EP review: Agvirre – _ _ _ _ _ _

On March 1, 2019, black student Zayd Atkinson was confronted by Officer John Smyly while picking up litter outside his residence in Boulder, Colorado. After providing his student ID, Atkinson became increasingly agitated as the officer threatened him with a taser, then his firearm. This incident of blatant racial profiling ended peacefully, but not before escalating into a standoff between the unarmed student and six armed police officers. It is heated excerpts from now ex-Officer Smyly’s chest-cam footage that you hear opening Agvirre​’s second EP, _ _ _ _ _ _ (pronounced ​‘Hidden’). To their credit, the Manchester post-rock collective’s music is no less charged than the Atkinson-Smyly recordings, used here as a thematic touchstone while Agvirre try to make s...

unsplash-logoLilith Redmoon