In the world of Chicago goth dance trio Pixel Grip, “the arena” is more than a literal venue where spectators gather to delight in competition—it refers to any context our society envisions as a zero-sum game, where no one can win without someone else losing. The band’s sophomore album, Arena, proposes the club as a sanctuary.

  • The “Demon Chaser” video, directed by Todd Diederich

Chasing the forbidden is the premise of “Demon Chaser.” Directed by Todd Diederich and filmed at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport, the video was released two weeks ago as the third single from Arena, which is due May 21 on Chicago indie FeelTrip Records. Freund, 29, and Ommen, 28, create haunting, danceable beats with synths and drum machines; Lukea, 26, delivers authoritative but ethereal vocals about how being seen as a villain makes them feel sexy and cool. (See also: Ursula, Maleficent, Jareth the Goblin King.) Beginning in their early teens, when they began making music, Lukea experienced objectification and sexual violence from older men in the scene, who took advantage of their eagerness to learn and participate. As a result, much of the album focuses on reclaiming power and agency. But “Demon Chaser” places that reclamation in a richer, queerer context.

All in all, “Demon Chaser” seems like an appropriate response to the present moment. We’ve been locked inside for a year, losing jobs, housing, friends, and family to the mismanagement of a pandemic that has disproportionately ravaged people of color and low-wage earners. For all practical purposes, you have to work a full-time job (or marry someone who does) to afford health insurance. Last summer people marched and rioted to protest state violence, especially against Black people, and then our presidential election replaced a wannabe dictator with someone who merely uses better etiquette to defend white supremacy. With so much to be angry about, dancing can be an act of rebellion when it’s in the right space with the right company.

Freund learned the power of dance music around the time he met his future bandmates. “I was 16 and washing dishes at my first job at Panera,” he says. “My friend played me Aphex Twin. I heard a different world that was so beautiful and dreamy and new and refreshing and intriguing. After that, I knew I had to save up all my measly little paychecks from food-service grunt work to buy drum machines and synthesizers. I had to know what was happening in the song to make it so enjoyable and fun to listen to.”

Monāe represents the possibility of resistance to assimilation. Like many queers today, Pixel Grip among them, she insists, “Actually, we are not like you. And further? We do not want to be.”

“The venue or club or disco is the only real respite from the arena,” says Lukea. “And if you have venues that aren’t offering you that feeling of, ‘OK, this is the one place where I’m safe,’ it actually continues to oppress you. That doesn’t work for me. It needs to be a utopia. And it can’t be a fucking boys’ club. A boys’ club is an arena.”