On the wall of Michael Squeri’s living room in Northside is a four-by-four arrangement of framed records by Elvis Costello, an artist who, at first blush, might not seem all that kindred with Squeri and his Noise Rock/Post Punk outfit, Hissing Tiles, whose music sounds more in line with the tightly-wound styles of bands like Wire or Iceage. But listening closely to Hissing Tiles’ forthcoming album, Boychoir, a lyric like “Man uses words to dress up his vile instincts” from Costello’s “Monkey to Man” would fit perfectly into their thesis.
Costello’s aforementioned indictment of toxic masculinity was released in 2004, before such a phrase had been popularized to the point of being completely misunderstood by those not willing to do even a minute of research. It was Dr. John P. McCombe, of the University of Dayton, who, in 2009, wrote: “Costello complicates most every trope of masculinity prevalent in the Rock music of the late 1970s.”
Make the genre more niche and the decade more contemporary and you have an apt descriptor of Hissing Tiles and what they’re showing 2010s Noise Rock and Post Punk is capable of being, both sonically and socially.
The band, which features Squeri on guitar and vocals, Erik Ziedses des Plantes on bass and vocals and Patrick Apfelbeck on drums, has been around since 2012. However, it wasn’t always with that lineup, or even that name. Squeri and Ziedses des Plantes started the band with the name “Gazer,” a moniker that was chosen without total enthusiasm and whose connotations started to undercut their intentions.
“I was super-uncomfortable with the name,” Squeri says, “Because we were a band with three dudes, with a lot of yelling and we have the name ‘Gazer.’ ”
The band’s first two EPs, Fake Bulbs and Phone Commercial, recorded as Gazer, were released on a 12-inch in 2014. BJ Marsee, the group’s first long-term drummer, was with the band for two years before leaving amicably in 2015, prior to the name change. Drumming duties for their debut full-length, Aces Read Me to Sleep, were split between Marsee and Joseph Frankl.
Upon Marsee’s departure and the birth of Ziedses des Plantes’ first daughter in 2015, it wasn’t entirely clear what was to become of the band, which went inactive for the better part of a year. They had a new name — one which fit Squeri’s criteria of being “kinetic, nihilistic and abstract” (and has seemingly gotten them confused for tile wholesalers more than once) — but needed a permanent drummer.
Squeri knew Apfelbeck, of Electronic Dance Rock band Fluffer, from his time in Bloomington, Indiana. According to Ziedses des Plantes, Hissing Tiles “came together” once Apfelbeck rounded out the trio. Chemistry between Ziedses des Plantes and Apfelbeck helps to conjure the backbone of songs like Boychoir’s second track, the slinking “Rist,” which came about from a rehearsal session featuring just the two of them.
In the works since 2016, Boychoir is an act of maturity and refinement from a band able to retain their earlier work’s rawness of feeling without making something that could be crafted in just any basement by just any group. Recorded with Jacob Tippey of Calumet, the album makes thrilling use of the exploratory realm of Post Punk, adding vibraphone, choral vocals (from Maggie Cleary and Regina Squeri, Squeri’s sister and bassist in Columbus’ Slimfit), birdsong samples and even a washing machine as percussion, without any of it ever coming across as ostentatious.
Even the more traditional elements of guitar, bass and drums are given a shift. Squeri, who has two prepared guitars and one standard guitar in a “weird tuning,” says the intention “is to treat it like an appliance more than an instrument.” Album closer “The Idiot Lights” opens with a bass loop made from Ziedses des Plantes singing different tones into his bass’ pickups until he ran out of breath.
Ziedses des Plantes’ aversion to writing repetitive music has resulted in some good-natured teasing from his bandmates.
“Erik comes in with 14 ideas per song, and we try to assemble it into a working module,” Apfelbeck says.
Apfelbeck, who’s describes the album as “broken dance music,” made his work on “The Two of Us” sound like a malfunctioning drum machine. Inspiration was also taken from Brooklyn Electronic producer Oneohtrix Point Never.
Although no one would mistake Boychoir for Easy Listening, Squeri is deliberate about a sound that’s intense but not off-putting, such as with his vocals, which are anchored in his diaphragm but aren’t incapable of volleying, like on “I Make Contact.”
“I like things that are unsettling and abrasive but also it needs to be, for me at least, palatable to some degree,” he says.
The lyrical content and song topics of Boychoir are also important to the point that total abrasion would be a hindrance to getting a message across.
Across 42 minutes, Hissing Tiles are throwing shade at institutional oppression and gender-policing in the context of things like religion. The opening title track, inspired by Squeri’s Catholic upbringing, “is about an event that every boy inevitably experiences — the first time he is punished for behaving like a girl.”
Other tracks delve into topics like male accountability and machismo entitlement, multiple instances of which have been witnessed by Squeri personally, who says he’s gone through his own journey of growth.
“Speaking as someone who used to be an idiot 20-year-old, I feel a lot of the worst opinions I had were changed from one-on-one deep conversations with people close to me,” he says.
Ziedses des Plantes, a father of two girls, stresses that there is a personal connection behind what they’re trying to impart.
“If we’re shouting at stuff, we’re also shouting about things like this affecting the people we love,” he says.
Though Hissing Tiles have given their sound more nuance and their message more layers, their intention is to keep striking listeners right in the gut as well as the brain.
“If I’m going to try to approach those topics in any kind of art form, I feel like I would not be true to myself if it wasn’t visceral,” Squeri says.
Hissing Tiles’ Boychoir will be released Aug. 30 on Whited Sepulchre Records. The band plays a free album release show on Aug. 31 at MOTR Pub. More info: hissingtiles.bandcamp.com.
This article appears in Aug 28 – Sep 4, 2019.