The Intelligence

Lars Finberg founded The Intelligence, merging jagged new wave and no wave instrumentation with buoyant melodies and a sardonic perspective. Within the group’s established aesthetic, personnel shifts and evolving recording methods produced modest yet distinct sonic adjustments across their catalog. On early releases captured in a bedroom setting, such as the 2004 album Boredom and Terror, Finberg cloaked his material in noise that still supported his deadpan vocals and knack for hooks. Once the band entered professional studios, their scope broadened, yielding the free-ranging Deuteronomy in 2007 and the comparatively balanced Fake Surfers in 2009. Throughout the 2010s, Finberg and his collaborators issued fewer recordings that nonetheless explored wider territory, as heard on the wry Vintage Future of 2015 and the expansive Un-Psychedelic in Peavey City of 2019, both of which reinforced the group’s standing among garage punk’s sharpest acts.

While residing in Seattle, Finberg performed with several of the city’s most abrasive and unconventional outfits, among them the A Frames, Unnatural Helpers, and the Dipers. The Intelligence originated in 1999, soon after Finberg, Min Yee, and Erin Sullivan launched the A Frames, then known as Bend Sinister. Finberg captured the band’s first material at home, using his five-year-old son’s drum kit and coating the tracks in reverb and distortion to achieve a signature lo-fi texture. The Intelligence and the A Frames released singles through Dragnet Records, the imprint Finberg, Yee, and Sullivan established for their own output. Those initial efforts encompassed the 2000 Girlfriends and Boyfriends EP and the 2003 single “Test” on S-S Records.

The Intelligence’s first full-length, Boredom and Terror, surfaced on Omnibus early in 2004 before Narnack reissued it later that year. The band then shifted to In the Red for 2005’s Icky Baby, which brought drummer Matthew Ford, bassist Calvin Lee Reeder, and guitarist Nicholas Brawley into the fold. In 2006 Finberg departed the A Frames to focus solely on the Intelligence. That same year the group opened In the Red’s limited-edition 12" series with the four-track release titled 12 and also put out the Boys Annoy and Let’s Toil EPs along with other short-form material.

For 2007’s Deuteronomy, Finberg worked with Mike McHugh at the Distillery studio, the first occasion the Intelligence recorded beyond Finberg’s bedroom. During the ensuing tour, Country Teasers bassist Kaanan Tupper joined the lineup. The following year the band issued a series of singles and EPs, including a split with Thee Oh Sees on Mt. St. Mtn. Records. The Intelligence extended the slightly refined approach of Deuteronomy on 2009’s Fake Surfers, which reduced some of the earlier noise in favor of ’60s pop references and included contributions from the Lamps’ Monty Buckles, Wounded Lion’s Brad Eberhard, and Christmas Island’s Brian Carver. That year the group also released the louder Crepuscule with Pacman on the French label Born Bad. For 2010’s Males, Finberg enlisted his road band to track the album in the studio, producing one of the Intelligence’s most densely arranged collections.

Following Finberg’s periods with Wounded Lion and Thee Oh Sees and a relocation to Los Angeles in 2011, the Intelligence resurfaced in 2012 with the cleaner yet equally idiosyncratic rock of Everybody’s Got It Easy But Me. Three years later Finberg and his associates delivered Vintage Future, which included appearances by Eberhard, Thee Oh Sees’ Petey Dammit and former member Brigid Dawson, and Sic Alps’ Mike Donovan. Finberg then paused Intelligence activity to issue his 2017 solo album Moonlight Over Bakersfield, an eclectic set recorded with Mikal Cronin, members of La Luz, Big Business, and Melvins, and producer/engineer Ty Segall. The Intelligence returned in 2018 with Live in San Francisco and followed it with the 2019 studio album Un-Psychedelic in Peavey City. Tracked by Tim Green at Louder Studios and featuring bassist Drew Church, guitarist Dave Hernandez, and drummer Kaanan Tupper, the band’s tenth studio release adopted a broader treatment of their caustic style.