THE FUTU
48 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com May, 2016
SOUNDS LIKE:Good tunes for
people who love bad news.
Though his band’s music might
implyotherwise,leadvocalist
Stefan Babcock promises that
he’s “not as much of a bum-
mer dude”.
FORFANSOF:The Get Up Kids,
the Menzingers, self-depreca-
tion
WHYYOUSHOULDPAYATTEN-
TION:These Toronto thrash-
ers forge rollicking, pop-tinged
punk with serious bite. Pup was
born one fortuitous day when
allfourmembersquittheirjobs
and then went on a bender to
celebrate. When the band re-
corded and released their epon-
ymous debut in 2013, they
didn’t think anyone outside
their friend circle would hear
it. Cut to these underdogs tour-
ing for two years alongside the
likesofModernBaseball(they
played a whopping 250 shows
in 2014 alone), and sweeping
the nominations for Canada’s
most coveted music prizes, in-
cluding the Prism, the Juno
Awards and the Polaris Music
Prize.NowPuparebackwith
a lean, throttling sophomore
album,The Dream Is Over.Due
later this year,Dreamfeatures
cheeky, self-referential num-
berslike“IfThisTourDoesn’t
Kill You, I Will”.
THEY SAY:“We really feel like
we’vebeenlivingthedream
for the past two years,” says
Babcock. “It’s awesome and
we are having a great time, but
you get a little bit of... disil-
lusionment. We miss our girl-
friends and barely scrape to-
gether money for rent. These
are sacrifi ces that we’re willing
to make, but there’s a realisa-tionthatlikeanyjob,ithasups
and downs. And that’s when we
startedjokingwitheachother
that the dream was over. I re-
member one time [our guitar-
ist] Steve spilled ketchup on
himself and someone was like,
‘Ah, the dreamisover!’Onour
last tour, adoctorfoundacyst
on my vocal cord and [it] was
hemorrhaging like, day one ofa seven-week tour. She said to
me, word for word, ‘The dream
is over.’ We had spent half the
year using that as our inside
joke and the doctor made that
joke into a terrible reality.”
HEAR FOR YOURSELF:“DVP”, the
album’sfirstsingle,isalick-
ety-split ode to freaks, geeks
and every outsider in between.
PAULA MEJIAPUP
SOUNDS LIKE:Electronic music rendered on
alaptoppulledfromasmoulderingbuilding
FOR FANS OF:Oneohtrix Point Never, Holly
Herndon, Arca
WHY YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION:Ashkan
KooshanejadandhisbandTakeItEasyHos-
pitalwerefeaturedintheCannesSpecialJury
Prize-winning documentaryNo One Knows
About Persian Cats. While playing under-
ground rock concerts had already attracted a
police presence in Kooshanejad’s hometown
of Tehran (and landed him in prison for three
weeks),afterthefilmwassmuggledoutofthe
country to international acclaim, Kooshane-
jad and bandmate Negar Shaghaghi became
“persons of interest” and sought asylum while
ontourintheU.K.Nowhe’sfocusedonhis
uncompromising, dizzying and dense elec-
tronic album,IAKAI,outnow.
HE SAYS:“Before the internet in Tehran, music
was very random via people bringing in tapes
and records,” said Kooshanejad, who now
calls London home. “Electronic music was
rare.” Kooshanejad formed bands and taught
himselfhowtoproduce.“Itwasexperimen-
tal and I was self-taught. It was just for my-
self and personal.”
HEAR FOR YOURSELF:“Mudafossil” is a collision
of Eastern violin and Western noise.ANDYBETAASH KOOSHA
FROM TOP: OZGE CONE; RYAN FAISTREIS