Sexual and gender fluidity permeated art long before men dressed up to play female roles onstage (while actual women weren’t allowed to do so). In the context of the 21st century and the music of Voyage Out, Floatie lead singer and guitarist Sam Bern’s non-binary identity is simply a more defined step in that fluidity.
The debut album itself is often just as fluid, and not only or mainly because Bern’s voice has a lilting neutrality (which is not the same thing as androgyny). It’s also because Floatie utilizes the instrumentation of rock without relying on rock aggression, delves into post-, prog- and math-rock calculations without neatly solving the equations, and suggests moods without stating them.
Floatie’s pivot point is less Bern than it is Luc Schutz, who co-founded the band and whose drumming has to alternate between keeping a steady pace amid the potential for overthought frenzy on tracks like “Water Recipe” and shifting through all the tempo and mood changes the band demands of itself despite the disc’s 28-minute running time. The brevity doesn’t prevent Floatie from being reflective or thoughtful, but it does prevent the band from resembling a King Crimson impersonator, although there are similarities between Floatie and other intelligent Chicago bands.
Certainly, the hypnotic circularity of tracks like “In the Night”—in which Joe Olson’s bass lopes alongside Schutz’s drums and Bern and Will Wisniewski’s guitars approach and retreat, approach and retreat—recalls the Sea and Cake, and “Castleman” carries a faint prairie echo of Americana with the artiness of Wilco.
Floatie stays distinct from those other bands with its concision and its comparatively new energy. The title and amplified intensity of “Lookfar” [sic], the finale of Voyage Out, indicate that Bern and the band are non-binary in more ways than two.
