Detroit, Michigan

Adult. is one of my all-time favorite bands, even though I only like twenty percent of their output. I diligently buy all of their records, yet I don’t enjoy most of them. But I really love that twenty percent. It’s a frustrating relationship: the Detroit duo nailed a brilliant sound with their first two LPs and now they won’t go anywhere near it. In 1999, they inadvertently kick-started electroclash with the Entertainment and Nausea 12″s on their groundbreaking Ersatz imprint and a few years later, nearly every Brooklyn band sounded like mean parodies, except dressed in hipper outfits. Built largely from their first singles, the Resuscitation long-player is a jangled masterpiece and their second album, Anxiety Always, turns up the paranoia a few clicks, hinting at the darker days to come.

An Adult. track consists of three key ingredients: sharp drums, an arpeggio (first perfected in Adam Lee Miller’s Le Car project), and that voice — Nicoloa Kuperus’ voice can do a lot: dead-eyed and detached on “Dispassionate Furniture” and “Human Wreck”, growling through the bad-ass stomp of “Minors at Night” and “Blank-Eyed Nose Bleed”, and surprisingly reassuring and warm on “Nite Life”. And then there’s her teeth-shattering psycho-bitch screech, which was hair-raising in small doses but now it’s shot through all of their recent records for no good reason except for spooky theatrics. Like few other bands, Adult. immediately creates a distinct mood — or destroys one: on the way to a friend’s wedding, “Skinlike” popped up in the car: When I touch your skin, I have to wash my hands… Mood is key with Adult. The song titles plus Kuperus’ eerie photography have established one of the most compelling identities in electronic music (look at the woman draped across a man’s body on an airstrip on Resuscitation —  is she trying to save him, or rifling through his pockets?). But these days, the emphasis on mood is outstripping the music.

You have to give Adult. credit for not repeating themselves (even though that’s what I want them to do). After their Ersatz label went dark, they relocated to Thrill Jockey and got even weirder. On their past three records, the wheels have come off: guitars crash in a small room, manic melodies are hinted at before exploding, and Kuperus sounds fully unhinged. There’s a lot of yelling going on and I scowl at my speakers, wishing they’d return to their signature sound instead of trying to dismantle it. On their newest record, the track titles read like self-parody (“Inclined to Vomit”, “I Feel Worse When I’m With You”, “Plagued by Fear”). The goth-paranoia aesthetic has become just another schtick.

In 2001, when Kuperus sang that she’s “been working on her anxiety because it’s something I can do for free” or spoke of human wrecks, mindless consumerism, and the ennui of modern life, I believed her. She sounded honestly worried about our modern world and her voiced seamlessly merged with the frigid electro that remained at the forefront of the project. It was perfect music for anxious times and, yes, it was quite adult when compared with the subjects addressed by other electro acts. Now it’s all about fidgety moods and being a basket case. I’ll keep buying their records because they’ve earned it and, more importantly, they still nail it every now and then.

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Adult. – In My Nerves
from Gimmie Trouble. Thrill Jockey, 2005
Their brand of paranoid electro-punk is perfectly executed here: the jittery vocals and that guitar riff reveal what you always thought you’d been hearing in Adult.’s earlier work.

To get an idea of the spectacular sound they started with, here’s one of their earlier tracks:

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Adult. – Skinlike
from Resuscitation. Ersatz, 2000