Writing and Photos by Dylan Cooper 

The birth of come back down was shaped by constraints, collaboration, and contradictions. In order to make rent, composer Luna Kupper molted all of her synths– leaving only a guitar, co-composer Ash Richter’s words, and a band of fellow Nashville-based musicians to improvise with outside of the studio setting– where most of Total Wife’s sample-driven output begins. 

Limitations often result in innovation, and the collectively robust sonic imagination fermenting in Nashville’s DIY scene was essential for the duo. The inclusion of a live band made up of Ryan Bigelow (Rig B), Sean Booz (Celltower), and Billy Campbell (Make Yourself at Home) helped ground the infinite possibilities studio software provides– making the production-heavy sounds on the album feel real in a live setting. 

Working with the contradiction of bringing digital production to life, Total Wife resorts to auditory-cannibalism. Audio files from old recording sessions are used as samples. Layers upon layers of guitar and vocal takes are turned into a collection of sound collages sourced from their own work. The resulting re-animation of Luna’s lost synths become flourishing bursts of noise.

From within the Nashville scene, they would go on to produce a passionate and real cohesion of creative processes– resulting in a vibrational entity that exceeds the shoegaze genre through the use of fractals. The duo was inspired by the Julia Set, a complex numerical equation that creates mesmerizing fractals that collapse toward infinity.  

The opening track “in my head” is built around whispered childhood scenes of a heavenly maple tree. Ash’s vocals are stretched and chopped into static, from which she emerges to remind the listener that they are inside of a memory: “I’m on the outside looking in.” The sensory-bending walls of sound throughout come back down coagulate on the album’s final track “make it last”.

When heard live, the droning pulse giving life to  “make it last”  mutates into something beyond what the album offers. During their set at the Government Center in Pittsburgh, PA Total Wife concluded with an 18-minute extension of the song: 

(September 24th) 

The last crescendo remains locked in place, piercing beyond hearing protection and making contact with a vibrational force that people found either meditative or nauseating. The band refuses to let go of their set’s final pulse– rereleasing it over and over. Sound begins to merge with vision into a physical sonic-form.  

In an interview with Eli Enis, Luna recalls a blue tunnel with someone inside it forming in the room with her if she mixed while sleepy– an “accidental and unavoidable technique” that has defined Total Wife’s dream-state sound.

The voice coils within the speakers begin to overheat, Ash moans and writhes on the floor like an insect in agony as the air burns with the energy of electricity. The agonizing is triumphant, her contorted words reach out with the intent to connect the audience with obsessive and detailed noise. Ash becomes a humming embodiment of Luna’s sonic-form from within the blue tunnel, emerging slowly. A scream of ecstasy from someone in the audience nearly merges with the band, but is eaten up by the spiraling 110 decibel drone. 

The band introduces another layer of noise that comes on like an endless breath that Ash is continuously exhaling. Is this the raw source material for the album, collapsing back into itself? Everything is vibrating, the sound is exceeding the instruments themselves– an audience member opens the door to vent the venue and Pittsburgh’s 152 year old C# hum enters the room to partake in the construction of the sonic mega-structure. Luna is monk-like stoic throughout the entire 18 minute outro. For a moment, the mute soul of the past is given an audible form to attach to, and the band makes a final attempt to ritualistically solidify a memory out of the air.

The crescendo fades out and the night’s ambiance is slowly returned. Fractals had been made audible, and the sonic-form that Luna and Ash have been shaping since 2018 continued to ring in the ear. The lingering effect of Total Wife’s set was a reminder that the ritual of  live music helps us navigate the world by rendering it audible. By making the incessant noise of the present into a dynamic and living one– connecting our lives into an endlessly shared spiral to dream within.