I can’t tell what’s in your heart tonight
Bathing in the moonlight
I am tethered to this shoreline
It will never be the same
A label compilation, a Discman, and a dwindling supply of batteries could constitute an entire musical education. Metropolis, Wax Trax!, and Cleopatra introduced listeners to songs that made anxiety move with purpose, sending them back to the liner notes for their next discovery. For Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Seances, those compilations were formative listening. A new collaboration brings one of those early connections into the present.
Assemblage 23 has remixed Fade, Seances’ first single, giving its post-punk unease a charge of electronic euphoria. The accompanying video, premiering here, comes from filmmaker Kyle Arpke, who sends the song through a succession of saturated colours and disorienting optical effects.
On Assemblage 23’s remix of Fade, Seances’ Eric Arsnow explains:
“Being able to work with Assemblage 23 on this remix of Fade was a dream come true. I burned through so many batteries on my Discman with their music as a soundtrack to my teenage life.”
Sighing synth pads open the track, giving way to buzzing electronics and Eric Arsnow’s urgent baritone. His delivery carries the cornered intensity of Ian Curtis, each phrase pressing against the steady insistence of the rhythm. Around 45 seconds in, the higher synth figure takes flight, lifting the song into a rush of feeling while the beat maintains its stern course.
Assemblage 23’s Tom Shear leaves room for Jason Kartz’s guitar to cut across the electronics, its clipped offbeats bringing a trace of ska and reggae to the arrangement. Just shy of the two-minute mark, a fluid solo breaks through, its expressive turns setting the surrounding machinery into sharper relief. Think Joy Division’s existential strain meeting DAF’s physical insistence, with a melody capable of changing the temperature of the room.
The words keep returning to a shoreline, a place where time seems to split and familiar feelings become difficult to trust. Arsnow sets private uncertainty against an indifferent world, worn down by recurring drama and the sense of living through the same trouble again. When he sings, “I’m counting on us now,” the line feels like a hand extended through the confusion. The remix catches the existential beauty of that appeal, allowing dread and exhilaration to occupy the same measure.
Arpke translates that unstable perspective into overlapping bands of red, blue, purple, and green. Close-ups of Arsnow in sunglasses stretch and double around the microphone; silhouettes separate into coloured outlines, while an open book of hand-drawn symbols lends the footage an occult charge. Circular distortions make his face seem caught inside a turning lens, repeatedly brought into focus and pulled apart. It suits a song preoccupied with recognition and repetition, with a familiar figure becoming increasingly difficult to pin down.
Watch the video for the Assemblage 23 remix of Fade below:
Seances began taking shape after Arsnow saw The Chameleons in Milwaukee in 2023. Already steeped in The Cure and Joy Division, and encouraged by discoveries made while working in a record shop, the singer and bassist went home and outlined an album’s worth of songs through voice memos recorded on bass. Kartz helped develop Fade from those initial sketches, laying the foundations for the debut album Power Is A Phantom.
For the live incarnation of Seances, Arsnow recruited musicians associated with The Promise Ring, Masked Intruder, Tigernite, Fight Dice, and BvsMV. The band is now working on its second album, Silent Salvation, planned for 2027.
Listen to the Assemblage 23 remix of Fade below and order it here
Seances also recently released Tame, a tribute to Eric Arsnow’s late friend Francisco Ramirez, a musician, printmaker, and father. Written and performed by Arsnow and released on October 23, 2026, the song addresses the difficult business of continuing through life after losing someone, holding affection, anger, and the desire to feel joy again within the same embrace. Its artwork incorporates a photographic abstraction of Ramirez’s Florid Print, giving his own work a place within the tribute.
Available as a name-your-price download, the release also offers a way to support his family: Arsnow encourages listeners to contribute directly to the fundraiser for Ramirez’s daughter, and says any payments received through Bandcamp will be passed along to that fund as well.
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