JOINT D

All three members of Charlotte’s Joint D≠ have already played Hopscotch: Drummer Michael Houseman played the festival in 2010 with the worldy art-pop ensemble Black Congo NC. Bassist Thomas Berkau and singer/guitarist Nock Goode played last year, with the posi-pop troupe Yardwork and the garage-punk bashers Brain F≠, respectively. This year, the band released its full-length debut, Strike Gently, through the Carrboro-based label Sorry State Records, which counts releases by Double Negative, Whatever Brains and Brain F≠. It feels obvious, then, to anoint Joint D≠ as ambassadors of Charlotte’s fertile and diverse underground rock scene, or to tie them by association to Raleigh’s world-class punk scene.

But despite the local ties, Joint D≠’s music is born of Internet-age globalism. In discussions of artists as superficially distinct as Lana Del Rey and The Men, critics have hinted that this age could come to be defined by its self-identification mindset. Writing after taking in this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, Pitchfork columnist Nitsuh Abebe wrote: “A lot of the new acts I saw did seem to think in references. Their art, and the work they put into it, was more like quilting than weaving—they'd take bits and pieces of recognizable things and recombine them in new ways. This isn't necessarily bad or hollow; sometimes it's strange and illuminating.”

In the case of Joint D≠, it is most assuredly the latter. Drawing inspiration from the sounds of global punk’s vibrant present as much as it's past, the Charlotte trio matches American punk innovators to international revisions of the template. Hardcore bands from Spain and Sweden (such as Ilegal and Instängd) face-off with garage-rock from the Midwest and Australia (such as Tyvek and Eddy Current Supression Ring); L.A. punks The Germs enter a Battle Royale with Portland’s iconoclastic Wipers and the jittery Japanese band The Stalin. But picking through Joint D≠’s influences is a bit like trying to decipher the ingredients in a well-mixed drink: It can be fun, but it risks missing the point. Strike Gently isn’t about playing bingo with obscure punk bands. Rather, it’s a striking collection of 11 songs where contorted guitar riffs and a rhythm section that tumbles like an avalanche deliver jagged, infectious hooks.

It is indeed strange and illuminating. —Bryan C. Reed