Eddie Cooper and Jasmine Golestaneh of Tempers - photo by Zac Stone

NYC-based band Tempers’ latest album New Meaning is a modern nocturne for a broken world, windswept with Jasmine Golestaneh’s plaintive voice and punctuated by Eddie Cooper’s thrumming electronic production.

The album’s tones are reflective in the surreal cover photo, “Lost Hotel” (2016) by Beijing-based photography artist Chen Wei.

New Meaning is also accompanied by a companion book of original artwork and lyrics. Golestaneh created a hand-made collage for each song, translating its sonic landscapes and lyrical themes into concrete images. Old Habits Press publishes the book. For US/Canada orders, click here, UK/EU click here.

Interview by Tyler Nesler

I haven’t yet had the pleasure of checking out the accompanying collage and lyrics art book for New Meaning, but I can’t wait to see it. Jasmine, what was the genesis of the book’s artwork? Was it made concurrently with the creation of the new album, or does any of it precede the new music?

Jasmine: I collect the city’s old book refuse and use it to make collages. It’s something I’ve always done alongside writing songs, and it made sense to integrate the two in an intentional way.

I did a series of artwork to accompany our first album Services and decided to do it again for New Meaning. I was working on the collages at the same time I was writing the album. A couple of the collages that I ended up using I had actually made previously, as they had an undeniable connection. Sometimes a collage comes before a song – it’s an uncanny process.

Dais Records - cover photo “Lost Hotel” (2016) by Chen Wei

The aesthetics of your videos and album art all works well in tandem with the music. When I recently saw you perform at Elsewhere in Brooklyn I was especially intrigued by the lighting setup. These portable strobe-like lights were arranged, along with some projected colors/shapes in the background. Both of you were often very backlit and only briefly fully visible in bright flashes. It all worked to set a particular mood that took the focus off the two of you and put the audience into more of a purely musical/psychological space.

Were these lights and projections specific to the club or are you touring with them? Could you talk a bit about the visual/tonal impression you're going for on stage with this tour, who designed the lighting/look, etc.?

Eddie: We’re touring with that lighting setup, yes, though the projections were specific to the performance at Elsewhere. We wanted to create a tangible representation of that pulsing thrum that drives many of our songs, to amplify the almost architectural structure we build into our music. I designed the lighting to evolve with the rise and fall of every moment, and besides just hopefully being visually arresting, also gives us as performers an added level of connection to the arc of our set.

Tempers at Elsewhere, Brooklyn, March 31, 2022 - photo by Luis Nieto Dickens

You also just played at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, which seems like a perfect fit. For a band where visual art and sound are so intertwined, what was it like for you to play at this museum dedicated to such a modern art icon?

Jasmine: It was a very special experience. I took a long walk around the museum before the show, absorbing this tremendous energy from his work, and then brought that feeling with me on stage. Also, I was thinking a lot about the legacy of Nico and The Velvet Underground, and the impact that Andy Warhol continues to have not just on art, but also on music.

In 2018 you released a concept album, Junkspace, which was built around the designer Rem Koolhaas’s essay about “arbitrary space” and his concepts about the “unnatural arrangements” of shopping malls and business centers. This fits well with the emphasis on psychological space (sonically and visually) in your music. Do you think you may attempt something this conceptually bold again? What might be another possible dream project for you that combines theory/criticism with your music?

Jasmine: I’m open to more conceptual projects. I’m really interested in our private / public relationship to institutional spaces, and it would be exciting to continue in that field of exploration.

I did a collage art show a few years ago of a hotel that I fabricated. Each collage was part of a hotel brochure and accompanied by poetry describing the various amenities. The hotel is a fantasy space, much like a mall, that exists outside of the boundaries of conventional reality. It would be interesting to turn the hotel space into an album.

Looking back now over your last three albums Services, Junkspace, and Private Life, how do you think New Meaning works in conversation with these previous releases? What elements to it are different or express something new that has evolved in your music up to this point?

Eddie: A new album always feels to some extent like the culmination of our previous work, and it can take some time and distance to understand how new work fits within the whole. I think that process is still happening for me with New Meaning, but I will say there’s a conscious refinement of the musical themes and tones we’ve engaged in the past. For me New Meaning has a very focused tonal center, and the genre exploration, whether techno, post-punk, etc., radiates from that core.

New Meaning is available now. Click here for Tempers current tour dates.

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Tyler Nesler is a New York City-based freelance writer and the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of INTERLOCUTOR Magazine.