Recalculating’s forthcoming album, Do You Like To Laugh?, is a burning missive from the depths of the pandemic. Frothing over with jagged guitars, pent-up emotionality, and intriguing cultural and literature references, the record confronts vulnerability, absurdity, isolation, and big feelings with the trio’s trademark abstractly insightful poetics.
The exhilarating 12-song collection of wiry post-punk and scruffy indie rock was engineered and mixed by the late alt-rock legend Steve Albini (Pixies, Nirvana, the Breeders) at his legendary Chicago studio Electrical Audio on two-inch tape. Do You Like To Laugh? will be preceded by the explosive single “Candide Says.”
Today Glide is excited to premiere the cleverly-titled single, “Candide Says,” which is a punny reference to Voltaire’s masterpiece and Lou Reed’s “Candy Says.” Brimming with sharp-witted cultural satire and post-modern obtuseness, the tune is a hard-charging work of post-punk that features vocals that bring to mind Pavement and The Hold Steady, rip-roaring guitars, and explosive loud/soft dynamics. The evolution of Candide Says was usual for its songwriter, Scott Sendrow. Early pre-pandemic versions of “Candide Says” sounded like gentle mid-tempo acoustic sketches of someone living in “the best of all possible worlds.” However, by the time Recalculating played its first post-lockdown show, the song had been overhauled with its now signature opening guitar riff, and more conceptually-focused lyrics. “The finished piece more fully reflects the namesake’s source material, and I wasn’t above reviewing the Wikipedia page—it had been a while since I read Voltaire,” Scott reveals.
Scott Sendrow goes into more detail about the inspiration and process behind the song, as well as the experience of working with Steve Albini:
I mostly never cannibalize songs but “Candide Says” was different. Pre-pandemic, it began its life as a lazy, lilting, mid-tempo acoustic tune with a somewhat sarcastic, even snarky tone – basically the first two verses. Lockdowns led to what felt like endless hours on the couch banging away at an acoustic guitar, which in turn brought about the soaring guitar riff in the song’s current iteration. The last two verses were added later, and highlight where the song ended up: an angsty anthem about struggling to stay positive.
Recording at Electrical Audio with Steve Albini was one of the most amazing things Recalculating has done as a band. Suffice it to say, the music world has lost an amazing, amazing talent. From our small little perch, “Candide Says” was our experience seeing up close how he could seemingly effortlessly make things sound great. We did guitar overdubs on day three of recording the new album. Our idea for the track was to have an acoustic-sounding guitar in the mix alongside the loud main guitar. Albini immediately suggested a great vintage Gibson SG from the studio that he said played like an acoustic and another vintage 1959 Fender amp with a great sound. When I started to play a clean sound he offered a small suggestion that made all the difference in the way the two guitars worked together: It’s counter-intuitive, he explained, but an overdriven guitar sound will make the guitar sound cleaner. It was true and it worked. We feel that Recalculating is very much a band meant to be heard live, but the recorded version of “Candide Says” really feels like something special.
LISTEN:
