oday Louisville post-punk band Charm School shares their new single, “Happiness Is A Warm Sun.” While the band usually works in the same lane as bands like Metz or Protomartyr, “Sun” finds the band sounding more like Lou Reed fronting a krautrock band like Can or Faust. The song will appear on the band’s debut LP, Debt Forever, out in 2025.
Charm School is the latest project from Andrew Sellers (aka Andrew Rinehart) and longtime collaborators Matt Filip, Drew English, Brian Vega, and Jason Bemis Lawrence. The name change signals a move away from Sellers’ previous songwriting efforts (as evidenced by his recent duet with Bonnie Prince Billy) toward a much darker and more aggressive sound. Think 70s Post-Punk & No Wave mixed with 90s Post-Rock and you’ll be close.
Originally from Louisville, KY, Sellers has paid his dues in both the NYC and LA DIY music scenes, and his various bands have played with seminal acts like Joan of Arc, Grizzly Bear & At The Drive-In.
Charm School’s 1st EP Finite Jest was released in 2023, and their forthcoming LP (titled Debt Forever) is due out in January of 2025.
Reflecting on the song the band said…”“This song is kind of an outlier on the record. It’s the only song that was basically improvised in the studio, and the only one where the lyrics were written sort of “automatically.” They’re all ideas that have been swirling around in the collective unconscious for awhile now, pertaining to the intense state of the world: the rise of fascism, ongoing wars, financial pressure, overpopulation, media at a million miles per hour, the spectre of the algorithm, the total lack of empathy online, etc.”
