8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living by Asher White

Asher White made one of our favorite albums of last year in Home Constellation Study, a set of graceful baroque pop bangers with a touch of neoclassical dissonance. Now she returns with the noisier, more experimental 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living, a concept album meant to accompany our slow transition into the apocalypse. Moments of hard techno, space rock, progressive rock, and dream pop tell a multifaceted story of romance in spite of impending chaos. Though this chaos drives the narrative, White intentionally steps back from allowing this apocalyptic meltdown to feel thrilling or heroic, instead painting our immediate future as melancholic and distressing in ways that wouldn’t suit an action movie narrative. Like the album applying its various styles to an increasingly confusing romance, we apply our existing understandings of the world to an unrecognizable environment. The result creates brilliant meaning, absurd creativity, but ultimately the same result of shattered realities.