In a lot of ways, what makes Unstable Shapes such an easy band to like is the fact that they’ve honed the craft of American music making to a fine art. Their debut album Delicate Machinery is one of my favorites of the year so far, an explosive slab of riotous post-punk that aptly conveys the angst and turmoil much of the country is working through at the moment. But American indie rock has always been that: a response to what we can’t control, a way of seizing back a small piece of ownership. If we can’t make enough money to buy a house, much less pay the bills, at least we can write a fucking song in our parent’s garage.
Hailing from Minneapolis means the band carries the weight of a pretty heavy legacy. But that legacy moves much further away than Paisley Park. Lead singer Andrew Cahak says that it’s a swath of the American byway that shapes the music the band makes, a gritty Midwestern persistence towards putting one artistic foot in front of the other:
‘It’s hard not be humbled by where we’re from, not just because of the musical legacy of the Twin Cities, but also because I think that’s part of being from the Midwest. We’re confident in what we do, at least I am, I shouldn’t speak for the others, but we don’t take anything for granted. We’re not just a Twin Cities band, or a Minneapolis band, we’re a Northeast Minneapolis band, even if James (the drummer) is the only one of us who actually lives in NE MPLS. We want to earn it, that’s a pretty Midwestern thing.‘
It’s also pretty fucking cold in Minneapolis, which may explain how such an unlikely location has become a continuous musical factory of such renown. Cold winters mean people are forced indoors, and a practice space with a dangerously old space-heater can produce the type of edgy, ice-tinged music that the band creates. Mitch Gustafson, one of the band’s two guitarists, has spent many winter evenings blowing on his fingers to keep them warm:
‘I think maybe Minnesota’s winters are just really conducive to a great musical scene. Our dangerously cold and snowy winters make it impossible to be outside so people hunker down at home, and then boredom and introspection lead to good music. And then concerts are something fun to do indoors, which leads to a thriving local scene. Although the past few winters we barely got any snow (and I think it rained on Christmas Eve the past two years in a row), so hopefully that doesn’t dry up the well of Minnesota creativity.’
The band is understandably reluctant to claim any direct lineage with the bands that came before, even while acknowledging the huge importance of bands as diverse as the Replacements, Husker Du, Lifter Puller, Morris Day and Prince. While there may be little sonic resemblance to these bands, they all paved the way for a thriving local scene that includes bands like the Mission of Burma-esque Upright Forms; the frigid snow-gaze of Another Heaven; the garage-y punk splatter of Christy Costello; and, of course, the raw-boned work of Unstable Shapes, among a slew of others. It’s within this rich tapestry of rock and roll that five guys from Minnesota came together and wrote Delicate Machinery.
Having formed in the penumbra of COVID in 2019, the band traces its roots in much the same way bands across the country have done for decades. Gustafson and second guitarist Ryan Jaroscak were self-taught. Growing up, influenced by legendary ’90s bands like Pavement and Unwound, the two developed a sound that would years later form the sonically exhaustive sound that marks Machinery. Cahak had the obligatory high school band, moved from the cornfields of Iowa to the big city lights of Minneapolis, dabbled in stand-up comedy and podcasting before asking Gustafson and Jaroscak to start a band. The rest, as they say, is history. A working relationship developed, and the band started to write songs. The creative process is a shared one, according to Gustafson:
‘We generally practice once a week but most of our songs originate from me messing around on guitar in my basement. Usually I, but also Ryan and Kevin (bassist) sometimes, will come to practice with an idea – it might be a full song or just a riff or two – and we’ll mess around with it as a group (to varying degrees of success). Inevitably somebody always suggests we play it faster, and then we try it, and it usually sounds worse, and we usually go back to the original tempo. We always record a rough demo of our progress, and try to figure out more throughout the week before the next practice. And then we repeat the process until we have the entire song figured out. Occasionally everything just coalesces perfectly and we finish a song in one practice, but usually it takes a bit of time. I’m not great at ‘jamming’ and I like to spend some time trying out ideas until I find something that sounds right.’
Jaroscak concurs:
‘With the exception of the two song concepts on Delicate Machinery I brought to the table, I’m usually the last piece of instrumentation for the song besides the vocals. We don’t really ‘jam’ a ton, so over the years there’s been a lot of me taking a demo that Mitch or Kevin have come up with and I’ll work independently to put the puzzle pieces together. Then we finalize everything in our practice space.‘
While Unstable Shapes is most assuredly not a ‘jam’ band (thank God), the songs on Delicate Machinery often celebrate the work that can be done with two guitars. The two players echo off each other in much the same way that Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd did with Television, or how Steve Diggle and Pete Shelley’s guitars careened back and forth on the classic Buzzcocks‘ single “Why Can’t I Touch It?” And, on top of all this cacophony, lay Cahak’s acerbic, pleading lyrics. There’s no wasted verbal space on the songs that make up the album, and Cahak’s lyrical inspirations are myriad (Wes Anderson notwithstanding):
‘ I draw from a lot of things, there are lyrical allusions all over Delicate Machinery but a lot of them are obscure. Honestly, I can’t even remember all of them, haha. There’s a direct reference to a line from Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City in “Feral Joy” and the ‘vampire choir boys’ line in “Sunlight” was inspired by The French Dispatch. We don’t really sound like a lot of my favorite bands so I try to find subtle ways to nod to them, sometimes when we’re recording, Knol Tate (our producer) and I will talk about how to achieve an effect or technique that someone else uses. Part of it is also just thinking about the bigger picture. I think that’s an often unconsidered form of influence: how do the artists you love model the career or catalog or whatever that you want to produce for yourself?‘
In the end, Unstable Shapes has done what thousands of bands have done before it, and thousands of bands will continue to do after. They’ve shoved their artistic shovels deep within the rich riverbeds of American rock and roll, and shifted it through their own sluice boxes to get at the gold beneath. And this gold is teeming with the energy of forgotten America. Be it the lonely, pastel scenes of a Wes Anderson film; the ringing guitars off a scratched up version of Fake Train; or another wintery practice night in an old office building in NE Minneapolis, the band epitomizes the artistry that makes American music so fucking exciting.
As the band says, Unstable Shapes wants to earn it, and with their humility, dedication and continued desire to make loud music, these Midwestern ‘kids’ will continue to do just that.
Support Unstable Shapes by buying a dope vinyl version of Delicate Machinery or a cool trucker hat at their Bandcamp, or just show the guys some virtual love by following them on their Instagram. Either way, you’re a winner.
Unstable Shapes is:
Andrew Cahak – Vocals
Mitch Gustafson – Guitar
Kevin Hurley – Bass
Ryan Jaroscak – Guitar
James Taylor – Drums
