We speak of falling in love as though gravity should handle the labor. The harder truth is that affection asks for practice: the slow unlearning of fear, vanity, possession, and the reflex to flee when another person reaches the unguarded parts of us. To say “I learn to love” is to leave the verb unfinished. It admits that tenderness is no permanent achievement, but an education measured in repetition, failure, and the willingness to try again.
Austin psych-goth trio The Schisms make that unfinished education move on “I Learn To Love,” the first single from their forthcoming four-track EP, Tejas, due October 2. The song’s unruly new video was created with Austin film crew Three-Eyed Cat Collective. Led by singer, songwriter, and guitarist Carson Barker, The Schisms also feature Goose McCollum on bass, keys, and vocals and Michael Stockton on drums and vocals.
The track enters on a sustained guitar figure and a firm, forward-driving beat, while Barker’s voice glides over the groove with studied ease. A blues-bitten guitar answers him in metallic clanks; the cymbals then open the ceiling as his delivery rises from a low croon into a full-throated command. Thick proto-metal chords eventually press against the rhythm section, giving the song the physical force of a taproom floor under too many boots.
Much of its frame belongs to late-’60s and early-’70s rock, but an ominous synth bed disrupts the period logic midway through. A buzzing keyboard figure leans toward prog, and Barker’s voice multiplies into an eerie, reverb-drenched cascade. The old forms are dragged into an unstable present. The riff walks into the room with its collar open, while the electronics quietly change the locks.
Barker wrote “I Learn To Love” as a reach toward a higher state of mind, with much of the lyric arriving spontaneously the night before the recording session. The song continued to take shape on the fly with Grammy-winning producer and engineer Stuart Sikes, known for his work with The White Stripes, Cat Power, and Loretta Lynn. Early James Brown and Bo Diddley can be heard in its insistence on rhythm, although The Schisms route that bodily drive through punk abrasion, psychedelic color, and goth unease. A mantra found a backbeat and acquired teeth; The Schisms make self-improvement sound gloriously disreputable.
That productive disorder carries into the video. The clip opens on the exposed conditions of the shoot, with Stockton playing against a bare green screen as studio lights and equipment remain plainly visible. Soon the band are swallowed by liquid blue forms, clipped into circular windows, outlined like cheap television ghosts, and deposited among Texas flags, cattle, cactus country, cowboy hats, fire, leather, and collapsing VHS interference. At points, the trio look as though they were keyed into a public-access broadcast seconds before the tape began to warp.
By returning to the uncovered green screen at the end, the clip makes its fakery part of its regional portrait. Texas becomes birthright and prop, affectionate cliché and private joke. Austin appears less as a civic postcard than as a fever dream assembled after last call.
“For the video, we wanted to do something really trashy, like an old Captain Beafheart vid mixed with VHS-style visual effects. We also wanted something that represents Austin from a born-and-raised Texan’s point of view. There is definitely a grittier, maniacal side of Austin subcultures that often gets overlooked in the media. We wanted to pair that with cliché Texas themes. There are some throwbacks to Nathan and I’s favorite filmmakers, like Jodorowsky. The song was half-written in the studio on the fly with Stuart Sikes. It just felt like a chaotic Bo Diddley song with a dash of punk and psych, so we went with it.”
Watch the video for “I Learn To Love” below:
Listen to The Schisms’ “I Learn To Love” via Spotify or Apple Music, and order the single through Bandcamp.
Tejas extends the single’s upward turn. Barker wrote half of the EP during a winter spent alone in a one-bedroom log cabin in the Colorado mountains and completed the remaining material in the studio with Sikes. Isolation gave him a practical brief: write the music capable of lifting his own spirits. The result steps away from some of the darker concerns of The Schisms’ previous album, Moon, in favor of something brighter, punchier, and more open to instinct. Barker initially wrote and recorded each instrumental part before bringing the songs to McCollum and Stockton for their input.
The name Tejas draws on the word’s association with friendship, while the record itself is Texas-made from end to end. Barker, McCollum, Stockton, Sikes, and Barker’s brother, who created the artwork, are all native Texans. The three musicians grew up in the same town and knew one another for years, although differences in age and timing kept them from sharing a band until the current lineup came together.
“The universe just threw us together, and it’s been amazingly positive,” Barker says. His search for McCollum began with an unusually exact request: “I’m looking for a leather daddy who plays a vintage Rickenbacker bass left-handed. Know anyone?” Stockton joined after letting Barker stay at his house for a month while Barker was between homes. “The chemistry is so positive,” Barker adds, “I feel like we’re the fucking Teletubbies.”
Partially funded by the City of Austin Live Music Fund, Tejas arrives October 2, 2026.
Tejas tracklist:
The Schisms begin a 15-date fall tour on September 11 at Houston’s Black Magic Social Club. From there, the band follows the Gulf Coast to New Orleans and Jackson before moving through Birmingham, Athens, and three North Carolina stops. Nashville and Memphis carry the run into its western return through Little Rock, Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Denton. The final date brings the band home to Austin on the day Tejas is released, turning The Far Out Lounge into the record’s natural point of arrival.
Tour dates:
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