SPIRAL

"A League of Spiritual Aristocrats Progressing the Worlds of Life and Death."

"Portland Dantean Wave"

Listen to their debut EP -

Meme Combat

Lord Dean: So my name is Dean, I'm the singer, the guitar player, and I write the percussion. I started the band in 2024 with Lloyd here, we have been recording and playing for quite some time but never released anything until recently. We've just released our first record, Meme Combat.

Lela Claire: I'm Lela Claire, sometimes known as Lady Claire, I joined the band over one year ago and I was a backing vocalist up until recently when I started playing keys.

Wyatt Lloyd: I'm Wyatt, me and Dean formed this band in 2023 (He looks over at Dean questioningly, then kind of laughs and looks back.) I play the bass guitar. Pretty much.

LD: It's not necessarily meant to be taken completely literally. "Pneumatics" is taken from Greek Gnosticism, wherein Pneumatics are the highest spiritual caste. They're above the Psychics, and the Psychics are above the Hylics. Pneumatics are the spiritually enlightened. They dedicate themselves to scholarship and religion.

LC: Also, the video game Hylics features a band with a similar lineup to ours. Not identical, but in the game, you play as a Pneumatic, and the NPCs are Hylics. 

LD: Yeah, the game was actually what introduced me to the concept of gnosticism. 

LD: We are positioning ourselves against a more populist, communal, egalitarian message. We are anti-plebeian, and try to strip away the more ordinary punk motifs or rhetoric that the "common man" is the ultimate good, or represents the ultimate altruism. We are trying to dive more into the idea of being a "differentiated individual"-- and that is what an aristocrat is. An aristocrat was a part of the warrior caste of ancient Europe, ancient India, Asia, etc..., they were warriors that hail to the priests, underneath God or The Gods. That's part of what makes us spiritual, and what makes us "spiritual aristocrats". As far as progressing the worlds of life and death, I would reference the Divine Comedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Tuxedomoon's Holy Wars... just a variety of metaphysical writings and works. 

LD: "Dantean" is a word used in lyrics that we have not yet released. Lloyd was the one who said it was interesting. He said maybe we should use that. We've struggled to figure out what we should be called. I think the most important component of this "genre" here is that we embody a more solar or heroic, mythical aspect, yet at the same time we portray something that is at odds with aristocracy and heroism, caked in death and despair. It's chthonic, like Hall of Freaks (a song we haven't released yet). It's very dark, unforgiving, and left-hand path. It paints a picture of hell. I'd say it's a "wave" because we're trying to structure something around that, but also because we're inspired by the New Wave genre.

LC: Our setlist becomes darker building up to the last song. We always preface Hall of Freaks with What a Shame, which is an unreleased song about St. John's Bridge, where we took the photographs for Meme Combat.

LD: That's an interesting question. I would say the main call to action would be, be literate, be differentiated, do certain self-improving actions and steel yourself. Pray, meditate, realize there are forces larger than you and that you need to create something great. If you are truly an aristocrat of the soul, if your life is truly worth something and deserves to be recorded in the annals of history, you should strive to create, better yourself, and become closer to The Gods. I think that as we make progress with our music, there will be more explicit messages of what you "should" do, but as for right now, I don't have anything in particular.

LD: Yeah, absolutely. Pneumatics I, II, III, and IV were all written about each band member. Sparky is no longer with us. Not dead, of course (laughter). Pneumatics I was written about myself, my falling out with my previous band, and regeneration through new ideas, which is expanded upon in Pneumatics II when Lloyd and I started creating together. It's about the sort of brainstorming we were doing whilst creating art. It's about his progression from someone who had a deep interest in art but was very new to live music. Pneumatics III was about Sparky, who joined as our synth player and eventually left. Part of me wishes he was around to be a part of this, but, people go their own way, and Lela now plays the synthesizer section quite effectively. Pneumatics IV was written about Lela Claire and her receiving my call to action to be our other singer. So I, II and IV are still somewhat relevant.

LD: 

The priests: I would say the priests of today are the rigorous truth-seekers of our age seeking gnosis, often diminutively dubbed "schizo", perhaps. There's no vocals in the song, vocals would be profane.

The warriors: There's a trend of young men who feel crippled or inadequate trying to regain masculinity through acts of personal triumphance. This relates to the way that Bridgetown People is about overcoming and detaching from degeneracy in 21st century Portland. When outer peace is waning, one must find inner peace, and that is the modern day warrior's trial.

The merchants: Y2KYS is about the consumerist nature of postmillennial fashion. Low quality products are the main commodity, and inversely, artisanal products are harder to find. There IS some virtue in being a merchant of higher quality or artisanal things, but the new age merchant is a soul-sucking scumbag. When they're not selling anything of value and instead just extract production from the grist mill of slave labor, it becomes even more horrifying.

The peasants: It's pretty self explanatory-- I mean, it's a song about nodding off on fentanyl. You look at the streets, masses of derelict plebeians are killing themselves with this crude, cheap drug. It's highly lateral, very all-consuming. Step out into Portland on the right day and it looks like a vision of hell. And what do you think of when you think of hell? You think of the more chthonic qualities, you know? Animalistic impulses. It's hellish because it doesn't really represent man or the greater qualities of man, it represents something devoid of law; something utterly chaotic. Oh, and it was inspired by Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines".

LC: Black foil trails...

LC: I wanna mention Courtney Love.

LD: Favorite Portland band, Wyatt?

WL: Wipers.

LC: Yeah, Elliott Smith as well. He's not originally from here but we recorded at Jackpot!, which he co-founded. Him and Courtney Love are like, top influences ever for me.

LD: I also want to mention 3fghi, a band our friend made. Though he never released anything, it was a huge influence on me. Great stuff, I hope the world gets to hear it someday, especially those earlier songs.

LD: Yeah, we were initially planning to release 12" records, but we lack the finances. We're really grinding hard, you know, putting flyers up on the streets, doing everything we can to make sure people see and hear our music. We went to great lengths to record this EP with one of the most legendary recording engineers of all time, Larry Crane, he's really an absolute fucking legend. I was a fan of his long before I stepped into the studio because he's the creator and editor of the most prestigious audio engineering magazine ever made, Tape Op. We had it mastered for vinyl by Adam Gonsalves, who is also a legend. Yes, there will be physical media. The CDs will be arriving soon, and t-shirts will be available at our next show. If the shirts sell well, we'll produce a lot more. 

LC: Um yeah, we'll have posters available for Meme Combat, probably.

LD: Save the EP, listen to the EP, SAVE it. If you save it, it does better. If you want us to succeed, if you want us to do more shit, and get better in the algorithm, please give us more listens and saves.

WL: (Puts a cigarette into Dean's mouth to shut him up.)

LC: And, if you want to follow us on instagram, it's Pneumatic underscore Power, that's P-N-E-U-M-A-T-I-C underscore POWER. Again, that's P-N-E-U-M-A-T-I-C underscore POWER. Don't forget it.

LD: Correct.