GutterPutter

What is Your Name? is an anonymous band/music artist from Ontario, Canada whose followings are gradually making its way towards cult acclaim. Their 2022 debut The Now Now and Never was revered as a bit of a potential classic to the Bandcamp community; the blend of indietronica, shoegaze, and post rock gives much of the music a lot of texture that pervades all the way throughout the album with little emphasis placed on lyricism. What it might not have offered in grandiosity like Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai, its dense use of its influences pave its way towards a journey that fans are unlikely to forget.

With that context in mind, the next two albums in January of this year’s beyond old names; everyone’s song. and September’s my name is… strays away from instrumental maximalism in favour of thoughtful insights into loneliness. This is the key theme that the latter record was especially attentive to which What is Your Name? always try to muse around in their tracks. The likes of ‘It’s Okay.’ makes for a punctual introduction through its futuristic droning that’s melding in with the drums and the organs through the recollection of a relationship that leaves you indifferent. The way that it tries to build up to the climax with the crescending layers of horns, viola, and fuzzled vocal samples gives a grand sense of claustrophobia, of being stuck with nowhere else to go before we cut to the last third with its acoustic guitar. 

The instrumentation gives a peculiar kind of texture to the album that moves between lush and chaotic like a pendulum. On tracks that come off as more conventional with the use of rock instruments, the density from its production can make the overall music overwhelming even to the point of being ear-grating. Such can be felt in ‘Such a soulless lover…’ and ‘Summer’. In ‘Serenity in Solidarity’, the militant drumming gets a higher mixing to the point where it meshes up with the frantic feedback from the guitar, forming a swirling mess that’s in the middle of an otherwise contemplative piece on being left alone.

The more slacker-based directions are strains from the previous records especially with the crescendos and slight psychedelic alienness. However, the execution might feel a bit off at times in the attempt to mix bowed instruments and guitars together. ‘aM i aL0ne ! ? (or just crazy ! ?)’ not only attempts with that, but its effort at making an ethereal journey in its runtime simply doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of weight to help push its emotional resonance. It’s just a hodgepodge of math rock-like riff with an ineffectual bit of droning. 

Despite the criticisms, the highs within the album are asking themselves to be worth your time. One notable exception to the asynergy between the bowed instruments and the guitar comes from the viola which works very well in its combination of staccato and vibrato in each note. Some of the biggest highlights of my name is… comes from the juxtaposition between the subtly chamber-like use of it and the all-consuming layers that encompass the music. This mixture paves the way toward a seeming conflict between youthful naivety and punk-like protest. ‘Mirror / Candle’ is one great example as the viola both has a higher mixing and has a delay effect that begs to turn back to a simpler time of being in love. The contrast with the tense hi-hat and snare with the wrangling sound effect behest the conflict of romance with the current bitter feeling. 

There’s further development to be found in ‘21 and lonely’ that could be best described as the emotional climax. Rocking at around 8 minutes, we are finally starting to see the instrumentation, production, and songwriting align to capture the heartache from a breakup. The guitar riff is very much so twinkly as Death Cab for Cutie, the bassline sounds apparent enough to lull you into the angst, and the singing has a certain amateur charm that adds to the everyman feeling. When the viola starts to kick in, the gateway to the crescendo begins as the music starts to subsume into the cacophonic drone that feels as overwhelming as the realisation that not all good things last forever. It’s a cathartic kind of music that demands your attention whether you can’t help but reminisce about your ex. 

Aside from a pretty lacklustre ending in ‘For Anything’ that contains a lovely singing from Lynnie White and an unfortunate return back to an occasional baseless noisiness, My Name Is… is actually pretty solid. It’s a kind of record that I might say that I do not clearly love, but it’s an experience that requires checking out. It’s a listen that you know for sure would only come out of indie-specialised platforms like Bandcamp which is sadly under a renovation that’s going towards being run by a skeleton crew at the time of writing. If you’re hoping for a Midwest Emo-influenced project that also has an unique identity on its own like The World is a Beautiful Place…, then I would recommend that you give this a go. Even if it’s not one that I might not enjoy as much as I would’ve liked, I can’t deny that there’s a possibility that this could be seen as a potential cult classic similar in line to The Now Now and Never.

3.3/5