Hot Garbage – SPUN
Hot Garbage released Precious Dream in 2024, and “SPUN” is the Toronto psych-noise quartet’s first new single since then, out now on Mothland. Produced, engineered, and mixed by Graham Walsh, mastered by James Plotkin, it’s a tight piece of work: blown-out basslines from Juliana Carlevaris, wiry guitar from Alessandro Carlevaris, Dylan Gamble on keys and synth, and Mark Henein driving the whole thing with a five-beat pulse that doesn’t let go.
The song’s lyric circles urgency and presence in a few spare lines, without overexplaining. What makes “SPUN” land is less the content than the delivery: the groove is relentless, the guitar textures stay in that Sonic Youth-adjacent register without tipping into pastiche, and the rhythm section does most of the heavy lifting. It’s the kind of track that sounds better louder.
Gamble also directed the video, which features Sook-Yin Lee as “The Bug”, moving through frozen Toronto alleyways and brutalist corridors. Lee also contributed drawings to the visual. It fits the song perfectly: grimy, strange, and not trying to explain itself. Hot Garbage played SXSW earlier this year and by all accounts their live set is where the motorik grooves and goth textures really open up. “SPUN” suggests they’re still very much on that trajectory.
