CURRENT MOOD: Please enjoy Empath’s Ethereal Jock Jamz playlist

In our Current Mood series, we ask some of our favourite artists to curate a playlist according to a specific theme or mood of their choice. For Current Mood #015, Philly experimentalists Empath share their favourite ETHEREAL JOCK JAMZ. Listen to past Current Mood playlists here.

Philadelphia-based four-piece (and recent FADER GEN Fs) Empath make a curious kind of punk music; the songs on their excellent debut record Active Listening: Night On Earth are catchy and immediate while also sounding overwhelmingly hazy, as if they recorded through waterlogged microphones. The result is music that’s stylistically idiosyncratic from song-to-song, and hard to categorise; the only concrete of Active Listening is that it’s eminently listenable.

As is fitting for a band so in touch with the undefinable, Empath’s CURRENT MOOD playlist revolves around the well-defined but seemingly nebulous concept of Ethereal Jock Jamz. Featuring songs as disparate as Marilyn Manson’s “The Horrible People” and Ono Syunsuke’s “disco is,” the 14-track playlist hardly makes sense on paper, but sounds great once you hit play. (Just like Empath.)

“There is no fixed criteria for songs considered ethereal jock jams. They must not be intellectualized. You know it when you feel it. You know it when you’re hyped while having an out of body experience,” the band tells The FADER via email. “You know it when it’s what you’re listening to while on ecstasy and the sun is out; when you’re transcending but on the brink of an existential crisis. Please enjoy ETHEREAL JOCK JAMS.”


Empath’s Active Listening: Night on Earth and Liberating Guilt & Fear are being reissued this October via Fat Possum. Pre-order the vinyl here. Find Empath’s upcoming tour dates with Sheer Mag, Mannequin Pussy and Guerrilla Toss below.

Empath will play:

17 Aug - Richmond, VA @ The Camel *
18 Aug - Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade *
19 Aug - Asheville, NC @ The Mothlight *
21 Aug - Nashville, TN @ The End *
22 Aug - New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa *
23 Aug - Houston, TX @ Warehouse *
24 Aug - Austin, TX @ Mohawk *
25 Aug - Dallas, TX @ Three Links *
27 Aug - Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge *
28 Aug - Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo *
30 Aug - Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room at The Observatory *
31 Aug - San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill *
3 Sep - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
4 Sep - Seattle, WA @ Black Lodge
5 Sep - Spokane, WA @ Lucky You
8 Sep - St Paul, MN @ Turf Club ^
10 Sep - Chicago, IL @ Hideout
11 Sep - Cleveland, OH @ Now That's Class
12 Sep - Ithaca, NY @ The Haunt +
13 Sep - Buffalo, NY @ Sugar City +
26 Oct - Toulon, FR @ Le Port Des Creatures (Midi Festival)
28 Oct - Brussels, BE @ Botanique
30 Oct - Paris, FR @ TBA
1 Nov - Bristol, UK @ The Crofters Rights
2 Nov - London, UK @ Dingwalls (Mirrors Festival)
4 Nov - Manchester, UK @ The Star and Garter
5 Nov - Glasgow, SCT @ The Hug and Pint
6 Nov - Sheffield, UK @ Record Junkee
9 Nov - Utrecht, NL @ Le Guess Who Festival
12 Nov - Koln, DE @ Blue Shell
13 Nov - Berlin, DE @ Cassiopeia
14 Nov - Hamburg, DE @ Molotov SkyBar

* w/ Mannequin Pussy
^ w/ Sheer Mag
+ w/ Guerilla Toss

You can read FADER's GEN F interview with Empath here.

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