Written by Joy Freeman | Photo Courtesy of palefire
In true DIY fashion, my interview with palefire hits a connection snag on Zoom five minutes in. From a bedroom in Denton, Texas, Jacqui Torres re-materializes on my screen. “The best part of DIY is that it comes from real people,” she enthuses. There is an art to the imperfection here.
Torres’ debut LP as palefire, full heart, big empty eyes, is entirely self-made, apart from a mix /master and drums from her partner, Echo Goza. I shouldn’t be surprised when she tells me the stunning strings are played in-house too. She’s a classically trained cellist.
After twelve years of playing and time spent in Boston studying the instrument professionally, she shares, “When I write a song, I hear it before I even start playing anything. So I definitely just heard the strings.” Elliott Smith’s XO is cited as a primary influence.
The intimacy in palefire shines through from the intro track, the lo-fi “hello world!!!!” It sounds like a phone call with a friend, an invitation into the whimsical vulnerability of the record. This recording is a departure from her previous two singles, a lean into a slightly poppier sound and a splicing down of 7-8 minute demos into digestible snippets.
When I tell her that the scope of the album leans from Clairo-reminiscent to Kimya Dawson, she laughs. Elliott Smith stands out as a focal inspiration yet again. “Within the last two weeks of writing the album, I was listening to a lot of more twee indie pop people. Touch Girl Apple Blossom, Brittle Stars, The Sundays.” Torres leans into this aesthetic, designing her own album cover with pastel color palettes and light-leaked photos.
Songs like “Sweet as a yankee” play into Torres’ home state. Her response to my mention of Texas is initially a hesitant, “bleh.” Then, she pivots. “I feel like being in Texas motivates me musically. As I’m writing and as I’m recording or playing shows, I’m just like, ‘Okay, I just need to finish this, and then maybe I’ll get booked on a tour, and I can get out of here’…but I’ll probably stay here forever. I love my friends.”
“My Peace” is another favorite of hers, and her most vulnerable on the album. “I definitely just wanted to paint a certain scene or ambiance of cuteness, but also, kinda sad and sweet. Bittersweet.”
I ask how she honed her production skills independently after leaving school as a classical musician.
“I dropped out, and I was like, ‘Okay, let’s rebuild this foundation. Why do I do music in the first place?’ And I got to talk to a lot of my friends, and a lot of them were producers. I got into Logic, and I made my first song. It’s still on SoundCloud. I don’t know how to freaking get into that account and take it down,” she jokes. After she met Echo playing lead guitar for his band, she learned how to mix. “You can make something catchy. You can make something heartfelt. You can make something simple. You could use a four-track. I feel like depending on the atmosphere I wanna create, I can just do it now. It is so nice to have that artistic liberation, you know, not just with the songwriting, but with the production.”
Initially, palefire was a shoegaze project, but after a few months Torres decided to pivot.
“Everything will always be changing, but everything will always be me, because I am the person who writes and produces it.”
Full heart, big empty eyes is available now on bandcamp. The album will be available on all streaming on July 13th.
Written by Joy Freeman | Photo Courtesy of Crazier
This Dog Spits is everything that the title suggest: bold, fearsome, and unflinching. The four-track EP sees Athens-based group Crazier in a new light, one led by the defiance of lead singer Eli Raps in the face of her assault by someone in the local scene. What rises is less elegy to what came before, and more reclamation, a medley of truth brought to life by band mates Winston Barbe (guitar), Alex Dillon (drums), and Kevin Cregge (bass).
On the introductory track “Dissolving,” Raps asks, “Why would I hold it in?/ Who would that benefit?/ I’ve got this song to sing, my love,/ and you’re not gonna like it.”
I caught up with Crazier to discuss the composition of the tracks, the intentionality of their production, and what it means for them to be sharing these songs with the world.
TW: sexual assault, harassment, intimidation, and stalking.
There is an uneasiness in “Dissolving” sonically, a perfect reflection of the lyrical content (“this world will be over for you and for me if you get any closer”). Do you usually compose your melodies before or after you’ve written your songs narratively?
Eli: Melodies and lyrics usually unfold hand in hand for me. I think of or overhear narrative lines and phrases that I like all the time, and I try to document them as quickly as possible. Though I think good lines or phrases are inherently musical, when I collect an idea for what could turn into lyrics, those ideas rarely have melodies attached in my brain realtime.
I like to compile my recent ideas or line snippets when I’m working on a song. This helps me get going. I’ll find something I like while playing guitar or another instrument and just scan the line ideas until one grabs me. Once one of the lines gets kidnapped by the melodically-oriented part of my brain and the rest tumbles into place – by the time I consider a song complete, the bulk of the lyrics were written separately from the initial lines that inspired the song.
I’m hesitant to express the following sentiment, because lyrics are so important to me, but when I’m first writing a song, words are just there for me to find melodies – the second the two meet is when I consider the songwriting process to have begun. Because the lines/phrases I collect are from a bunch of different contexts, I almost never know what a song is going to be about until it’s started, and even then I don’t know what the full narrative will look like until the song is finished. There are songs of mine that I’ve listened to five years later only to discover a hidden meaning/narrative tucked into it that I wasn’t aware of before, which is a really cool experience.
Kevin: This is Eli’s question to answer but I do find there is an innate affinity between the lyrical narrative and the melody – they play off each other symbiotically to strengthen the overall effect on the listener. Eli is a natural at uniting discord and harmony to curate a wholly idiosyncratic sound that defies convention.
“I’ve got this song to sing, my love, and you’re gonna hate it. I’ll sing it anyway.” There is something so poignant in that – defiant, a reclamation. How have live audiences reacted to this track so far?
Kevin: Funnily enough, we’ve played a few shows recently where folks were locked in on the performance, so we’ve seen the audience dancing to a track that is perhaps not the most danceable, but that juxtaposition of joy and movement against sonically complex & lyrically sobering material is surprising and encouraging.
Alex: Hypnotized for sure. I’ve seen the crowd get quiet, lock in, focus on what we’re able to conjure up on stage. It’s magical.
You have a very clear lo-fi sound. It is both engaging and stripped-back enough to feel particularly intimate for the listener. How did you develop it as a group?
Eli: By hypnotizing ourselves accidentally (and then on purpose) with the songs. I think all four of us really resonate with the lyrics and emotional contexts of each song, probably in a bunch of different ways, and definitely in the main way – my 3 Crazier bandmates have all witnessed and experienced the distressing antics of the bullies who inspired these songs firsthand. It’s hard not to create something intimate when I know that the people I’m playing with know exactly who I’m talking to or about in any given line across the EP.
Going into the world of This Dog Spits together over and over proved to be pretty healing in the end, at least for me. I remember working on the songs to prepare for the studio, and it got to a point where every time we played through any of the songs in full as a group that by the time the song was over I felt like I’d just woken up from a really perfect nap, ready to get back to my Real Life again.
Winston: The first tenet of Crazier is to make decisions that serve the song. Bunkered down in our practice space, we spent hours repeatedly playing the songs to find The Feel. This allowed us to make quick decisions in the studio which is especially important with the natural limitation of tape recording.
I don’t want it to sound like I am against DAW, I think DAW is great in its own processes and especially in its accessibility, but working with tape, not to mention a wizard of a tape engineer, really helped us avoid the impulse towards perfectionism. Who wants that? What you hear on this EP is people playing music.
Kevin: Crazier initially began as a three-piece which naturally limited the scope of what we could pull off in a live setting, so there was a measured approach to developing our sound. When I joined, I filled in the low end and offered some counterpoint to the songs that fleshed out the sonic landscape. Eli normally presents her songs fully formed, with clear ideas on each part that fit together like puzzle pieces to create a larger work. We all have backgrounds in music and have played in other bands, but Crazier has the most restraint in my experience, allowing the music to exist independently without flashiness so as to draw attention to the material itself.
Alex: As a group I think specifically with Dissolving we took an atypical approach to how we would usually do things. Switching around duties (Alex on piano, Winston on drums) helped us come up with some fresh ideas. David Barbe’s production is also top-notch.
How has working in the Athens music scene shaped your work? What is the community like?
Eli: I mostly adore the Athens music scene. I think it’s full of so many authentic and talented and hardworking people. Prior to being assaulted and subsequently harassed, I had nothing but positive things to say about the scene here.
With that said, I’ve been so hurt by and disappointed in each person who massively failed (and continues to fail) handling what happened to me appropriately. Still today there are places within the scene that feel entirely unsafe for me to operate in – in many ways, I feel I have been effectively removed from the scene here. Someone who repeatedly stalked and berated me simply for being a sexual assault victim is involved in so many projects and holds many influential seats in the scene, and he is enabled by the people who know it for reasons that are not clear to me. I have been directly punished and threatened each and every time I or anyone else has tried to share specifics… that’s been a vicious cycle. Even answering basic questions like this is anxiety-inducing for me – I so badly want people to know the truth of what happened so I can feel safe again, but at the same time, it’s like… will these people find me in the street again and scream at me for this? Call me repeatedly in the middle of the night? Show up unannounced at my friend’s house? Storm into my place of work? All of these things are examples of what’s already happened. Seeing so many people record with, or book shows with, or play in bands with these people who have enabled or perpetuated my abuse has been really sad and scary and isolating, and has changed the way I view this or any other music scene.
In terms of how this shaped my work… It gave me a lot to write about, but I already had a lot to write about, so I’m not really sure. I think I used to have a lot less confidence in myself and in my abilities; I now view it as a privilege to know and work with me, the same way I consider it a privilege to know and work with Winston and Alex and Kevin. I’m no longer interested in working with just anybody, you know – you have to be kind and you have to be brave if you want to stand anywhere near me or my songs.
Winston: As a band, it’s been difficult. I’ve been a part of this music scene since I was a teenager, and it has always generated great music. But since Eli came forward about being ****d by a musician in the scene, it’s shown a different light on the scene altogether. It has shown me the weaknesses in the scene when it comes to holding people accountable. I’ve seen so many people choose the littlest amount of clout over ensuring safe spaces for people more vulnerable than themselves, and honestly it’s been really disappointing. It’s led me to become far more reserved when interacting with the scene and it feels like a lot of opportunities have been closed to us.
Having said that, all of my closest relationships have been made through the scene in Athens and I think that there are a lot of great people and a lot of great music still coming out of Athens. For instance the two songwriters who are supporting us at our Athens EP release show, Mckendrick Bearden and Malie Kato (Valley of Giants), are both people who have shown high character and write amazing songs.
I’ve had to mourn a lot of relationships since Eli’s disclosure, but it’s also really clarified what I value in people around me.
Kevin: While we are all musicians in the scene, Crazier is also composed of four members who actually work in the Athens music scene as well. So in addition to our involvement in music, we have a vested interest in supporting the scene that goes beyond just playing.
“Start over whenever you can/start over whenever you feel like it,” is a moment of hope at the end of the EP in “That’s a Start.” It isn’t a sense of mindless optimism, but an exploration of the oscillation of emotions that come with true healing. What do you hope the listener takes away from the journey of this project, front to back?
Eli: Generally speaking, I hope the listener takes whatever they need to from the journey of the project. I think one of the coolest aspects of songs and music is how personally adaptive they are – 100 different people can assign meaning to a song in 100 different ways, and I find each way so valid and so interesting. I fucking love when someone shares what one of my songs reminds them of, or how they interpreted it. Ideally, whatever the listener wants to think about – for better or for worse – they’ll find in these songs.
In a different way… it’s interesting, because these are the first songs I’ve written wherein I anticipate a few people really will not like the songs. And they should not like the songs, because they’re in them, and they’re in them honestly. Oh well.
For everybody else: If I *have* to pick a specific takeaway: Permission to feel, and permission to take a break from feeling if/as needed
Dissolving → What they did is real, and it was bad. Your world feels like it’s ending because it is.
Bye Bye → They were cowards. Don’t take them with you.
She Needs Me → Grieve all you’ve lost. Let yourself feel now what you couldn’t feel then.
That’s Start → Rest. You have a lifetime (at least) to unpack all that’s happened to you. You don’t have to solve it now, which is good, because you can’t, so rest.
Kevin: Listening to Crazier should engage and affirm, allowing you to face adversity with confidence. We cover some harder topics on this EP and while this collection does not offer a saccharine moment of digestible platitudes, it does cover a swath of emotions that sync with our lived experiences, because it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the power to be a light to ourselves and others.
Alex: I hope the listener feels like they are being seen. Like the subject matter, framing, vibe is something that they can feel deep down and maybe they didn’t even know it was there.
You’re playing a set of live shows this spring. Any cities you’re particularly excited to hit?
Eli: This is the first tour I’ve ever gone on, so I’m equal parts nervous and excited for all the cities we’ll hit! I’m looking forward to Nashville – the last time I was in Nashville I got pretty sick and had to leave so I’m hoping this time is more fun. I’d like to find some cowboy boots on the cheap.
Winston: We are fortunate to play with some really good acts on this run. I’m excited to bring the songs to people who haven’t heard them before. I’m not sure which city I’m particularly excited about, I’m just stoked to hit the road with the band and to see what comes next.
Kevin: This will be our first real tour as a four-piece and I cannot wait to get close and personal with the others in Crazier. Honestly I’m excited for every city we’re playing: Birmingham is a personal favorite place to visit with one of the best record stores in the game, Seasick Records. I have several friends in Nashville and expect that will be a great turnout and fun play. Then Chattanooga has long been a preferred destination, just a lovely place I have many memories of as a kid. And very excited to get to play with our friends at Yellow Racket Records!
Alex: Stoked to hit Nashville! Maybe I’ll find a cowboy hat this time. This Dog Spits is out across streaming platforms on April 10th.
You can listen to This Dog Spits out everywhere now. You can also snag a copy of the EP on 7” vinyl.
Prewn’s newest project, System, sees Izzy Hagerup pull back the curtain on her starkly vulnerable journey with depression. Unflinchingly she invites us to peek into her world, allow the cello-laden tracks to seep in, and to immerse ourselves in the sound of her chant-worthy refrains (my personal favorite is, “I wanna feel it all/ I wanna/ I wanna/I wanna” on “Cavity,” where she almost pleads with the listener to let her break free of the confines of her mind.)
Previous single releases accumulated in the 2023 album Through the Window, which received praise from the likes of Pitchfork and forged her a community of support. Hagerup’s roots in Western, MA undoubtedly laid the groundwork for her raw sound, a landscape of omnipresent hills that can sometimes feel like a threat, and weather with a penchant for the bleak. It is unsurprising that she recorded System on her own amidst the valleys, a space that begs to be infused with light. “I took my medicine but now I’m drinking just because I’m bored,” she quips on “My Side,” perhaps a nod to the monotony of rural life and the way that it begs to be sliced through.
What is the most striking on System is an unexpected sense of hope woven through the melancholy. “Don’t Be Scared” serves as a battle cry for the downtrodden, with the line, “Don’t be scared of the sound/Of your broken, beating, dripping heart,” serving as a thesis for the album. There is a sense of resiliency infused in the album, a call to action for one to transmute their pain into something beautiful. Despite the darkness, Hagerup looks forward, forging a path with self-made tools.
I caught up with Hagerup over email to discuss all things shame, self-recording, and notable influences.
“Easy” starts the album off with almost incantation-like repetitive lines. It feels equal parts holy and melodically sinister. What made you choose this track as the introduction to the project? How does it set the tone for what’s to come?
Izzy: I think “Easy” came about from a fairly casual and self-centered place that gradually unfolds into some type of self-awareness as the song goes. From a feeling in my shoe to the spinning world, I think it reflects where the album is to go; the banal to the existential, love to desperation and codependency to rage and destruction and then back to the gaping hole that accompanies existence. It’s also an “easy” start, it never quite lifts off the ground but rather lays a sonic foundation that grows and shrinks and grows again as you progress through the album. I like to see it as a not-too-flashy, warm welcome into the world of this album.
A lot of this album has to deal with shame and explores the role shame plays in my life and those around me, it’s a huge fuel behind the fixed ways of our culture and society and minds. On a more personal level it’s about getting lost and forgetting my wisdom, being young, making mistakes, being in my mid-twenties. A lot of this album feels like a journal of growing up. “Easy” addresses the issues that lie below the issues that come up in the rest of the songs. Of not choosing to go deeper, to think more critically, to be more thoughtful and curious, of giving into the comforts and distractions are being forced down our throats.
The strings throughout are a really stunning and cinematic touch, particularly on “System.” What prompted their inclusion?
Izzy: I just love to play the cello and improvise on top of any song I can, to weasel it into any place it could possibly fit. At the beginning it’s just self-indulgent ear candy but after the fact I think it can add entirely new dimensions to the music. I usually just riff around and make sure to record and something gets birthed in that process. Sometimes I try to make it work and it simply isn’t fitting but I feel that my whole musical process is prompted by intuition and it’s only after the fact that I can begin to make sense of all the choices. But if a string section can exist, I cannot resist.
You’re from Western, MA, which has a very supportive and often overlooked artistic community. How did your time there influence your work?
Izzy: Western Mass has a really special artistic community that I am so grateful to have stumbled upon. I went to college in the area with little idea of what a DIY scene really was. I didn’t have much experience playing with other people, going to dirty basement shows, I was thrilled when I found it. I joined my first band there called Blood Mobile, the project of my friend, Tuna, one crazy guitar shredder and musician. Playing shows and learning what it meant to be in a band from the Blood Mobile lens was pivotal for me. I had been playing guitar for a few years at that point, wrote one little song but really did not see music as something I would take seriously in my life. Now I was living in this world where music was just a way of life. The “systems” were set up by a bunch of friends just organizing shows every weekend for the pure love of music. It was this beautiful community that was so solid because of that binding force. Western Mass just has an energy that is seeping with creativity in all the cracks on the pavement and in all the little rivers.
On and off during the making of System I would ride my bike 30 minutes on the bike path to my studio and back and that was some of the most freeing, inspiring times I remember from the past few years. There’s something about how windy and green and fragrant the zone is that it makes perfect sense there’s a thriving creative scene.
Most of this album was written and recorded entirely by you. How did working in isolation impact the creative process?
Izzy: Working in isolation has felt entirely necessary for me to access my full creativity when writing music. I am growing through that and look forward to sharing the creative process. But as extroverted and open as I like to think I am, I am also quite introverted and sheepish when it comes to expressing my deepest self and inner workings creatively. When I’m working with other people, a level of self-consciousness is inevitable and I think self-consciousness is the antithesis to creativity and freedom. In order to get into that “flow-state” where time completely escapes you and you’ve gotten lucky enough to board the train that doesn’t stop until you have to forcefully fling yourself off of it cause it’s already 5 am and you’d like to experience a touch of reality the next day… I have to do that alone.
To be so vulnerable and real with myself, to explore the shameful or lonely feelings that I need to process and to the depth that this album goes, could only happen in isolation. But there are so many styles and worlds and different emotions that I know would come out of sharing the process. I will always need to explore the places that music takes me when I’m alone, but I’m excited to balance it more with collaboration.
You master the line between vulnerability and strength in how raw and honest these lyrics are. Tracks like “My Side” have a Fiona Apple-esque punch. Who are your biggest songwriting influences?
Izzy: Overall, my music listening is very scattered so it’s hard for me to dial in the answer to this question but to name a few, Shin Joong Hyun, Peter Evers, Aldous Harding, Elizabeth Cotten and many more have undoubtedly played a role in the creation of System and the evolution of mwah.
My first major songwriting influence was definitely Elliot Smith. I know I’m not alone in that. It was during my troubled era my freshman year of high school that he really spoke to the aches and pains of this existence. His chord structures and finger-picking styles have definitely left a lasting mark on my creative process.
I was listening to Harry Nilsson and John Prine a lot before and during the making of System. They have been a big inspiration on the lyrical side of writing for me. I really love their quirky, heartfelt storytelling and their ability to bring humor and light into their music.
But ultimately, it’s the riffs in my relationships or the aspects of myself that I struggle with or the overwhelm of existence or the complete banality and absurdity and beauty and horror of this world we live in that truly influences a song of course. It’s just a lot to process, goddamn.
You can listen to System out everywhere now, as well as on vinyl via Exploding in Sound Records.
Written by Joy Freeman | Featured Photo Courtesy of Exploding in Sound Records
“Had to put the dog down / Ninety-eight degrees out.”
Philly export Soup Dreams comes out of the gate swinging with slice-of-life lyricism and classic guitar fuzz on their debut LP Hellbender. It is an amalgamation of intimate confessionals with songs like “Nothing” and “Dust”, and heavier, electric-driven offerings on “Stray Cat” and “Radiator Baby”. Country sensibilities meld with alternative roots in “Familiar,” where pedal steel cuts through lines about a sweaty bike ride home and playing hooky à la Wednesday.
The indie rock four-piece have gained notoriety through the embrace of the local scene, one that founder Isaac Shalit discovered after they graduated from Oberlin Conservatory in 2021. Joined by Emma Kazal (bass/vocals), Nigel Law (drums) and Winnie Malcarney (guitar), the group found acclaim in their first EP “Twigs for Burning.” With a myriad of musical backgrounds, Soup Dreams teeters the genre line, tied together by the rawness of Shalit’s vocals which somehow always sound like they are imparting a secret to the listener.
I sat down with Shalit to discuss the album and the major themes of Soup Dreams, which they list as, “queer and trans identity, magic and the divine, animal familiars, and the siren pull of the open road.”
“Hellbender” is your first full-length release. Were these tracks all written for the album, or combined from past projects?
IS: I wrote the songs over a 3 year period when I moved to Philly in late 2021. The newest ones I finished writing right before we recorded – the song “Nothing” was kind of figured out in the studio, and I remember it feeling so free and exciting, like there was electricity flowing around the room. At the beginning I definitely wasn’t thinking about recording an album, a few songs even predate the band itself. It was always a dream for all of us to do a full length though, so once the body of work started to solidify it was a natural next thing. The name “Hellbender” is from way before we had even a tracklist, or probably half the songs, and I put it in “The Shining” lyrics as a little easter egg.
The songwriting throughout these tracks is poignant and vulnerable, with lines like, “Still don’t know if I’m a person worth keeping,” serving a gut punch. Often, they’re set to danceable melodies. Is this juxtaposition purposeful? What’s your compositional process like?
IS: As a songwriter I’ve always suffered from bummer disease and one of my biggest fears is having a whole set of songs that just makes people stand and nod their head. I wanted to be in a band and rock out so badly. I think the influence of everyone else in the band does a lot to create that juxtaposition you’re talking about. I’m not always happy with how vulnerable the lyrics are, but it’s what comes out so there’s not a ton of control involved!
“Dust” is a notable moment of tenderness, tapping more into classic singer/songwriter sensibilities. Who are the greatest influences on this folkier side of Soup Dreams?
IS: I was blatantly trying to write a Hop Along song when I wrote “Dust,” and landed literally so far off the mark I almost don’t want to admit that was the goal. It was a moment in my songwriting when I was trying really hard to diversify my chord progressions and add interest there. But I was clearly listening to a lot of softer stuff too – Florist (intimacy and environment), Lucinda Williams (we mention her a lot, the goat), Diane Cluck (freakishness/whimsy), Lomelda (harmony/chord motion, tone).
Which track are you most excited to play in upcoming shows?
IS: We’ve been playing all these songs for a long time actually, although it’s our “new album” there’s a whole other crop of songs that we were just starting to break in at shows right before Hellbender came out. We had to re-learn how to play the album. We’ve always had a tumultuous relationship with the song “Stray Cat” – everyone kind of hates playing it and we joke that sometimes it feels like a humiliation ritual, but I really like it so I sort of make everyone keep trying. When it’s good it’s really good.
Tell me about the Philly DIY scene. How have they embraced you, and what do you hope to bring to audiences from that community when you tour?
IS: The scene is the whole deal honestly. Our whole sound comes from it. Whenever we’re in other cities for tour I can’t help but think about how we’d be different if we came from there. Philly has this scrappiness and aggressiveness, and love for each other, that you really don’t find anywhere else (at least in the radius we can cover in Nigel’s Subaru). Also Philly has hands-down the most trans and leftist music community. So I guess we are trying to bring that, like we’re bringing our HRT injections and a PFLP flag.
You can listen to Hellbender out everywhere now.
Written by Joy Freeman | Featured Photo Courtesy of Soup Dreams
the ugly hug 