WZRD is NEIU’s student-run freeform radio station. This past year, it celebrated its 50th anniversary of curating and broadcasting music, voices and ideas that challenge the status quo and engage all who tune in! To increase collaboration within our Student Media Board and to foster heightened interaction with all of our productions and publications, we are beginning some joint endeavors, this segment being one of them. Over time, WZRD has picked up more than 50,000+ pieces of physical media (CDs, vinyl, tapes), and now we share them with you. Tune in here every issue for a Review from the WZRD Vaults.

As a kid, in the old family vehicle, my parents kept an eclectic set of CDs that informed my musical upbringing. Among them were bands and albums like They Might Be Giants, The Police’s “Greatest Hits,” Ozomatli and, most importantly, Bettie Serveert’s brooding and boisterous 1995 masterwork, “Lamprey.” A starkly pink and yellow finish surrounding a severed arm reaching into the abyss adorns the Danish indie-rock outfit’s sophomore album cover. This aesthetic juxtaposition can be felt in the record’s spirit. 

Smashing percussion and grinding guitar riffs battling powerfully melodic lyricism from track to track manifests a sonic representation of the internal contradictions of our humanity. The pain is just as readily available as the beauty in this record, the slow just as prevalent as the fast, and maybe this is what has drawn me back to it time and again. Maybe it is this cosmic interconnectedness that allowed me to stumble upon it in the catacombs of WZRD.

As the seasons change, as the turmoil in our city and country grows, it is nice to feel these conflicts reflected in the art and culture around us. Not as a reminder of the negativity, fear or division we feel, but as a reminder that people have always battled the conflicting conditions of existence, worked through them and, on rare and beautiful occasions, changed them. 

Track 6, “Cybor*d,” begins with the refrain, “Isn’t it time, to open your mind/It’s just me and you, cutting the truth/Then leave the rest behind.” Admittedly, this song is about coming to terms with a romantic love you feel for someone but haven’t been able to act upon. But why can’t we stretch that meaning to the abstract love we feel in a world desperate for connection? 

In an article, Alex Dolgin writes about the struggle to find a way to connect across political lines as information echo chambers and commercially constructed divisions plague our ability to unite. Hearing a Danish band languishing the complexities of life and the desire for rectification and connection speaks to the universal need for togetherness.

Do I think an indie-rock album from the year I was born is speaking to the present issues of American fascism? Maybe. If you listen closely. If you’re open to it, connections (speaking of) are everywhere. We are all reaching into our spiritual well to retrieve the deepest, most preoccupying sensations so we may relate them to one another and build a collective recognition that says, yeah shit sucks sometimes, but hopefully with all our heads together, it gets better. 

Ultimately, that is what this record feels like. Bettie Serveert struggled to get their start after forming in 1986 only to break up following their very first gig and reforming four years later. Since  then, they’ve released a catalog of solid records, but it is this strife that imbues “Lamprey” with its contradictory beauty. Maybe they’re not speaking to us or our times, but the spirit feels the same every time I listen. I can’t be the only person transplanting affective significance onto their favorite art. 

Record #3491 in the WZRD vaults is one that is best listened to in the backseat of your parent’s car, staring out the window, dreaming of a future where you’ll have the emotional context to fully understand what singer Carol van Dijk means when she says: “I can’t trust the things I see/For I can only trust in me/And if the whole world should drop dead/I’ll build my own inside my head.” 

But for those of us who have outgrown our parent’s taxi services (and the youthful draw towards cynicism), “Lamprey”’s majesty will hit just as hard in any setting, especially with friends, and especially when played on air at WZRD. 

If you’re reading this and hearing that NEIU has a sick, student-run radio station for the first time, come down to the basement of the E Building (Student Union) and say what’s up. If you’re not ready for that just yet, no worries. Tune in at 88.3 FM or at wzrdchicago.org.