Deeper Share "Helena's Flowers" Video, Play STAGED at Lincoln Hall
In March just before the world shut down Deeper released their critically lauded sophomore album 'Auto-Pain' on Fire Talk. Heralded by outlets like VICE, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, Paste and FLOOD as a release that is "bigger, more ambitious and more direct in just about every way" than the band's "already excellent" debut (Stereogum). "Auto-Pain" is a major highlight from what is shaping up to be a big year for the label.
Today Deeper returns ahead of a live stream performance on Wednesday as part of the Audiotree's STAGED series premiering the video for album standout "Helena's Flowers" via FLOOD, which was inspired by Native American folk stories and carries an urgent environmental message, as the band's drummer Shiraz Bhatti (an enrolled tribal member of the Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians) explains:
Indigenous communities have been warning us of the side effects of capitalist gluttony for generations. In a capitalist system we are inherently consumers of the land and have forgotten that our resources will one day run out – that we are depleting the earth and are changing our fragile ecosystem for the worst. Our consumerism has changed into a gluttonous greed, where we always want more product. This video for Helena’s Flowers, created by Deeper and Riho Mineta, uses found footage to depict Native American stories warning of the detriments of greed on our world.
The video references wendigos, the Lakota Black Snake Prophecy, and thunderbirds – each story embodying different ways Indigenous communities have urged us to change our ways:
Wendigos are flesh eating monsters who morphed from humans after being corrupted by their greed, but they can also take a human form as well. Wendigos of the past have morphed into loggers, oilers, and miners who feed their gluttony by eating away at the land.
The Lakota Black Snake prophecy warns of a black snake moving across the land, poisoning water and destroying the land. This has come to fruition via multiple tar sand and oil pipeline ruptures throughout Turtle Island, which have poisoned our soil and water.
Thunderbirds, in Indigenous lore, are the caretakers of the earth and would appear to nourish and purify the lands but can also be dangerous to any living being that stands in its way. The video ends with thunderbirds returning to destroy with the intent to replenish and purify the land with its rain, winds, and lightning bolts.
After these fires and storms and illnesses comes new life and a new day where we hopefully realize our mistakes of the past – or a day where the black snake will continue to poison the land.
Watch
Stream / Buy ‘Auto-Pain’
What do you do when pain blots out joy? How do you learn to take care of yourself? What happens when the things you think are helping end up doing the most harm? 'Auto-Pain' is the Sophomore album from Deeper, a record that finds the band embracing open space, using synths to create shadows where bricks of guitars once would’ve blocked out the sun. The group — singer and guitarist Nic Gohl, bassist Drew McBride, and drummer Shiraz Bhatti — were all graduates of Chicago’s rich DIY scene who came together around their love of Wire, Devo, Gang of Four, and Television. While the new record is still within the Great Lakes post-punk tradition of their debut, the album isn’t as insular as its predecessor; it’s less interested in pile-driving and more willing to dwell in liminal spaces. Guitars enter the picture precisely, locked bass grooves propel things forward. Drummer Shiraz Bhatti, who is half-Pakistani and half-Native American, embraced the drumming patterns he’d heard growing up at pow-wows, channeling the anxieties of his heritage into his playing and keeping the group grounded when they switch into all-out percussive attack. The result is an album both more nuanced and catchy.
Auto-Pain represents the constant wave of depression felt by many in everyday life. Stemmed from Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, Auto-Pain is a concept meant to be an inverse to soma, a pill in the book which makes everything numb. The idea of auto-pain is to epitomize the desire to return to a connection with thoughts and clarity, which comes at the expense of feeling everything simultaneously. The album artwork features the now-demolished Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago capturing the band’s rounded-off brutalism, and the album title appears in Urdu, a nod to drummer Shiraz Bhatti’s Pakistani heritage. The record was recorded and mixed by Chicago scene luminary Dave Vetraino (Lala Lala, Dehd) and mastered at Chicago Mastering by Greg Obis (Ne-Hi, Melkbelly).
A portion of the proceeds from Auto-Pain will be donated to Hope For The Day an organization that actively works to break the silence surrounding mental health.