A note from DUMP HIM:

Ahead of our May 26th release date, we’re stoked to share with y’all a full stream to Venus In Gemini! To go along with the stream we’ve included track descriptions of each of the seven songs on the tape -- songs about being far away, being anxious, and being queer. We recorded this record back in November; DUMP HIM at the time of recording was Jaclyn Walsh on vocals and guitar, Larz Brogan on drums and backing vocals, and Zoë Wyner on bass and backing vocals. Matt Mara and Zoë Wyner recorded and mixed the tape, Jade Payne mastered it, and Chelsea Dirck did the cover art! DUMP HIM is now Jaclyn Walsh on vocals and guitar, Larz Brogan on drums and backing vocals, Laurel Simonson on lead guitar, and Otto Klammer on bass.

Benefit/Doubt
This song is about beginning to see the worst in friends you don’t get to see a lot, and not knowing what to do with the feelings that develop from that. Two years ago, I moved away from Boston to Western Mass. A lot of my friends still live in Boston, so I was spending a lot of time there even though I wasn’t a direct part of the community anymore. Coming home, I felt weird about certain old friends after watching their behavior get worse. This song is about care and support, but also about taking a step back when I knew I needed to, and not regretting it.



Spectator
I wrote this in the bathroom of a Target when I was really out of it. I dissociate, and often wonder what life would be like if I didn’t -- how do people without heavily affecting traumatic experiences interpret the same situations that I interpret from a lens of trauma? How do people without mental illnesses see the world? I will probably never know, and never have gotten to know.

Attack and Amend
This is about a very draining, emotional friendship I had growing up that continued until a year or two ago when I broke it off. It’s about growing up with someone who thought you’d never leave no matter how much they hurt you, and then finally breaking free.

What’s Yr Deal With Kim?
It’s hard and disappointing to watch yr friends who talk big, radical talk drop the ball when it’s time to call in/call out people in our own communities. This song is about watching that go down with close friends nearby, and constantly having to reach out to friends elsewhere for advice and support. Processing with my bff and listening to Springsteen and Kim Deal bands on repeat is what kept me afloat and not feeling way TOO crazy this fall.

Route One, Saugus
This song is about being bad at keeping everyone in touch, and missing everyone all the time.


DUMP HIM recording line-up!

42069
All three of us wrote the lyrics to this one, and it came from a joke Larz made about a “hamster wheel of gay death” in a conversation that we were having about decolonizing attraction and romantic expectations. This song is about queer folks who believe themselves to be radical in every way, but still privilege and determine who they are attracted to based on fucked up and classist/western European beauty standards; folks who call other people out to gain ally points while still perpetuating racism, anti-semitism, and classism. Until folks practice what they preach, they’re just hurting others -- and hurting themselves.

Pretty Like a Boy
This song is something of a description of how I wish I was seen. It’s about the experience of dysphoria and feeling like you need to hide all the time, not recognizing yrself in the mirror, not wanting to recognize yrself in the mirror, not wanting to leave the house, and having to change yr profile picture to Kurt Cobain because you don’t want to look at yourself anymore.

DUMP HIM’s tape release show will be on Wednesday, May 24 at Zone 3 in Allston, MA with Aye Nako (who are on an album release tour!), Brittle Brian, and Heavy Pockets. Venus In Gemini is out digitally on Disposable America and Anxiety Pop on Friday, May 26.