Asher White – 8 Tips For Full Catastrophe Living
The NYC-by-way-of-Rhode Island multi-instrumentalist, writer and visual artist Asher White has never been busier, which is saying a lot for someone who’s announcing their 16th full length album at the tender age of 25. Boundary pushing artists and curators also took note: Deerhoof, Black Country New Road, Sessa and Godcaster all invited her to share the stage this year, she contributed to the Red Hot TRANSA compilation, and in May was invited to perform at Ekko Astral’s Liberation Weekend festival in Washington DC.
In April, Asher announced her partnership with Joyful Noise Recordings alongside the release of a new single “Kratom Headache Girl’s Night.”
Today she is announcing her debut LP on Joyful Noise, 8 Tips For Full Catastrophe Living, which will be released on September 12th.
What’s full catastrophe living? It’s the title of a self-help book whose subtitle is “Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness.” The book instructs the reader in mindfulness techniques to ameliorate personal turmoil. The first chapter is called “You Have Only Moments to Live,” which sounds more like a threat than a stress-reducing strategy. Why eight tips?
“The idea of tips for catastrophe is really funny to me,” says White. “I was interested in making something that sounds like a self-help book, but it’s actually about self-destruction. In full catastrophe living, you just have to do a bunch of whippets. This album is mostly about doing whippets. I’m not even kidding.”
Lead single “Beers with my name on them” segues from diaristic vignette into 8 Tips’ conceptual core.
It begins in first person, in the kitchen at home, then out among Providence’s warehouse techno parties: White picks up a 12-pack of Modelo and heads to a rave. The intro’s guitar-driven power pop caves beneath barrelling industrial techno: a phase shift as abrupt as stepping off a city street into a cavernous room where the sub-bass makes your fingernails vibrate.
Asher says of the song:
On hedonism and being a party girl and drinking every night. Hence the extended breakbeat section which was inspired by / an attempted impression of a “whippets-and-twin-peaks” themed birthday party i went to. Also an excuse to deploy the sad poetic homonym “alone” / “a loan” and refit the phrase “empire today” into a new and unexpected form as an experiment in recontextualizing familiar sequences of words.
Asher will be on tour with Deerhoof beginning June 25th.
6/25 Boston, MA— Crystal Ballroom w/ Deerhoof
6/26 Hamden, CT— Space Ballroom w/ Deerhoof
6/27 Amherst, MA — The Drake w/ Deerhoof
6/29 – Brooklyn, NY @ 6BC Botanical Garden w/ Grumpy
#trasherwhite