New Math Photo credit: Corinne Patrick
Propeller Sound Recordings are proud to unearth Gardens, the mostly unheard Psych-New Wave, Synth-tinged final album by Rochester, NY’s New Math. Now fully remastered and available for the first time ever on CD, and for the first time widely available on vinyl (including a limited edition color vinyl pressing). The Big Takeover is featuring “Love Under Will” off Gardens.
Out September 5, 2025, this expanded reissue restores the band’s moody, genre-defying swan song that never had its proper moment.
Originally planned for release in 1984, Gardens was abandoned before its arrival. The small New York City-based label Brain Eater Records shut down just before the album’s planned release, leaving shrink-wrapped copies stranded in boxes, never shipped to stores. While some copies reached college radio across the U.S., the album was left mostly unheard without wide distribution.
A cinematic, genre-bending farewell recorded during a moment of creative reinvention. After turning down a modest major label offer from Columbia Records in early 1983, the Rochester-based group doubled down on their vision. Trading in the power-pop of early single “Die Trying” and the polished new wave aesthetic of the previous release “They Walk Among You,” the band pursued something more introspective and surreal. Inspired by Kenneth Anger films and American Gothic imagery, Gardens was recorded at PCI Studios in Rochester and captures a haunted, transitional moment as the band unraveled and reshaped itself.
Songs like “Living on Borrowed Time” and “Ominous Presence” pulse with ritualistic energy; dark, strange, and beautifully unhinged psychedelic-new wave. There’s a rawer, more visceral depth here, channeling proto-shoegaze elements from the likes of The Psychedelic Furs, The Gun Club, and Roky Erickson, but on their own terms. New Math’s shifting identity at the time had them experimenting with names like “The Mink Witches” and “Wake the Dead” which reflected their desire to move beyond the power-pop roots of their early years and into darker waters. The release also marks the beginning of the group’s transformation into The Jet Black Berries.
Gardens is more than a forgotten album. It’s the missing link between New Math’s angular beginnings and the darkly cinematic world they created as The Jet Black Berries. We’re thrilled to finally give this album the wide release it always deserved. We hope it helps more people see Rochester, NY as a town having had more great things coming from it than just Kodak, Garbage Plates, and Genny Cream Ale.
With the resurgence of interest in early post-punk, psych-rock and shoegaze, this long-overdue reissue will hopefully be a found buried treasure for old fans and new listeners alike.
New music on the way? Pitch Big Takeover Exclusives.
