In a big enough mosh pit, the world breaks loose. You enter the well as one person and you leave as another person. The late queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz described this transformation as a portal in his 2009 book cruise utopia. “I remember the sexually ambiguous punk clubs of my youth, where drunk and horny punk kids rehearsed their identities, danced aggressively with each other, and then drunkenly walked out into the parking lot together,” he wrote. “For many of them, the mosh pit was not just a closet; it was a utopian subcultural rehearsal space.” In the squall of music, reality begins to split and curve. Through communal and friendly violence, punks build a muscle memory of what it’s like to feel upset and cared for at the same time. The agitation of the bodies opens a channel, however fleeting, towards a life that is easier to survive.
Special Interest pierces that same molten core. Across three fierce albums, the New Orleans band draws the line where the thirst for a new world meets the rage that sets the old on fire. Illuminated and directed by the charismatic and blistering singer Alli Logout, they denounce the stakes of the age as they see them, railing against gentrifiers, cops, warmongers and trust fund art school kids with sharply tuned taunts. Songs about preparing for revolution are reviewed with songs about good sex with good drugs. Running on the relentless engine of Ruth Mascelli’s drum machine, they continue a legacy of weird ’80s and ’90s disturbances that include Coil, Frankie Knuckles, and the B-52s, all of whom, in their own ways, worked with the same mixture of political dissatisfaction, biting humor and erotic fantasy. On his third album, Endure, Special Interest takes their sound to both the darker and sweeter edges. Pop, disco and house melt into their reliably raucous glam punk, and questions of community care press against a pain-ridden apocalyptic outlook. This time, her spines are dripping with honey.
At the other side of EndureSpecial interest embellish the pillars they established in 2018 spiral and 2020 the passion of with gestures that wouldn’t sound out of place on ’90s radio. The late-night sounds of house and techno began hitting the daytime commercial airwaves towards the end of the last millennium, many hitting the Top 40 from overseas in the genre. pan-flash called Eurodance. Logout extends into certain vocal timbres and minor-key intervals that echo the perfect, ephemeral dance-pop of a group like La Bouche, while behind his vocals, delicate piano lines fringe the band’s solid foundation. These changes clear more air around the sound of Special Interest. While certain moments still feel immediate and imperceptible, others seem to float from the open back door of a club, inviting passers-by to come closer for a closer look.
