Behaviorist

Behaviorist is the solo project of Stephen Chen, the baritone saxophonist of Brooklyn’s acclaimed art-rock powerhouse San Fermin. Named after the 60s-era psychological revolution that imagined living beings as manipulable machines, Behaviorist takes an incisively critical look at human behavior and asks a confrontational question - Are we good people? - to which the answer might be a simple "no." Chen's plaintive vocals alternately evoke Benjamin Gibbard and Rivers Cuomo as he self-critically explores explosive topics including pornography addiction ("Dirty Pictures"), toxic relationships ("Long Division"), predatory college bros ("Reptilian"), and most shockingly, America's gun violence epidemic ("Good Guy"). For everything else left unsaid, Chen’s urgent constancy on saxophone gives rise to mesmerizing instrumental passages, while symphonic horns and pianos ebb between icy, electronic stillnesses and flashes of 80’s rock.