8-piece indie pop collective, Superorganism, just released their self-titled debut album collated with a mishmash of cut-and-paste techniques, samples, and overall chaos. The international band, spanning across Maine and London, create electronically fuelled-music with an internet-inspired composition. Describing themselves as a ‘DIY band’, the electronically-tinged signature sound is a refreshing, modern and rare take on pop music. Let’s dive in.

The band open with their hit single, It’s All Good, a track devoted to looking at all aspects of life, rather than those that just disappoint. Opening with rainy sound effects, an alarm clock, and a pitched-down vocal saying ‘good morning […] the weather today is dark’, the track doesn’t waste any time on introducing the beautiful, deep and groovy basslines they’re known for.

The chorus is filled technological layers and the influence is wild. We get cash registers, glitches, and hyper sound effects which remind me of something like a 90s-inspired neon website crashing with those dial-up internet sounds. The layering is so intense within this jam-packed opener, giving the outro no job but to collapse all of these elements abruptly with a loud door slam, putting a close to the messily but particular production. Solid opening.

Everybody Wants To Be Famous dedicates itself to the ongoing pressures and desire to have a life of fame. The overdrived bassline rides over a scatty drum-kit through the track, and the light-hearted lyrics emphasise the cash-filled dominance and happiness associated with fame. The track also touches upon the how fame can make people lose their grip on reality, with lead singer Orono saying ‘now I’m calling the shots […] see you over at Mars’, implying a higher level of superiority. There’s a sense of confidence building here, with the music video so perfectly anchoring this.

In a pessimistic way, Nobody Cares showcases stories that grow online that nobody takes an interest to. Perhaps drawing parallels with food posts on Instagram or Mum posts on Facebook, the track intensifies early with a strong bassline and a slurry ‘nobody cares’. Power and indecision complement this explosive track, and this one is really the love child of social networking and rebellion.

We’re then met with, probably the most light-hearted track on the album, Reflections on the Screen. That familiar bassline has now evolved into a plucked and stripped version, but the band still mark their territory by using bellowing guitars as they build on the idea of technological romance. Inspired by the concept of love-through-a-screen, the lyrics playfully orbit around this through ‘zooming in to 1080p’ on video calls, and chat rooms ‘loading way too slow’. Orono furthers this idea, drawing parallels in a Black Mirror-esque way, saying that they ‘[feel] alive, sat in bed lit by the light’ of their phone. Me too sis.

Being dragged through the wormhole again, the self-titled track SPRORGNSM opens with a lack of rhythm and a minimal, steady guitar loop which then introduce violins to the atmosphere. Dreamy lyrics glide over this loop, ‘when I grow up, I wanna be a superorganism’, before we get into a disjointed verse with an uneasy tempo. It emits an unsettling and chaotic feel but somehow I feel quite comfortable and okay with this? Big chorus numbers with gang vocals make the call-and-response very catchy, and the cacophonic randomness of sounds really make this track shine. We’re talking meows, moos, bubbles, car crashes and detuned synths. Love it.

Acting as their first release from this project, Something for Your MIND is instantly recognisable as the cult classic piece off the LP. Cut and paste loops, samples that have a funk to them, and the throbbing bassline make this track the wubby classic it is. The messy uncopyrighted release back in 2016 just makes this release even more unpredictable. Too fitting.

Reflectively, on Nai’s March we dive into the Orono’s take on the apocalypse. The repetition of ‘Tokyo, oh Tokyo’ within each verse deliver the track as if it were a letter to the city, and this imagery is achieved through the atmospheric sound effects of water and echoes as we’re wandered through the nature of being lost. Orono opens with how Tokyo has a ‘deadly presence’, referring to the challenging and unique geographical positioning of the country, and they continue stating ‘every bedroom flattens and everything falls into the sea’.

This track, I feel, is a direct reference to how the country is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis due to its three overlapping tectonic plates and how nature can reclaim everything, including your bedroom. It’s a dreamy composition with some hard-hitting, world-ending, doom-inflicting lyrics.

Airing individualism has never been so creative. The Prawn Song offers us a path to freedom from the violent, hateful and corrupted world to one that is serene through a funky, hypnotic beat. Orono states her lack of care – ‘you do you, I’ll do me’, which stresses the happiness found within being weird and comparing herself to a prawn is what makes them happy. Stay being that prawn babe!

Carrying on, Relax really does what it says on the tin. Opening with sounds of soda-pops and trippy distorted vocals, this one is an easy-going piece. I’m talking psychedelic guitars which embed slurry vocals. Sit by the canal stoned kinda vibe. The hypnotically repeated ‘so just relax’ is ended abruptly by invasive car screeches, sirens and cries to unsettle the equilibrium. I’m thinking this is perhaps a reference to society not properly ‘winding down’ as it were, as there is some definite false hope here.

Night Time acts as a sort of time capsule that combines all of the elements heard in this release. We start with a melody coming straight from a tape cassette and a whispered tone saying ‘wake up, wake up’. The intensity of the instrumental grows with a rather simplistic drum kit after this, and lovely choral harmonies become ever more present, echoing ‘night time’ in the background. The track then cleverly cuts to an alarm clock with a yawn to end, flowing into the same voice-over we hear on the opening track. It perfectly illustrates how we should fall back into this looping release once again.

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This really is a genre-bending piece of work where the online meets the old school, and I’m pretty impressed by how the group have managed to create this entire project over video calls. The messy but cleverly orchestrated production contrasts against Orono’s sweet and innocent vocals, but they work so perfectly to depict a coming-of-age person entering the chaotic internet age. Lend your ears and have some fun.