Bodega announce their long-awaited second album, Broken Equipment

Today, BODEGA announce their long-awaited second album, Broken Equipment, ahead of a March 11th release date on the evergreen What's Your Rupture? Alongside the news, the band are sharing its infectious lead single 'Doers', which was debuted last night by Steve Lamacq on BBC 6Music. Inspired by self-help books and vlogs, it tackles the toxic side of forced productivity and slyly pokes funs at Daft Punk with its central mantra of "bitter, harder, fatter, stressed out."

Of 'Doers', the band's Ben Hozie offers: "Sometime on tour near the end of 2019 I found myself reading and watching a plethora of self-help books and Youtube vids. This started from a genuine desire for spiritual and physical improvement but I soon started noticing how advertisements everywhere were utilising the language of self-help. I was being programmed.

"‘You don’t have time to cook dinner tonight because you are too busy crushing it as a doer —> You are creating next level content and don’t have time to hang out w/ friends or family this weekend so download this app and have ready-made food delivered to you for 29.99.’ This ideology of constant productivity forces you to treat your own body, mind, time, and friends as products to mine ——> As a result the world becomes a smaller, duller place. All artists (all people) desire to be productive : 'Function is the key.' Yet... If a photo is taken of you in the woods: for all millennia you’ll always be stuck in the woods."

Its accompanying video - directed by Ben alongside BODEGA co-founder Nikki Belfiglio, and drawing inspiration from Ryan Trecartin, Hype Williams and Slipknot - continues to take aim at the 21st century's incessant productivity/positivity cycle.

Ben explains: "For the advertisement (music vid) for the track we teamed up with our old pal Joe Wakeman (who used to perform with me and Nikki in BODEGA BAY). We shot at the old abandoned IBM offices in Kingston, NY (where Nikki and Joe were born and raised) and a gym and a parking garage in Bushwick. The video stars Dr. DOER, a misunderstood monster who simply wants to issue directives and inspire his team of ghouls to #greatness."

Doers' is available on all digital platforms now alongside a brand new b-side 'Top Hat No Rabbit' - listen here

Today's news is accompanied by the announcement of a mammoth UK and EU run for 2022 with UK dates kicking off on March 11th with a trio of shows at the Prince Albert in Brighton before culminating with three nights at London's Moth Club from March 29th to 31st. These shows are then followed by dates across Europe in April.

More about Broken Equipment:

The follow-up to the band's acclaimed debut album, Endless Scroll (2018), and 2019's Shiny New Model EP, Broken Equipment was inspired by a book club. In the early months of 2020, the Brooklyn art-punk incendiaries gathered together with close friends to study the works of a wide range of philosophers. Passionate debates lasting long into the night became a regular occurrence, motivating the band to become as ideologically unified as the weighty tomes they were reading. Broken Equipment is BODEGA’s attempt to interrogate the external factors that make them who they are, propelling existential quandaries with tongue-in-cheek humour, highly personal lyrics, and irresistible grooves.

Since BODEGA’s formation in 2016, Ben and Nikki (who previously played together in the band BODEGA BAY) have experienced a rare meteoric rise. The duo double as filmmakers, earning acclaim for their 2020 erotic drama PVT Chat starring Peter Vack, Julia Fox, and other recognizable faces from the Safdie Brothers’ cinematic universe. When the pandemic forced them to hit pause, they used the opportunity to regroup with drummer/performance artist Tai Lee, bassist/philosophy professor Adam See, and lead guitarist Dan Ryan. Broken Equipment was produced by Ben himself with Bobby Lewis, BODEGA’s NYC live sound mixer. The record was mixed by Bryce Goggin, whom the band sought out for his work with Pavement, and Adam Sachs (WIVES).

The album’s 12 songs are set in present day New York City, packing in references to contemporary issues of algorithmic targeting, media gentrification, and the band itself. On 'NYC (disambiguation)', they break down how the Big Apple was “founded by a corporation” and history remains alive in the present. The poetic 'Pillar on the Bridge of You' is the first love song Ben ever wrote for Nikki, while 'All Past Lovers' gazes back to the “southern belle” and “chat room suitor” who still live inside him today.

To accompany the propulsive pace of 'Statuette on the Console' and its lyrics about switching perspectives, Nikki recorded alternate versions in eight different languages. “I used God in that song as this arch overlord character, but it could also be a real estate developer,” she explains. “It’s about anyone who puts their reality on your back and forces you to carry it around.” In that song, Nikki also wryly states that although she doesn’t have faith in this particular “God,” she is still “living life with (my) platitudes.” On 'Territorial Call of the Female', Nikki playfully quips that “when the man is around that’s when I’m putting you down,” highlighting how in the past she unknowingly reinforced patriarchal values by turning against other women to attract men. It’s moments like these where BODEGA most exemplifies their self-professed motto that “the best critique is self critique.”

As the band’s art director, Nikki commissioned the sculpture featured on the cover of Broken Equipment as a companion to the cover of their debut, Endless Scroll. “They’re in the same world,” she explains. “The Endless Scroll sculpture was kind of shaped like a computer but also a gavel that a judge would have. That album was about how we do not yet know in the information age what technology is doing to our brains. It was almost on the precipice of a judgement. Now, with the pointing finger machine on the cover of Broken Equipment, I wanted to convey the sense in which social media and Web 2.0 turn people who would otherwise be allies against each other.”

1. Thrown

2. Doers

3. Territorial Call of the Female

4. NYC (disambiguation)

5. Statuette on the Console

6. C.I.R.P.

7. Pillar on the Bridge of You

8. How Can I Help Ya?

9. No Blade of Grass

10. All Past Lovers

11. Seneca the Stoic

12. After Jane