Philadelphia’s BROKE BLDGS is set to release its new album on October 8, 2021. What began as a collaboration between musician Rick Mitchell and visual artist Lauren Medsker, has morphed into a bestial creature of sound. Coming of age in Philadelphia’s punk/screamo/indie/D.I.Y. scene, with Mitchell playing in countless bands, including SPRCSS and The YMD. He also currently plays bass with Amanda Blank and creates instrumental music as 12 Letter Alphabet. As the two have spent countless hours listening to music together, Medsker and Mitchell decided to create their own under the guise of BROKE BLDGS.

The debut album Resurrect Dead — named after Philadelphia’s mysterious Toynbee tiles — pulls various elements from their record collection, drawing from electro, post-punk, and minimalism. The music both honors and reinterprets the couple’s influences over the years – from GSL to ZYX Music, from the circuitry of a Moog to the propulsion of Brazilian hand drums. The vocals are blurry, distorted, fucked-with. The synthesizers are dark, dizzying. The percussion is somewhere between a party and a gut punch. The album embodies the anger of the moment we’re living through and the estrangement that comes when the world shuts down. But it also reflects the hope of rebirth — resurrecting what was once thought dead and building up from what was broken.

The band has shared its single “Crushed Out” which gives listeners a clear example of the band’s barrage of sound.