CHICAGO — Exasperated cardiologist Dr. Everett Johnston is struggling to explain to his math rock guitarist patient that an arrhythmia, the irregular beating of the heart, is very much not a good thing, concerned sources reported.
“I’m at my wit’s end here. I keep telling this young man that this is a very serious medical condition and could potentially lead to heart failure, stroke, or shortness of breath after walking up a single flight of stairs. But instead of being worried, he’s very happy to hear about his newfound ailment,” said Dr. Johnston. “I even tried explaining it to him in a language he might understand, what with music and what not. His heart is beating like it’s constantly shuffling between the catalogs of American Football, Rush, and Slint. Honestly, he didn’t even seem fazed when I started humming Tool’s ‘Lateralus’ while using my stethoscope to listen to his heart.”
Patient and math rock guitarist Adrian Reyes, who has reported severe bouts of dizziness, chest pain, and sweating, was relieved to find out his diagnosis.
“Man, I was really worried for a second there. I thought the doctor would come out and tell me I have COVID or the cooties or something. Luckily, I just have arrhythmia, which number one, sounds like an extremely sick band name, and number two, means I was born to play math rock. It’s kinda like I’m that rain man guy from that movie ‘Rain Man,’” said an extremely detached Reyes. “But then the doctor started talking about some pacemaker bullshit and I’m like fuck that. They want me to ignore my unique and potentially fatal nature and replace my heart with some 4/4 radio-friendly pop country trash! No way man, I’d rather die than become a sell out.”
Researchers from Northwestern University have seen many cases similar to Reyes’ and have charted the trend across all musical genres.
“It’s a relatively new research area, but it’s one that’s unfortunately becoming more and more necessary. We’ve got teens who’ve showcased stable mental health patterns for years and all of a sudden, they start asking for Adderall and Vyvanse because they listened to the latest hyperpop record from Charli XCX,” said post-doctoral researcher Belinda Salz, rubbing her temples. “At this rate, I think we can call this an epidemic. Surprisingly, we’ve not heard any concerning reports coming from psych rock fans, but we feel this can be explained because they’re all probably already high as fuck on whatever mushrooms they grew in their sheds.”
At press time, Reyes was found sneaking into hospitals to hook himself up to an EKG machine to discover new tempos and time signatures for his band’s upcoming EP.