Fashion Club Shares Julie Byrne Collaboration 'Rotten Mind'

Fashion Club has shared her first new single in two years, “Rotten Mind,” the haunting, string-laden electro-acoustic number featuring wispy backing vocals from Julie Byrne.

The track is a pointed rebuke aimed at those who oppress and control people under the guise of helping them, often with a lens of patronizing paternalism and concerning issues such as bodily autonomy, racial injustice, class inequality and trans rights. “I’m trying my hardest to empathize with those people and just not getting there, which is something I deal with a lot: that attempt to let go of resentment and hatred for the world,” Stevenson says of the track. “I think it’s posing the question to those people, ‘Is that really what you want? Or do you just want to see other people suffer because you feel like you’re suffering?’”

Fashion Club is the recording alias of Los Angeles artist Pascal Stevenson, who originally conceived of the project while on tour with her band Moaning. After returning home and getting sober, Stevenson found herself in a period of deep self reflection, exploring questions of ethics, responsibility, self-deception and systems of power. Her 2022 debut Scrutiny was a dreamlike art-rock palette, Stevenson drew inspiration from artists working during the incipient decades of the synthesizer’s lifetime, like Kate Bush, Brian Eno, and Wire's Colin Newman – musicians whose work bridges the gap between disarming experimentalism and pop pleasure. Only after the record was completed, Stevenson came to terms with her gender identity as a trans woman, and “Rotten Mind” is the first preview of new music written in the wake of deep personal change, and a completely new approach to Fashion Club. “I felt less held back by ‘Oh I’m this kind of person, I have to make this kind of music,’ and I think transitioning and COVID shutting everything down for a while totally shattered that” she shares.

In addition to her years touring in Moaning, Stevenson has spent time performing as a member of Girlpool, SASAMI, and Cherry Glazerr. Fashion Club has toured supporting The Breeders, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Lala Lala and Deradoorian, and will head out next month with Protomartyr on a run of East Coast dates. You can catch the band at a hometown show in Los Angeles at The Moroccan Lounge next Wednesday, May 29th. 

TOUR DATES 

05/29 - Los Angeles, CA @ Moroccan Lounge 

06/11 - Somerville, MA @ Crystal Ballroom ~

06/12 - Troy, NY @ No Fun ~

06/13 - Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts ~

06/14 - Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw *

06/16 - Baltimore, MD @ Metro ~

06/18 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Spirit ~

06/19 - Columbus, OH @ Natalie's ~

06/20 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle ~

~ w/ Protomartyr 

* w/ Protomartyr, Corridor

Photo credit: Pascal Stevenson

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