Seminal grindcore band Napalm Death was formed by a group of British teenagers in an effort to make the fastest songs ever recorded. Influenced by Siege, Crass, and a selection of other hardcore, anarcho-punk, and dbeat bands of the era, they wanted to create heavy leftist music for their friends. 

The song "You Suffer" was written as a joke, asking the question "you suffer, but why?" in a brutal 1.3 second blast that could be repeated multiple times during a live set in bars and basements. It went on Side A of 1986's Scum; none of the original members stuck around long enough to appear on Side B.

That question, jokingly posed by teens with a burgeoning interest in anarchism, is actually pretty difficult if you try to answer it. It's further complicated by the power the song has gained over the years, as Scum became essential listening for the DIY punk set. Taken literally, it's existential, meaningful, a reinforcement of any ideal you can project on it. But more specifically, it implicates the listener in the identification of the inner and outer forces that work against their own interests.

In 2014, a year after Rupert Murdoch invested $70 million in it, Vice Magazine said that due to its "shithole" nature, Philadelphia had the best, and most honest, punk scene in the country. And there is a form of honesty in the opportunities afforded by cheap space: to create, to experiment, to charge sliding-scale at the door, to occupy and to use legally, illegally, and everywhere in between. That creativity, that drive, is attractive to certain outside influences; but the urgency, the need, is not.

I used to have a Napalm Death t-shirt, around that same time, and I wore it to punk shows in basements and art openings in warehouses, behind the counter at coffee shop jobs, and to all the cheap spaces my friends could rent. A lot of those places are gone now, lost to the churn of price increases, police attention, and the slow creep of the condo. There have been big changes in Philadelphia, culturally, economically, physically. The question remains the same: you suffer, but why?

In Mixed Use, “You Suffer” is slowed from 1.3 seconds to twenty four hours, reconstructing the lyrics “you suffer, but why?” into an unidentifiable, uneasy soundscape. The question now occupies time and physical space on a scale at odds with its origin, transforming into the kind of endless industrial tone that sends you searching for its source. 

Sample