anymore because everything we need can be shipped straight to our doors. There’s an emptiness to this lifestyle; we’re all “looking for warmth in a vacuum”, casting around in the digital and spiritual void for some kind of connection. Unfortunately there isn’t one to be found.
The band’s instrumentals help reinforce the discontent of the lyrics. While there’s something undeniably catchy about these concoctions, there’s also something consistently askew. The knotty rhythms found throughout the album tow a line somewhere between art punk and no wave. It’s music that never relaxes, constantly pushing and pulling in different directions. The synth work also contributes to the disquiet, imbuing the proceedings with an anxious, digital edge. Bo White sits at the center of all of this, part straightman and part ringleader. His plainspoken vocals provide an anchor amid the chaos, even as they hit a little too close to home.
“There Goes Our Guru”, the penultimate track of the album, hints at an escape from it all. A narrator who “craved freedom from logins” disconnects by joining something that could be a spiritual retreat as easily as it could be a cult. However, there is no escape; after days of meditation and lectures, the guru absconds with their money. It’s a dark but apt ending to this powerhouse of an album. We can’t look to false prophets for quick salvation. Patois Counselors don’t try to offer any roadmap for a more fulfilling life. They’ve merely captured the complexities and contradictions of the one we’re living.