You Break, You Buy

Four countries. One band. Zero borders. only math rock, but the ruler is broken, and the colors keep changing!

You Break, You Buy — "Our Final Thoughts” opens warm, organically and mid noodle which allows complexity to happen naturally.

After a long hiatus since COVID, You Break, You Buy came together and recorded some previously unreleased material in their London-based rehearsal space. What they call "Our Final Thoughts."

The UK-based four-piece instrumental band is unique in that the members come together from different countries, branching out from England to Ireland, Italy, and Sweden. The band set out to bring their unique experiences and cultures into the project, birthing something comfortable, complex, and true to each of themselves alike.

No one has ever heard a UK band sound so much like Japan, as though four countries enter a room and Japan is what came out of the speakers.

This EP draws from the 2010's genre modernity and aims at making legendary, trademark math that can stand with the best of the best rather than cower beneath it.

“Will You Forgive Him, Kim?”

One wonders instantly upon pressing the play button: Is this an Enemies song?

No, no — this must be Rooftops.

Wait. Nope. No subtle horn additions.

Let Us Just Call It Abstract?

Nope.

Yet, at the same time, yes to all of the above.

It’s the Japanese band LITE on Xanax running through a car wash, or one of those magician paper-to-money sliders? Perhaps! no-no, tis anew. This album at times even sounds like a less drum-heavy Totorro mixed into art rock functions and dress codes.

It’s so exactly all of these things — the classics and legends — yet simultaneously something new and entirely its own. That is a rare balance for a group to attain, let alone maintain throughout an entire EP.

One can see why they chose to go the extra mile and record these songs for the planet and its beautiful people.

If Low Pass had a darker tonal library, utilizing a more prominent bass sound with more presence and quite a few more half- and quarter-time grooves, that might be the closest description to these musical wading pools.

The writing formula has a TTNG-like development curve, but the noodling is more akin to spaghetti-western-style big tones and big air than fast, intricate double-hand tapping and hammer-ons — making the slides hit harder than an emo song from the American Midwest.

At 03:28; the best part of the record occurs: a repeating syncopated line elongates itself through embellished guitar-solo interjections, which quickly retract, leaving behind only the presence of reverb and the awe of its width and beauty.

“Honestly, Darling”

“Honestly, Darling” has a Standards / CHON / Cat Bamboo-type intro riff, with a tone that isn’t normally found in that particular style of math rock.

The song grows ever more angular, until the transitions begin leaning slightly toward the cinematic nature of a sonic experience — weaving chilled, pocketed, slow-emerging transformations of tone, texture, and rich color with a toe-esque sophistication.

This process continues and expands as the effects push deeper and deeper into the water, while that same level of sophistication persists, enveloping the listener in a lush soundscape without abandoning the "Wading Pool" section for a full deep dive into overstimulation and submergence.

Instead, an even slower-moving yet far more complex personality creates dimension through an interaction between simplicity and complexity. Even the rate of change seems contradictory: simultaneously stagnant and propulsive, locked in place while somehow moving forward — the same, not separate.

Close to the outro, a hypnotic section breaks the flow back toward a prog-rock and quirky tone and atmosphere. Yet it never quite returns to the place you expect it to.

And then, before you know it, the next track starts playing.

“Tooth Whistlers”

The most emotive and busiest track, “Tooth Whistlers” is built from colliding rhythmic phrasings, angular syncopated chords, and jazzy guitar interventions.

The track adds proggy colors of brown and green, mixing them with the transparent shades that opened the piece, making the whole thing feel strange and alien.

From there, the canvas opens up.

The music becomes less narrow and more expansive, eventually lowering itself closer to the ground before finding a punchy avenue of a breakdown with an almost ’90s alternative-rock delivery — if not for the intruding prog-rock and art-rock colors, mismatched shades, and strange textural combinations.

The outro reaches a high level of production value and feels like a genuine peak.

I almost wished it had a few extra natural harmonics extending the song another few bars.

All in all, this is a solid EP with something unique to say while still pleasing the core tenets that make math rock what it is — and what makes it fucking great.

Instrumental junkies: give them a spin.

Four sets of instincts; still somehow they all end up speaking Japanese.

angular, spacious, rhythmic, and just alien enough to feel new. The final thoughts sound suspiciously like a beginning.

Perhaps, this is what happens when a band disappears long enough to become its own influence.

Jon Hughes - Guitar

Alastair Cross - Guitar

Sara Kleppe - Bass

Luca Romano - Drums

Recorded in our rehearsal space by Luca Romano

Mixed by Tom Hill

Mastered by Dan Coutant at Sun Room Audio

Artwork by Valerio Immordino