Art Institute "people like it when you fail" Art Institute/Knifight split

(Artificial Head) There was a time in New York when the early punk scene had a bunch of weird, smart, disparate elements making up the strange scene before any rules were written down. There is also that quirky cassette/ultra-indie 45 British pre/post-punk thing that Messthetics documents. While it's hard to credit a contemporary band with almost 40 years of prior punk/new wave/art rock oddness to draw upon for being iconoclastic, it sure is nice to hear an act that could pass for 1976 visionaries. Weird, political, well-enunciated, sparely disarming, angular declarations of obtuse revolution make this a confusingly timeless strangebomb. I would like it if they succeeded. Or, like so many of my favorite bands, kept failing but never gave up. Their split with Knifight has Art Institute getting a little groovy, and Knifight delivering one of the most organic songs about robotics I've ever heard.