Just Got Back from the Discomfort We’re Alright (2010) Brave Little Abacus

Written by Meenakshi Nirmalan

I had heard nothing about Brave Little Abacus, until a friend recommended Pile! No Pile! Pile! to me. The song title was unconventional and I didn’t know what it meant, if it even meant anything at all. Brave Little Abacus’ music wasn’t available on Spotify until towards the end of 2020 and I remember downloading Soundcloud specifically to listen to them. I listened to the track; it’s over 6 minutes long, fuelled with intense emotion. I feel I found Brave Little Abacus at exactly the right time: I had just turned 16. GCSEs had been cancelled, we were coming out of lockdown and I was left with a long summer ahead of me. Nobody really knew what was going on. We were all lost, drifting around, trying to find belonging and direction. I later listened to the entire album and thought it was brilliant. Just Got Back from the Discomfort We’re Alright reflects the final few years of being a teenager, filled with discovery, new experiences and new responsibilities. The album captures teenage angst with maturity and self-awareness. The album also features dialogue sampled from the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, which would be nostalgic for many. Brave Little Abacus were my first introduction to Midwest Emo and still I struggle to find another band in this genre quite like them. Prior to finding Just Got Back from the Discomfort We’re Alright, I predominantly listened to grunge; it was refreshing to start to explore more albums with a homemade feel. I love the album cover too. It’s an image of vocalist Adam Demirjian’s father at a gas station. The picture is a little blurry but the camera quality adds to its intimate feel, fitting the lo-fi vibe of the album.

Pile! No Pile! Pile! is a fantastic opener. Demirjian starts by singing ‘you’re not listening, I said “stop!”’, at full volume. Whilst this does reflect the cliché of teenagers feeling misunderstood, I don’t think it’s fair to trivialise those experiences. They clearly have weight and give shape to the universal experience of growing up. Also, Demirjian’s voice is divisive. Some say they struggle to enjoy the band’s music because they don’t enjoy his singing. Right off the bat, it’s nasally, loud, sometimes off-key, with occasional voice cracks. To me that’s part of the charm. The track launches you straight into the angst and discomfort prevalent throughout the album. You’re hit with instruments playing with full force, brimming with passion. I struggle to distinguish what specific instruments are used; at the very least, I can hear drums, keys, guitar and bass. The timbres of all the instruments merge to a degree, but that’s the beauty of it. I don’t know exactly what’s in it but all I know is that I like it, which is true across the album. Lyrically, Pile! No Pile! Pile! conveys the feeling of being overwhelmed, of being unable to compartmentalise your different problems so they snowball into an indiscernible blur. Demirjian sings a long stream of words: ‘Because it’s come to be too much / I can’t just pile aesthetic-perceptive dilemma / Over-analytic demeanors, feelings of lonely worthlessness / And unproductivity atop the other / Allowing each to bleed through their fabricated boundaries’. It’s verbose, it’s effusively angsty. It captures the image of a teenager navigating their place in the world, experimenting with language to find belonging. The way Demirjian screams ‘notice me’ is poignant, displaying the conflict between the desire to be seen and the desire to blend in.

The album’s intensity ebbs and flows. Sometimes the soundscape is stripped back, letting the keys resonate - I think I hear a harmonica at points too. At other points, the sound is big and loud. The drumming is dynamic; you hear the clang of cymbals, the pounding of the toms and snare but you can barely distinguish the individual parts of the kit. These abrupt changes in texture reflect the turbulence of youth. What I love about this album is its balance between cohesion and spontaneity. Each song flows on from the last, but it’s never predictable. The instrumental tracks provide the album with a nice change of pace. Boy’s Theme has a sparse soundscape. The harmonica plays long drone-like notes. It feels like the end of an era, the end of boyhood. Similarly, Allston, Massachusetts December 2009 to January 2010 also feels desolate. The track’s central focus is a twangy guitar, embedded within the fuzz and crackle of microphone feedback. However the track that stands out most to me is Can’t Run Away. It features a walking bassline, perhaps the track where the bass is most audible. You hear the gentle strumming of a guitar, a tambourine accentuating beats two and four of each bar, unconventional for rock. What sounds like a glockenspiel or xylophone comes in towards the track’s middle; the sound crescendos and then drops, becoming slow and stripped back. Demirjian switches between singing calmly, shouting, and at times, he dabbles in spoken word too. Can’t Run Away ends with eerie synths, contrasting the upbeat feel of the song’s start. This track covers a lot of ground sonically; it’s kaleidoscopic, epitomising the album’s do-it-yourself feel.

I love the album’s lyrics. We see a lot of long, elaborate phrases, which are beautifully written. However, some of the most simple phrases in the album are the most impactful. For example, in Aubade (Morning Love Song) the sparse soundscape makes room for Demirjian to repeatedly sing: ‘in the morning, I’ll be fine’. It’s simple and poignant. It conveys the universal feeling of putting off your potential for tomorrow. Also, the theme of the double appears across the album. In Please Don’t Cry, They Stopped Hours Ago, Demirjian sings: ‘There are two of him and one of me’. I view this as an acknowledgement of your limitations, of feeling small and inadequate compared to others. Brave Little Abacus invert this idea in the album’s outro, Orange, Blue with Stripes: ‘Hi Emily, you don’t have to play / You are not her, he is not me’. We see a split between the speaker’s desired self and the reality. The speaker’s self-image is fragmented, as he is trying to figure out who he really is. The album’s closing lyrics show a sense of progression, perhaps even resolution: ‘Made me believe there were two of me / And one of them would’ve said Hannah / Way before now’. The speaker asserts what he truly desires. He begins to express his authentic self amidst the chaos of teenage angst. The ending of Just Got Back from the Discomfort We’re Alright signals a shift; although not quite fully-fledged, it’s the potential for something new.