Optic Sink – Optic Sink (Goner Records)

Optic Sink is Natalie Hoffman from Nots’ newest project, with some help from percussionist Ben Bauermeister (Toxie, Magic Kids, A55 Conducta). Their self-titled full-length debut is a mix of speedy no-wave and coolly detached electro-minimalism. As with most two-person electro-minimal outfits, Optic Sink do at times remind you of Suicide, but with the rockabilly backbone plucked out and surgically replaced with abrasive and disorienting psychedelia, and perhaps even a passing interest in early video-game music. If ever there was a band that sounds like they make color-saturated music videos on VHS, it’s Optic Sink. Though Hoffmann’s lyrics are brief and direct, the songs’ meanings feel blurred and hard to penetrate, though there’s a clear and unmistakable undercurrent of alienation flowing through “Dumb Luck,” “Gathering Dust,” and few others. Look, this album isn’t any fun to listen to, and the duo’s limited sonic pallet gets a bit same-y over its eight songs, but Optic Nerve are making appropriately discomforting music for really discomforting times.