Humans Etcetera is an experimental rock outfit founded by Christopher Henry, a musician who you might know from the band Fuck Your Birthday. With the Humans Etcetera material, Henry dives into his love for '90s alt.rock and post-hardcore, and incorporates elements of ambient music and other sonic textures.
The outfit’s output unifies ‘90s alternative rock and post-hardcore and modern experimental rock elements into a mellow but engaging mix of styles and influences within the album’s forty-minute lifespan. Now signed to the experiemental label Nefarious Industries, Henry will be unleashing a new Humans Etcetera album entitled Intelligent Skeleton later this month.
Nefarious Industries hooked No Echo up with the video premiere for "Bedsores," a song from the new album. "The track is about finding the will to get out of bed everyday when you've become obsessed about death," Henry tells No Echo. "I think death will be very similar to sleep; just like blackness with no concept of time. So then waking up after a dreamless night must be quite similar to rebirth. Every day is another chance to try living again, try achieving your goals, and try breaking bad habits (like sleeping into the PMs). But every day is also another fraction of my world and existence that's haunted by death."
Henry, who is now based in China, says the following about Intelligent Skeleton: "Life and death always seem to surprise people, but actually it's the one thing we all have in common. We are all born to do it, and yet we fear it. I propose with Intelligent Skeleton that we really just fear the end of things. We fear the end of a relationship, the end of university, and maybe even the end of two-years spent teaching English abroad in Wenzhou, China. But maybe we shouldn't be afraid of these future-ends, but rather be thankful for our living-breathing-nows (even if they include the knowledge of inevitable death)
Intelligent Skeleton was written, produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered in Wenzhou, China by Henry, who performs all vocals, drums, guitars, bass, synth, sampling, and sequencing. The album also features tambourine by Cai Qing 蔡清 on “Vice” as well as piano by Huang Yalun 黄亚伦and guzheng from Zhang Guogao 章国杲 on the song “Gravebody,” and is completed with an original cover drawing by Zhu Weikai 朱为凯.
Nefarious Industries will digitally issue Intelligent Skeleton on October 13, along with a special limited run of 25 preorder bundles containing printed materials—10 stickers in 5 unique designs, a digital download card, an 8x8 poster with cover art backed with lyrics/notes, and handwritten letter of thanks. Pre-orders are now live at this link.
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