THE WANTS - 87 Gas

Recorded during a period of geographic and emotional displacement, "87 Gas" is a provocative sonic landscape that challenges the boundaries between personal ambition and systemic routine. The band's self described "No Wave / No pop techno punk" ethos finds its most articulate expression in this single, where digital and analog elements collide to create a disorienting yet compelling soundscape.

More than a mere song about a place, "87 Gas" transforms the mundane backdrop of an American convenience store into a metaphorical battleground where individual dreams confront societal constraints. "It's a playful reflection on youthful ambition and rebellion rubbing up against alienation and monotony," the band explains. "The song’s mantra and instrumentation chart the repetition of daily life. As  fantasy and reality grow further apart, the tension between the two can ultimately drive you crazy.”

Musically, the track deliberately undermines genre conventions. A hypnotic bassline from newest band member Yasmeen Night intertwines Middle Eastern influences with intentionally discordant guitar notes, creating an auditory representation of the conflict between raw emotional expression and structured societal rhythms. By recording live and capturing their collective nervous energy against a mechanical clock pulse, the band transforms personal vulnerability into a universal experience of disconnection.

"87 Gas" emerges as the first single from The Wants highly anticipated album Bastard. Pulsing with the tension between lead vocalist and guitarist Madison Velding-VanDam's midwestern roots and his New York City existence, their sophomore effort explores disconnection in an age of endless connection. This duality manifests in the music itself—organic instruments wrestle with electronic ghosts, while traditional song structures are dismantled and reassembled into strange new forms. Deeply influenced by personal tragedy, Velding-VanDam began writing after his father was found dead in his Michigan trailer, having been deceased for 8 days. The aftermath of this discovery — hoarded belongings, towers of empty liquor bottles and oxycodone containers, grime-covered childhood photos — became the emotional backdrop for the album’s creation.

"Bastard, both as an album and an experience, is an emotional purge—a meditation on isolation and loss," explains Velding-VanDam. “The story of my father’s life and death loomed large as a backdrop of the writing process. I explored the darkest periods of my life, and the reality that we can all spiral into our own personal voids, unaware or unwilling to acknowledge the decay until it’s too late.”

Since emerging in 2017, The Wants have carved out their own niche in experimental music's outer reaches. Their debut Container earned critical acclaim and packed venues across the UK and EU before the pandemic forced them off the road. With Bastard, they've created something even more ambitious—a record that transforms personal demons into universal catharsis, and pushes the boundaries of what electronic post-punk can be. Following their 2020 debut album, Container and successful shows in the UK and EU, the original duo of Madison Velding-VanDam and Jason Gates added NightNight’s Yasmeen Night whose deft synth play fused their post-punk energy with an additional electronic flare.

Drawing from a deep well of influences across decades and genres, The Wants forge an unlikely alliance of sounds that feels both radical and inevitable. Velding-VanDam’s jagged snark merges Alan Vega and Korn over sculpted whale-like guitar tones inspired by Hildur Guðnadóttir, while Gates draws intensity from bands like Bauhaus and Throbbing Gristle, and inspiration from experimental techno. Night's sound bridges inspiration from '90s alternative rock like Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage between the trip-hop atmosphere of Massive Attack. The result sits in its own category—too raw to be pure electronic music, too mechanised to be straight rock—drawing favourable comparisons to early Public Image Ltd. and contemporaries like Model/Actriz while remaining distinctly their own beast.