“Dissonance is beautiful”: Amiture on ‘Amiture Music’
Amiture. Photo by Kayhl Coope.
“There's something really important about exploring beauty — and for us — this is what that looks like,” says Jack Whitescarver, the man behind New York’s experimental rock group Amiture. What started off as a solo project in 2018 is now a fully fledged quartet and their newest release Amiture Music is a testament to the collaboration between the four.
Built atop their love for live performing, the group has found itself a new definition. “Right now, this ocean that we're swimming in is more about just experiencing collaboration”, says Whitescarver. Rejecting ties to any solid genres, Amiture is constantly growing. Their debut, The Beach (2021), is a triumphant homage to gothic synth-pop driven by Whitescarver’s brilliant vocals. Five years later, Amiture Music is abrasive, melodic and just as croony.
The record itself? Nothing short of exceptional. Tracks like “New Blondie” and “Edging” have an inimitable groove to them that reels you in. “Moutain” and “Memory Sequence” are robust and layered exploration into the post-punk realm, the former having some of my favourite drumming on the record. The crafty nature of the quartet’s collaboration truly shines through this 10-track-souvenir. Amiture Music is a landscape; dim corridors, flickering lights and a sense of wandering as the band explores beauty in the genre. At times, Whitescarver’s vocals feel as if he’s confessing through a cracked mirror and that refraction is where his emotionally detached croon sits.
Amiture, Photo by Kayhl Cooper.
Whitescarver reflected on “Romance” being one of his favourite tracks off the record, to him it’s the “most exciting song on the album”. No doubt, it lives up to the praise. There’s an enriching structural dissonance through the track which builds atop the melancholic instrumental. If I had to pick one track to introduce someone to Amiture, it would be this. “Romance” is a brilliant exhibit of everything that makes Amiture Music. The deconstructed nature of their sound lets each component have a voice of their own until it all comes together in a catharsis at the end. “We jam and work on different grooves and then we will go back, afterwards, and basically collage them together”, says Whitescarver.
The group isn’t just stopping at the new release, Amiture has already finished recording a new EP with producer Dan Howard, where they find themselves in their first experience in the realm of features on their music.
And, as they take their album to the live stage the group has instinctively found themselves rearranging tracks for performance, including a new arrangement to the track “Mountain”. “[It] speaks to this kind of genre promiscuity that we all like”, says Whitescarver. “For us, it's really important to be able to be playful with what our live show is, as much as possible, and not really adhere to a certain, whatever abstract, vague expectation of what it's supposed to be.”
Three albums in, immense change and one through-line, Jack Whitescarver. Amtiure Music is fresh guitar music in 2026 and is the perfect buildup for everything that is about to come. Keep up with Amiture as they keep pushing boundaries on what Amiture Music means.