Danish alt post hardcore act TVIVLER released their latest album Kilogram in May 2022 via Fysisk Format, and today the band is back with their new music video for the song “Ex-medlem af menneskeheden”, directed, filmed, and edited by Jokūbas Tamkevičius.
Asked about its meaning, the band referred to the Danish poet and political activist of Palestinian descent, Yahya Hassan, known for his controversial poems and public statements criticizing both Islam and Danish policies on migration and participation in armed conflicts:
“A young man once held everyone in this country accountable to themselves and threw himself into the world. The lowest form of humor makes fun of others. But when you face idiots, derogatory humor is a weapon. You hold people accountable to their own standard and find that they fail. He exposed the idiots and we ask: did he not also expose the idiot in himself?”
TVIVLER’s commentary on Kilogram:
What we kill names us. To talk about solidarity is dowdy and to talk about decency, meticulousness and hard work is ancient. Fuck that. All of our heroes have either become psychotic or ridiculous. You have to do things yourself these days. The only thing more despicable than good taste is ironic distance. You have to commit to something. You have to say yes to something. Common sense dictates that if you are going to write a press release, it should be written as an article. Understand, you have to work with the system.
This record sounds like this. There is no way around it. We have burned all compositional bridges, not as a vision but as an act. To be offensive does not leave out kindness. There are too few conservatives in this country. No one does what they say they do. When opinion enters, thinking stops.
It is amusing: When you try to be honest and personal you sound like a cliché, and when all is said and done the time is ripe for fascism. Does that not fill you with horror? This record is about fear, limitations, depression, reluctance.
We must emphasise that we are kind people. We really don’t care about poses, image, or attitudes. Most, if not all, on this record we have stolen from greater spirits. It is our homage to composers, singers, musicians, free thinkers, poets, artists. To all that is useless. Things do not need to make sense, they do not have to mean so much. We have no time to explain. They do not yet know that we bring the plague.
Angst is in fashion and to our surprise we find that we miss the neurosis. We do not bring a party program or a theory. We are all complicit. We grew up with new nordic powerlessness and learned to speak neoliberal. Society does not exist, there is no alternative, history has ended. But it has been 529 years and the exploitation continues.
Really, it has always been about the autonomy of spirit. There is noise, jazz, drones, gospel chops, guitar rock. There are men who hate animals. The nation has been built always on soil, blood, steel, and meat. The question will always be who is included in the category.
Question: why punk? Answer: Why sex? We have absolutely no solutions, but we offer no sarcasm, no irony, no complacency.
We retain the right to make an observation. We have always already failed, but understand: We are not looking for enemies, because we all need all the allies we can find.
