Grumpy is back! The Brooklyn-based project of Heaven Schmitt has returned to earth with “Protein”, the first new song shared since embarking on a four year side quest, marking a triumphant return and a huge step forward for all things Grumpy. The primarily self-produced track is a beautiful lumpy mass – a body kept alive by electro-pop ligaments and meaty distorted muscles, as they pump blood into an autotuned lament of digital longing.
Echoing a lone drum beat, Schmitt sings, “I got your message and you’re suddenly confessional/ you want to keep things strictly professional” – a chromatic plea of disappointment with the noticeable gap of digital intimacy. The chorus is loose and playful, utilizing the hyper-rock backdrop of heavy guitars and running synth licks as leverage to its dreamy and melodic palette.
“Starving for attention in a protein bar” – Grumpy thrives in the surreal, blending personal insecurities and unfiltered introspections that thrive in the absurd, telling an honest and compelling story of regret and heartbreak – a type of writing that is emotionally applicable, deeply relatable and sticks to your bones with every listen.
“Protein” is best ingested with the accompanying music video directed by Sarah Ritter (Surf Curse, Samia, Cherry Glazer). The video depicts an extraterrestrial story of obsession and longing, with a spout of alien warfare and Martian-like-wonder to highlight this new idea of futuristic vulnerability.
As Grumpy enters a new realm today, it is wise to let them show us the way. “Protein” is sincere, eclectic, introspective and irresistible, showcasing the evolution of Grumpy’s artistry and influences as they learn from, and further build out their craft. You can listen to “Protein” on all streaming platforms now.
“Fell down the stairs/ tried to give you a kiss/ you said oh how cute/ look how you drip drip” – opens the playful and certified rockin’ track, “Renter Not a Buyer”, by the Portland, Maine project, Dead Gowns. It’s a line that lives out its own life, setting a frantic scene of giddy tardiness as we watch a bloody, yet passive entrance of our main character unfold. Dead Gowns is the project of Geneviève Beaudoin (“GV”), who released this song in September of 2022 as a preview to How, an upcoming EP that was released a month later. The distorted guitars, absorbing dynamics and a chorus that is worth reliving time and time again offer an exhilarating release, bearing weight to the songs influence – where “Renter Not a Buyer” becomes an anthem of ownership, as Beaudoin shifts the dialogue of ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’ towards a new idea of healing.
Before How was even written, Beaudoin was already working on a full length album, sharing in the process, “I was coming back to Dead Gowns in the middle of a transitional period. I had all of these songs I was working on and I was in that space where I should have just been really committed to finishing them.” But standing out, there were four new songs that stole her focus – marking a truer representation of where she was at in her life. “These new songs just kind of came up in a particularly hard week and it felt like I had figured something out,” she shares. Recording demos in her home, Beaudoin continues, “I started sharing them around and there was this feedback of like, ‘oh, this is Dead Gowns’. It gave me a really clear idea of the sound I was going for, and just where the project was heading.” Dead Gowns soon received an arts grant from Prism Analog, a local studio in Portland, Maine, to record what would soon become How.
Up to this point in her career, Beaudoin had always functioned as an at home project, with her partner, Luke Kalloch, co-producing everything alongside her. But stepping into Prism was not only a scenic change – entering a professional studio for the first time, but also one that encouraged artists to use vintage equipment and tape machines that she was not used to. “With analog, you can’t zero in on the takes,” she says. “That made me listen more – how does the song feel in my body as I’m playing it? How does this resonate?” Beaudoin wasn’t allowed the time to get in her own head, as she reflects, “if I think I can constantly go back and change things… then it will never get done. So it was really just like, ‘the time is now, ground your feet, take a breath and play the song.’ That’s what you’ve got.”
“I think it’s still easy for me to be critical of my presentation at any time, but I’m really proud of what the band did in Prism. I’m really proud of how we captured it. With everything done really quickly, it doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but it means accepting that you captured a moment, and that’s what it is. It’s just a moment, and it’s going to be different than the moment next week or the moment in five years when you capture it again.”
Photo by Tadin Brego
“I often feel like my songs try to start off as dialogue,” Beaudoin conveys. “In my day-to-day, I often dwell (for too long!) on what I wish I had said or what I was trying to say.” In that sense, we are given a glimpse into her process of observation – the way that pain and healing are malleable by this exchange of momentary fiction. “Collect the lawn chair debris from my yard and paint my doorway the color of a birthday card,” she sings on the last verse of the song, “How You Act” – building upon a messy post-party cleanup scene, yet bringing a particular focus towards self agency. “Maybe the color of your birthday card is different from mine,” she admits, but this color marks a clear place of where she needs to go. “Watch me leave the table cold/ leaving with my hat and coat/ Stop to do one final dish/ and leave before it’s finished/ I’ve got a real life now,” as sung on “Real Life”, relishes in this feeling of hesitancy towards change – blocking a scene that feels necessary to live through in order to formulate the dialogue that she knows she needs to hear. “I’m not great with confrontation, so those first four songs were moments of, ‘no, I wanted to say this – this is what I am really trying to say.”
“I was reading this article about the artist Nicole Eisenman,” Beaudoin recalls, “and at one point, they described their view of their gender as ‘I don’t buy, I rent’ – I just loved how they said that, and I could relate to that feeling from a perspective of bodily autonomy.” Living years with the often-debilitating condition of Endometriosis, Beaudoin shares, “Endo really dictates when I feel like a GV that’s recognizable to the world, vs. the GV that’s got a boiling hot rubber bottle on her stomach in bed.” These days would often bear down on Beaudoin’s functionality, as a line like, “I don’t stay long it don’t matter”, puts on a face to mask the pain, yet adds commentary on the ridiculousness to even try at all. But as she sat with this new outlook, “it just became this really freeing thought, ‘I’m a renter, not a buyer… to describe those good days or bad days,” she says.
Even extended to the live shows, Beaudoin finds comfort in letting the songs mold into their own moments – reflecting a particular feeling that is caught up within her at that time. “We always joke that we have sad “Renter” and then we have fuck you “Renter,” she says. “So sometimes I’ll say to my band, ‘we’re playing sad “Renter” tonight’ – it’s just with where I’m at in the moment.”
As How inches towards its two year anniversary, Beaudoin continues to look forward in every aspect. It’s not lost upon her that the person she is now will inevitably change in time, and so will the way she perceives these songs as their moments change with her. But as ‘bad days’ go, what is considered to be long lasting feels less contracted, drawing the line between the pain that she carries and the truest form of GV that she can find. “I think it’s just being more open about these bad days. It tells you what’s bringing you down and how you can use that knowledge to pick yourself back up and make the choices that will recenter you.”
A year after the release of How, the songs were repackaged by Vinyl Me, Please, for a special pressing of Dead Gowns on vinyl for the first time ever. The VMP edition consists of seven songs total, with the addition of “Kid 1”, “Castine” and “Kid 2” closing out side B. “We actually put some songs that I thought might have gone on the full length record,” Beaudoin shares; the one that had been put on hold for the time being. As the album unwinds, living through alt-rock convos, enduring ballads and multifaceted orchestrations, “it feels like a bridge that brings you from that first record to what we will put out in the future.” Taking the time for these new songs find their moment, Dead Gowns is currently recording their next album, set to be released in 2025.
Triples is one of Canada’s best-kept secrets. With an emphasis on loose and energetic DIY performances, the band has put out some of the most heartwarming and fun pop songs in recent memory. Today, the Toronto-based project of songwriter and actress, Eva Link, has released her long awaited new single, “So Soon”. As a follow up to 2019’s debut full length, Big Time – an album with no shortage of glittery attitude and loveable hooks, Link returns to her form more confident than ever, with powered up, jangly guitars and an enduring melody that reminds her to embrace what she knows best.
Triples has always gravitated towards a nostalgic feel – taking inspiration from 90’s alt-pop legends like Guided by Voices and Liz Phair, as well as that underground punk charm that is both invigorating in spirit and timeless by nature. “So Soon” showcases the band with a more expansive, rock-forward sound, but at no loss to the heart and pure enjoyment that comes with Link’s songwriting.
“Whose guilty conscious keeps them hiding away/ Fear of fucking up with things you say,” Link sings, as a steady guitar introduces the song – a batch of open ended doubt setting the scene. It doesn’t take long before her layered harmonies become responsive and the driving drum fills and heavy guitars turn the song into a pop-rock classic, as “So Soon” reaches for that joy of embracing what fills us up.
“This song is about coming out of a hibernation, where you’re just used to feeling bad or sad, and then reemerging into the world and remembering what it’s like to feel like yourself again doing the things that made you feel happy, actually doing the things that matter to you (the “cool and right things”) you recognize the YOU that starts to come back,” Link shares about the song.
“So Soon” is accompanied by a music video shot by Seamus Patterson at Paste Studios back in 2023. The video plays with a coming-of-age feel, as the band rocks out in a twinkle lit garage, capturing a new and exciting step forward for Triples.
Triples will be performing with PACKS (Eva’s sister and frequent collaborator, Madeline Link’s band) at the Drake Underground in Toronto on July 6, and look to release their forthcoming EP in the near future.
Earlier this week, the Brooklyn-based trio, Sister., released a new single, “Colorado” off of Mtn. Laurel Recording Co. If you live in New York and have seen the band perform in the past few months, whether that be stripped back for a house show or a full band endeavor, you most likely have heard a variation of this song. Regardless of which version, “Colorado” finds Sister. exuding a level of patient handling; a relic that romanticizes the enduring process of their collaboration, all while further defining their style and sound at their own pace.
This interview was conducted in January of this year. The band took the time to call me as they sat between projects and recording sessions of “Colorado”. We decided to hold off on publishing this piece until the song was released, and in the sense of music PR, that was the move – and for the sake of the piece, it allowed me to watch the contents of our past conversation live its life in real time.
Photo by Avery Davis
Sister. is composed of songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Hannah Pruzinsky, Ceci Sturman and James Chrisman. Last October, the band released their debut full-length album, Abundance, which found the band in a comfortable spot. Pruzinsky and Sturman started the project as a duo when they met in college, and since then, their songwriting found a similar path of sincerity and inventiveness in Chrisman’s warm and unique production and textured instrumentation.
At its core, Abundance is a bedroom record, hopping between locations in the process of writing and recording. Most of the album was tracked in a small cabin in Woodstock, NY – a little run down unit making a comfortable home for the trio to set up shop and flesh out the new songs. Unlike recording in a professional studio, the band was able to take their time, as Pruzinsky shares, “I think it was fun to be able to stretch it out so long. Even more so than recording in the cabin, I feel like I always think of us recording all the overdubs in my room with James at the computer and Ceci laying on my bed re-listening to the songs a million times.”
Whether at the cabin or in Pruzinsky’s bedroom in Brooklyn, the band recognized the outside elements that allowed the recordings to breathe; a symbiotic relationship between the noises captured and the environment in which the band occupied – “when we had the mics gained up you could hear the creek that was under the cabin,” Chrisman recalls, sharing an example form their time in the woods. These moments throughout Abundance latch on to our senses; a blend of birds in conversation, the clicks of guitar pedals and keyboards, pouring rain and the creaking of old wooden floors all stand out in their own way, yet add a collective beauty to the overall experience of the record. “That’s actually a personal preference of ours,” Sturman says, “using whatever happens to be captured, instead of going back and trying for a better sound or recording.” Something she further explains, “I think we’re just really good at embracing that sort of thing – this is what we did, we’re gonna honor it and that’s gonna become the song.”
There is no more striking example than the album’s opener “Ghost” – a song attributed to Sturman’s time learning the piano and recorded on a trip with her mom to a ranch in New Mexico. The final version grows from that original voice memo, capturing a performance of Sturman playing the song for her mother. “Ghost’ was really uncomfortable for me to accept,” Sturman shares as the others recall having to convince her to use it on the album. This song was my introduction to Sister., first listening to Abundance on the train when it was released. Its spacing felt like a familiar form of tenderness, one that knows that healing is an option, as Sturman sounded so distant in her presence, but so vulnerable and compelling in her performance.
The choice to place it as the opener wasn’t much of a topic of discussion for the band; “we started sending the album around a lot, and people said “Abundance” has to go first – you need a big entrance, and we all were like, no,” Pruzinsky laughs. It was a gut feeling, trusting their creative intuitions that kept it in its tracking spot. “I think there were definitely nerves about it, but it does welcome you into the expansiveness of the album,” Pruzinsky continues, with Sturman adding, “well, it felt like a risky move for me because it feels vulnerable, but I think it’s cool. We have to put trust in the listener that they will keep listening, and then they can understand why that might have been the first song.”
And to the band’s credit, having “Ghost” open the album perfectly sets the tone for a project that doesn’t stay in one lane for long, but rather focuses on their craft as a culmination of moments. “It’s like a record of so many things,” Chrisman says about the song. “It’s a record of Ceci and her mom and one particular performance, but it’s also because Ceci is learning the piano, it’s a document of a moment in her relationship to piano, too.” And once again, inviting in their settings, “even a document of that acoustic space with a weird bird in the background,” he laughs.
As a project, Abundance savors maximalism at no expense to intimacy, and originality through vision and feel of its players. Songs like “Notes App Apology” and “Guts” flow with melodic folk voicings through a classic and tempered alt-rock drive. “Gorilla vs. Cold Water” is a patient build, standing strong through synth drones and heavy guitar strums. The drum machine track plays second hand antagonist in the dark turns of “Classon”, and “Kinder” reaches similar emotional heights until decomposing into dust as the instrumentation burns from the inside out. “There are so many different narratives that take place on this album,” Pruzinsky shares, “I think what came through were these momentary glances in time.”
Abundance became a document of the trio’s growth, experimentation and ultimately, their form, but it is also helped capture the way that they learned to communicate creatively with such intention and ease. “It was more like a phase or a chapter for us, as songwriters and collaborators,” Sturman begins. “I think we have just been growing a lot as people and as musicians, so we got to just use this as an opportunity to co-write and just really try to see how we could make a bunch of different songs really work together and have cohesion.”
That cohesion comes through in the varied feels of comfort that arise from the individual songs, regardless of their build, emotional pull or stylistic choices. “For so long, Ceci and I had no idea how to articulate our ideas to each other and how to find someone that also just knew what we wanted,” Pruzinsky shares. “When we were able to finally get there, it was like, ‘okay, now we can do everything we want!’ It’s like we can be doing the most minimal thing, which is just the three of us playing acoustic instruments in a room, and it feels so good and so comfortable.”
Photo by Felix Walworth
“We wrote Colorado together,” says the band in their press release. “Hannah started with the chords and the line ‘You drive to Colorado and I get emotional,’ and we built it all from there.” The song builds off of those same elements of loose textures, shared ideas and honored performances that live within the heightened emotional release of the song. Within their composure, the band thrives in pushing the vast soundscape further, but in no way at the expense of losing that intimacy that makes their performances so full and memorable.
While recording “Colorado”, Sturman recalls a time when their friend and label manager, Elijah Wolf, said, “this is such a classic Sister. sound,” in the middle of their session. “That’s so cool that we might have something like that,” she says. And as “Colorado” now sees the daylight, and it was time to resurface this old conversation, I was instantly enveloped in that first experience I had with the Sister. sound, a moment of true Proust Effect on public transportation; my own momentary glance in time that felt so present. And to its effects, that classic sound doesn’t feel to necessarily label their form, but rather a chance for the band to define themselves with where they are now in the moment, knowing they have so much more to show us.
“Colorado” is accompanied by a music video made by V. Haddad with the help from Nara Avakian. You can stream “Colorado” on all platforms now. Pruzinsky and Sturman also run New York-based show zine, GUNK, which is shared at the beginning of every month.
Bloomsday, the project of Brooklyn-based artist Iris James Garrison, has released their sophomore LP, Heart of the Artichoke off of Bayonet Records today. Following 2022’s Place to Land, this new project thrives in its deliverance – the lush instrumentations giving Garrison’s poetic phrasings room to breathe, and vice versa, showcases the personal growth and vision that made these performances so fresh and enduring. Heart of the Artichoke is an album that lives in its connections, creating an honest and clear silhouette of Garrison’s presence while also documenting a keepsake; the community that Garrison has surrounded themselves with to bring it to its truest from.
Last month, I grabbed a coffee with Garrison to discuss the importance of community, the significance of revisiting old songs and the momentary inspirations that stuck out when writing Heart of the Artichoke.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Photo by Desdemona Dallas
Shea Roney: You recorded a lot of Heart of the Artichoke with Ryan Albert at his home studio in upstate New York, which turned into a very community driven and collaborative project over all. Can you tell me about that experience and the people you chose to work with?
Iris James Garrison: I do so much of the writing part alone, and then to find the realized state of the song, I love to hear what my friends and people I admire think would work. So in that process I think the more the merrier. Maya [Bon] and Ryan [of Babehoven], Andrew Stevens (Lomelda, Hovvdy), Hannah Pruzinksky (h. pruz, Sister.), Richard Orofino, Alex Harwood, Chris Daley – they’re all awesome people and I just wanted to feel like we were all able to be really open. I can’t really focus when I’m in New York City, so when Ryan approached me about that, I thought that actually sounded so much better than doing it in a proper studio in New York. As awesome as that is, the pressure is really on to know what we are doing, whereas, exploring the songs and being in a house – going to grab a sandwich, going on the porch for a second, walking in the woods, going in the pond whenever I want. It sounds as dreamy as it actually was. There are very few times in my life where I had no stress. Even my friend Dallas visited us while we were there and halfway through the week, we had a bonfire and they were said, ‘you laughed more that night than I’ve ever seen you laugh.’ I was just very open and it was very special to have so many people I love to be working on my music.
SR: Did you get to work on your own time frame with these songs?
IJG: I gave myself ten days. Ten songs in ten days. We didn’t do the entire thing in that house, we also did three days at the Chicken Shack, which is a really sick studio in upstate New York, with Nick Kinsey to get a lot of the drum sounds and some live band feel. We played a couple of the songs live just to capture what they were like in that environment because some of them I feel like it’s really essential for their sound. So we just did a weekend there and then the rest of it was at Ryan’s house.
SR: Being so comfortable in a collaborative environment and taking in other people’s perspectives on your songs, would there be moments and ideas that would change your own perception of what the song means to you?
IJG: There were some that I was less open than others. The song “Artichoke” is a great example of having an idea, but not a fully fleshed song. I wrote all the melodies, but actually arranging it was a very collaborative process of just figuring out how to make it feel like an arc without there really being many lyrics to work with. That is different for me, because usually I’m really into song structure being pretty classic – verse, chorus, verse. But the instrumentation ended up telling the story a lot more than the lyrics.
SR: “Night Swimming” is fully instrumental. As you talk about perception in instrumentation, was this something that you wanted to focus more on putting meaning into than you have on prior works?
IJG: I think even just the fact that I brought more people in was so starkly different from Place to Land where it was just me and Alex alone in 2020. He was one of the only people I saw that whole year, and that process of working with just two people for a six-month period can be hard. You don’t really get any perspective. It’s hard to get perspective on things that you’ve listened to like a thousand million times. So I guess, yes, I wanted to focus on instrumentation. Ryan, Alex and I were very zeroed in on parts. Now I just write something and think, ‘wow, I can’t wait to work on that with the people that I really love to work with and see what happens.’ Especially with something like “Artichoke” and “Object Permanence”, I was not sure what their form would be. Obviously it’s not like I just hand it over, but it was really fun to be a part of the process and work with everybody.
SR: So obviously you had this great sense of community on this record. When listening to Heart of the Artichoke, it very much focuses on human connection and the many different forms you encounter. Why was this such a natural place to let your songs go?
IJG: I’m not a super conceptual first writer. I’ll have a melody that I like and I’ll just kind of let that ruminate for a long time. I think with human connection I feel I write a lot in second person – a ‘you’ and ‘me’. So I think if I find a pocket of a hook, it’s almost always addressing someone else. I learn everything through my relationships. I need to bounce things off of other people, I think because my unconscious understanding of myself comes through talking to whoever the ‘you’ is. So as the songs come out, I’m learning through ‘you’ and here is a picture of what that feeling is like.
SR: Using that habit to learn from others, what does that say about where you’re at in your life where you’re touching upon all these different connections with such ease and comfort in your writing?
IJG: You know, as we go on in life we get to different spots. I’m much more healed. I feel like my songs when I was younger were so tormented and I had a hard time having perspective on what was going on for me – it just regulates my system and it’s helpful in uncovering the stuff that’s underneath. Some of these songs are my favorite songs I’ve ever written because they take those little moments that I don’t think I would have cared to notice and romanticize when I was younger, instead of thinking I’m tormented and heartbroken and that’s the only way to experience artful romanticism.
SR: I like how you said little moments, because a lot of what your lyrics revolve around are little mundane moments that hold more weight than what we may initially perceive. The song, “Where I Am And You Begin” has some remnants of the first song you ever wrote, bringing us back to those earlier days you mentioned. What was the significance of resurfacing a song that pushes for reliving the sensations of a moment?
IJG: That song is about a person that is from my past and was my super heartbreak. It’s really a song written in hindsight, looking back and sort of being overtaken by that feeling again. I like that song because I’m aware while singing it that the where I end and you begin is actually, in a way, talking about just codependency and not knowing where we are separated. Being aware of that now and then having sort of a flashback to a moment, letting it overcome and then letting it go, that sort of intensity feels so amazing when you’re younger, but it’s also super destructive and can be really addictive and toxic. I think in a way, writing it gives me a place to feel those things instead of actually living in those feelings now.
SR: Because it feels like you’re trying to recreate thesensations of particular memories, using hindsight to kind of resurrect those sensations, what did it feel like to reuse these parts that you wrote such a long time ago?
IJG: I mean the chords I wrote when I was 15 or something. It’s an old song, and when I was sort of going through it again, it almost felt like a ghost coming back into the room. Having a beautiful song that holds space for those feelings, I think there’s less shame involved in desiring them. Desiring them even though you’re older and have grown past certain things. It’s hard to let go sometimes of the teenage angst and the teenage first love – those feelings are a once-in-a-lifetime feeling. You don’t really get to have them again, so I think that yearn was a big part of why that song came through.
SR: This idea of writing about your younger self within the lens of hindsight, especially in songs like “Carefully”, how do you approach working with that reflective voice from who you are right now?
IJG: So “Carefully” came to me while I was on a bus. That was a one-sitting song, but it has a lot to do with sort of the inner voices in my head that are sort of coming back to doubt, feeling worthless or nothing I say will be good enough for the expectations. “Carefully”, the word itself, I think I hadn’t ever touched on that sort of a vulnerable position I often take. I think the way I navigate my art, or life in general, is being extra careful. It’s sort of from an anxious place of not wanting to ruin something. In a way it’s that hesitance where the song is really gripping at that inner tension. It’s a super vulnerable song because this is really a part of my internal self that I have not really shown before.
SR: Do you feel like releasing this song was, in fact, a step to kind of counteract those internal tensions?
IJG: Yeah, and having certain people really connect with it I think also made me feel less alone in those feelings. Also, I think even if people don’t connect with it is fine because I really think I needed the song either way. It’s definitely different from other songs that I’ve written, but I hope to write more like it because I think it was sort of uninhibited, and I didn’t judge it. I really didn’t judge it.
SR: I think the imagery of God buying a dollar slice is perfect. It’s so funny and it just makes sense, almost humanizing the highest being, or like the highest expectations. I know you’re not a religious person, but you’ve brought up this other idea of a higher being – is this something that opens your understanding of yourself or the world around you a little bit more?
IJG: I actually had COVID when I wrote that song and I was very feverish. That was one of those moments where I listened back to a voice memo and I heard myself say, “I saw God buying a dollar slice.” I thought that was so funny and such a weird thing to say. So I could not answer how I got that imagery but maybe that’s part of it, right? Maybe that’s just the higher being delivering me this line from the fucking ether. But the minute I had that image, almost like what if God was one of us? kind of vibe, it really struck me. I think songs sort of live somewhere in that higher-being space. I think there’s a lot of unexplainable kinds of divine experiences, and I feel like they’re most tangible with other people, like that same human connection.
Heart of the Artichoke is out now on all streaming platforms. You can purchase all physical formats here. Bloomsday will be playing a release show for the album on June 10th at TV Eye in New York.
Written by Shea Roney | Feature Photo by Desdemona Dallas
Last month, Bloomington-based artist, Amy O (Oelsner), returned to the scene with her charming and heartfelt new record, Mirror, Reflect – her first in almost five years. Embracing captured moments over picked performances, Mirror, Reflect is a return to DIY form for Oelsner. Blending the warmness of lo-fi home sessions and captured field recordings, the looseness of song-a-day exercises and the sheer joy of a sparkling pop tune, Mirror, Reflect plays as a sincere and varied sonic recounting.
As a project, Mirror, Reflect documents Oelsner’s transition into motherhood, embracing both the uncertainty and the beauty of those early days of parenting. It’s a very tender record, written from the feelings of grief and isolation, yet Oelsner cherishes the moments of grace that shine through. Brought to life by her poetic and witty lyricism, Mirror, Reflect is a truly unique and enduring project, marking a prominent return for the artist.
The Ugly Hug recently had the opportunity to catch up with Oelsner, discussing the inspiration for recording Mirror, Reflect and learning to fit music back into her life.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Photo by Justin Vollmar
Shea Roney: Mirror, Reflect was a very highly collaborative project, can you tell me a bit about the people you chose to work with?
Amy Oelsner: I kind of worked separately on it all. I did a portion of the songs with my friend Glenn Myers, who actually lives five minutes down the road from me. It was very relaxed and we would usually get the majority of the song done in just one day when we worked together. And then I also worked with my friend Jon Meador, who was living in Bloomington at the beginning of the project and then he and his wife moved to LA. We happened to visit them last spring, and I was able to finish up the recordings at their house. I did a lot with my husband, Justin [Vollmar], and he also mixed the whole album. I did include one song that was recorded for my old album Shell that I had never used. That was with Ben Lumsdaine at Russian Recording with my old band on it. And I did one song with Will Staler who moved to Australia so we recorded it right before he left, and that was actually what started out the project. He inspired me because he had an ongoing project of recording friends on his 4 track, and I had so much fun that it was what initially jump started this whole thing.
SR: Did you find there to be differences in the song’s outcome when hopping between people and recording processes?
AO: That was part of what I enjoyed about it, being able to curate which song I thought would fit the different vibes of each person. For example, with Glenn, we were kind of casual, so for “Dribble Dribble”, I recorded that song and I just did my one vocal take and that was the take we got. But with Jon, he’s a lot more meticulous, and I worked with him on “Arc”, and we spent a few months just developing the drumbeat for that.
SR: How spread out was the timeline for this album?
AO: I had always been on a pretty tight timeline in the past, and so one of my hopes, and I guess one of the ways I was stretching myself in this project was to allow it to take as long as it needed. I can be a pretty impatient person, so that was challenging for me. I would say I started writing the songs in 2020. I wrote that song “Arc” while doing a song-a-day project that July which I did for four months and then I just kept drawing from them over a three year period. I started recording in January 2022, and that was about a two year process.
SR: You described making this record as a return to your DIY roots. The lo-fi sound of these songs, as well as the field recordings you chose to include, create a very documentary-like feel to it. What was it about this project that sparked this shift in your process?
AO: Yeah, it was sort of an exercise in releasing perfectionism for me. I had definitely approached my previous studio albums with a very perfectionist attitude. I’m really proud of those works, and you know, that’s what I needed at the time, but I just felt like I was in a place where there had just been so much stress and anxiety around the pandemic and my postpartum experience. I just knew I didn’t have room for that anywhere else. Music is supposed to be fun and healing, so I really wanted to free myself up. I think if you’re being perfectionistic, it really cuts off the creative process at a point, so I wanted to just open that up so I could see where it would go. I really wanted to, in terms of making it feel more like a documentary of my life, include more of myself in it. That actually was a large goal for me while finishing the album. I really wanted to have an artifact for myself to look back on this period of my life when I’m older.
SR: During the pandemic and your experience with postpartum, how did you invite music back into your life? Did it help you learn about your own process of grief and healing in any way?
AO: When I became a parent I didn’t know how music was going to fit into my life anymore, and I knew it was going to be a learning process. But I think what I discovered right away was that I immediately went back to songwriting when my daughter was four months old. I decided to do a song-a-day project because that’s something I’ve done to generate material many times over the years. I wasn’t expecting to do something like that when she was so little, but I realized I have to. That’s like therapy for me and it just brings me back to myself when I’m upside down. I think it’s just naturally how I process, I realized. It doesn’t take effort for me, and I’ve just learned that is how I get through grief.
SR: Mirror, Reflect was such a beautiful way for you to document your time defining, and often redefining, the relationships you have in your life. Can you tell me a bit about that?
AO: I think that a lot of it came naturally around learning my new identity as a mother and learning who I am now in that way. And then also my relationship to my daughter, and just kind of working that out through song. I feel really lucky that I already had this relationship with myself as a songwriter, so it felt like a really nice way of bridging my old self with my new self by working that out through songwriting. I think that it’s just a familiar format for me and it’s a way for me to kind of alchemize all these experiences. Especially when you’re in the early part of parenting, it’s so disorienting because you’re not getting sleep and everything that I used to be able to do I can’t do anymore. So I think through the songwriting, even just stealing little moments where I can get a melody out, became a way of putting a stake in the ground, to be like ‘I’m here!’
SR: While reflecting on the harder times and these big changes you experienced in those early days of parenting, you still allowed yourself these little moments of grace. In what ways did you learn to embrace the joy around you when writing these songs?
AO: Something that I’ve been thinking about recently is that it’s very easy for me to identify what’s not working. Especially when things aren’t going well, it’s just very easy for me to do that. But it’s harder to take those moments and really soak them in when you are experiencing joy. A lot of what I was working on in my life was slowing down; removing the feeling of urgency around creative projects and really anything else. I think that parenting has been teaching me that a lot. My daughter’s pace is just so much slower, and she is just down there on the ground looking at every little thing. It’s a microscopic view of life and that can be challenging when you’re used to moving so quickly, but I think it was embracing that helped find the joy in it.
You can stream Mirror, Reflect on all platforms as well as purchase a cassette tape here.
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week, we have a collection of songs put together by Toronto-based artist, Maryam Said of poolblood.
In April, poolblood released theres_plenty_of_music_to_go_around.zip, a short collection consisting of two new tracks and a live recording of previously released song “twinkie” at tibet studio records. Following the release of their debut album, mole, poolblood has become a project of sonic exchange, shifting between ingenious instrumental layers and heartfelt folk structures that seep in with such warmth and enjoyment.
Along with the curation, Said shares a statement about the playlist:
“These are songs I’m currently spinning. I was moving earlier last month and settling in to my new place and had these songs to set the tone. I’ve always viewed music as a family, and it’s been the only constant thing in my life that shows up for me in the way I need it to. These songs are mix of songs that remind me of what it’s like to switch course, greet a new season and relief sigh.”
On their debut LP, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, Chicago-based indie rock duo Friko sets the percussive, noisy intensity of post-punk against the soaring melodies of chamber-pop. Since 2019, their expansive sound and allusion-rich lyricism have helped them establish a dedicated fanbase in their home city and beyond. Just before the band embarked on a week-long leg of their Spring tour supporting Water from Your Eyes, I caught up with vocalist and guitarist Niko Kapetan to discuss the importance of today’s Chicago scene, the intricacies of the recording process and inspirations behind their first album.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Claire Borgelt: How’s tour been?
Niko Kapetan:It’s been good. It’s been smooth. I mean, we just bought a van which has made it so much nicer. I’m looking forward to getting out this Friday with Water From Your Eyes.
CB: So exciting! Do you have a favorite moment from tour so far?
NK: The New York show was really fun. All my guitars like, one by one, screwed up, like messed them up. One of them, I just like fell on stage on top of. I met a lot of people at the merch table. It was a good time. New York shows are always fun.
CB: Is there anything you find you really miss about Chicago while you’re on the road?
NK: Um, other than just home and like, friends and partners, probably some of the neighborhood, places like Thai Lagoon. Just a Thai place. And then just being by Humboldt Park. That’s kind of where we live. It’s just a nice place to stop and walk and think for a sec.
CB: Speaking of Chicago, how would you describe your experience with the city’s music scene? What’s that been like?
NK: It’s been incredible. I mean, we started in 2019. Before COVID there were so many DIY venues. They kind of disappeared for a few years, but they’ve been coming back kind of slowly over the past year or so. It’s just a very supportive scene, and we’ve made a lot of friends. We still are friends with a lot of the bands, and even newer bands on the scene. And there’s a lot of good venues that do under 21 shows, which were so important for us when we started. Yeah, people are definitely just listening to bands in Chicago now. It’s an exciting place for music right now.
CB: Yeah, for sure. Are there any bands out of Chicago that you’ve been really loving recently?
NK: Hmmm… bands that I’d shout out that I think deserve more of a shout out… I think V.V. Lightbody is incredible. Sharp Pins, the project of Kai, who plays in Lifeguard. Bnny just released a new album on Fire Talk Records. Chapter just released a new album. I could go on!
CB: I also wanted to know if you feel living in the city has impacted your writing process. Is there any way you feel like your environment really comes through in your writing?
NK: Um, yeah, I mean, both indirectly and directly, just the general feeling of growing up around here. Coming to the city was always a very specific feeling for me. Honestly, I’ve always tried to harness that in writing. It was like a beautiful sparkling statue to me when I was a kid. And there are little lyrical references on the record, like talking about the L train and stuff too.
CB: I also wanted to ask more generally, what is your writing process like?
NK: Usually it starts with some basic chord progression. Then I just take a couple lines that feel like the hook of it, or the core of the song. If I feel like I have that core of the song, I’ll just kind of write from there. Then once I have it on vocals and guitar I’ll take it to the band and we’ll arrange it.
CB: How does that usually go? What’s the process like when it comes to expanding it from there?
NK: I mean, Bailey is a multi-instrumentalist. I mean, we’ll just shoot ideas off of each other and like, just switch around with the bassist we’ve been playing with. You know, maybe I’ll go on drums or Bailey will, or whatever, it doesn’t really matter. Just kind of have fun with it. We’re excited to get more writing time this summer, when we have a touring break for a second.
CB: I know that you and Bailey have been playing music together for a really long time, even before this project. I was wondering what your favorite thing about working with them has been. What comes through in the collaboration process?
NK: I mean, Bailey is very kind, first of all, which I’d say is their best attribute and what makes all of this work. They’re just a very fun person. They’re so talented, and being a multi-instrumentalist has made them so important to this band. On recordings, they’ll do a full overdub with whatever instrument, and maybe our piano or guitar. We just get along, you know? It’s kind of like good luck. It’s like, if you’re gonna be on the road and spending so much time with someone, like, there is an element of luck. You just need to lock in some way as people, and we do. Yeah, they’re just a very good person, and they’re passionate. So it works.
CB: I was also curious if there are any artists who you feel have really inspired you, maybe not sonically speaking, but in terms of your outlook on the creative process more generally.
NK: That’s a good question! I’m trying to think outside of music too, because there are definitely a lot of people like that for me. I was watching a bunch of Andy Kaufman stuff. The comedian. He’s just like, really out there. Or like, Anthony Bourdain’s way of doing things was always cool when I was growing up. Those are so random, though!
CB: Is there anyone who you feel really inspired you to get into music initially?
NK: Yeah, I mean, when I was eight through thirteen, the only band I listened to was the Beatles. Just because of my parents. We went to Vegas and we saw LOVE and I was like, oh my god, this is crazy. My ten year old self was just obsessed for many years and that definitely started me on the path of wanting to write songs, just because I loved them so much. But recently? Black Country, New Road, Geese, Squid, all that new kind of rock stuff, you know? The current rock stuff is really cool and onto something. We got to meet Geese in New York and they were really cool. Hopefully we can play together sometime. Leonard Cohen was another one. He just had a crazy life. He didn’t even make music until he was like 32. And he lived in Greece for seven years, just writing. Pretty cool.
CB: I also want to talk about your new album. I have to say, it’s one of my favorites of the whole year! How would you describe the progression from the EP that you put out to this album?
NK: It definitely felt like a big step for us. I mean, when we started the EP, it was right before COVID. It was early 2020 and we’d only played like, six or seven shows together. We weren’t really like a band band yet. So that EP, to me, still sounds like us figuring stuff out and more like a recording project. But this record was us having the songs down pat and getting together and playing like everything as a band. That’s the biggest difference for me, for sure.
CB: Is there any track that you’re especially proud of?
NK: “Where We’ve Been” was definitely the mountain for us to climb, because we probably had to mix that song for like, upwards of 100 hours. When we recorded it, we didn’t think we were gonna use the live vocals, and my guitar amp was like, right behind me so the guitar was louder than the vocals on the mic. But after recording, we were like, we have to use that live vocal. We just spent so much time mixing that and figuring out how to make sure the guitar wasn’t in the vocal mic, like an insane amount. It was just such a huge mountain to climb and then it was such a cathartic ending once we reached the end of it. That’s definitely my favorite song on the record and to play live.
CB: Speaking of recording, I was reading about the way you incorporated that live sound into the process. What inspired you to take that approach to it?
NK: Especially a year ago, when we first started recording this record, I was just listening to a lot of The Replacements and Joy Division. They didn’t really do the band-in-the-room thing, but they definitely did like, just a lot of really raw rock band stuff. It was still just like, feeling that room and the charm of that. It just has a certain feeling to it – friends in a room making music. I just kind of wanted to capture that. It was very much just the band, our friend Jack Henry, and an older friend, Scott Tallarida, who owns the event space where we’ve actually recorded the whole record. It was like a family affair.
CB: I was also super curious about some of the imagery and the art surrounding the album. What does the cardinal on the album cover represent for you?
NK: The cardinal came from the song, pretty much. That was one of the earlier songs written for the record. It’s the last on the record because it kind of just feels like it has a finality to it. The imagery of it just kind of made sense to go with the record. I really love playing that song. I wrote it after covering “These Days” by Nico at my first solo show back after COVID. I just broke down because it was heavy at that time. That’s kind of why that song has a callback to “These Days” in some parts you know?
Photo by Pooneh Ghana
CB: This is maybe a silly question, but I have the album on CD and I was really curious about those handwritten lyrics in the album insert. Who wrote those?
NK: Oh, I wrote all those! I have crazy bad handwriting. But, you know, we were like, we might as well be honest with it.
CB: They turned out really cool! How did that idea come about, with all the little pictures and stuff?
NK: With the vinyl LP, it’s like a thing that’s long and skinny and unfolds to be really long. Do you know The Microphones? Phil Elverum? We’re huge fans, and one of us had the insert from Microphones in 2020, which was this really long, skinny thing with all the lyrics in it because it’s a 40 minute song. We were like, that’s it! We should do that! I’ve met him at the merch table like three times because he still works his merch tables. He’s an inspiration for sure.
CB: I have the Mount Eerie insert taped up on my wall. I definitely get that vibe from it.
NK: And Phil Elverum, actually, is an artist with a life outlook who’s definitely an inspiration. He’s a very different type of artist, but I’ve just got a lot of respect for how he’s done it.
CB: Do you have any plans for what you want to do next as a group?
NK: I mean, we do just want to take the next step forward creatively with this next record. I’m playing around with the idea of piano pieces arranged with two guitars and a bass. That’s been interesting. That’s been fun to do. Kind of like Philip Glass type stuff. He’s another one – a huge inspiration.
CB: Is there any sort of sound or anything that you want to explore going forward that you maybe haven’t had the chance to yet?
NK: Yeah, we’ve been experimenting. We just recorded a cover that’ll probably come out in June where we got to experiment with some stuff. We’ve just been all over the place. I’ll send Jack Henry, our friend who helps engineer a lot of our stuff, Talking Heads stuff and think about how that stuff is produced. Bailey loved Paramore growing up and while that type of production is not really our thing, we’re very obsessive about the sonic side and just very interested in different ways to go with that. Pet Sounds, where it sounds like a whole orchestra and like a bunch of people. A lot of things to combine, hopefully,
CB: I think that attention to detail definitely comes through in your work. It’s a very good mix of being authentic with the live mixes and stuff, but it also feels super intentional. I think you guys have done a really great job with that.
NK: Thank you. It was hundreds and hundreds of hours of mixing to make it seem intentional. But now I think we know what we’re doing much more. That’s part of the magic of it. That’s why it felt very special. Just because we had to work so hard at it.
Written by Claire Borgelt | Featured Photo by Pooneh Ghana
Today marks one day since New York-based singer-songwriter Claire Ozmun’s song “I-90” entered the world; now, with an accompanying music video made with hand-written lyric animations (by the Ugly Hug’s own Audrey Keelin) and home video recordings from Ozmun’s personal family archive, Better Company Records’ newest signing makes an exciting entrance through her foray into a released discography.
Ozmun says, “I started writing ‘I-90’ in 2020 while living in my parent’s basement. I was facing student loan debt, a waning relationship, and changing family dynamics. ‘I-90’ is about granting myself permission to feel the weight and silliness of that time.”
Ozmun’s EP, set for release on July 19, is titled “Dying in the Wool.” As described in a press release, “I-90” “offers a candid look at early adulthood, capturing the experience of comparing personal achievements with those of peers and navigating complex relationships and self-discovery. Set against Midwest-imbued guitar parts, vocal harmonies, and nostalgic field recordings, “I-90” reflects Claire’s introspective nature and trust in the future.”
If you’re in New York, her EP release show (with support from Hiding Places and Adeline Hotel) will be held at Sultan Room on July 24th and you can buy tickets here.
Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Wesley Wolffe is a familiar face amongst the New Orleans underground scene, coming into local favoritism playing with bands like STEEF, Sleep Habits and a vast amount of other stellar acts. But on his own, Wolffe spent years secretly molding his own career of brash post-rock and punk antiquity that is garnering some head turns across the country. Earlier this year, Wolffe released his sophomore record, Good Kind, that found him taking his unrestricted and fractured song structures into intense and exciting new territories for the young songwriter. Overgrown with the frustrations of social unproductivity, Wolffe’s writing became a controlled burn – turning what we think we know about ourselves upside down and clearing out the path of human disregard – all within the parameters of his unique and gripping creative lens.
Wolffe unleashed his official self-titled debut album in 2020, solidifying his sound as both a writer and performer. Taking a year off from music during the pandemic, unsettled with both the world and himself, he shares, “I just moved back to New Orleans, and I wasn’t feeling super great, so I just didn’t write anything for a long time. It took much longer than I thought it would to get back in it, but I spent two years writing and settled on seven songs.” This creative breakthrough came with gathering what he learned from his last release, as he reflects, “okay, I’m gonna do this one the right way.”
Taking the songs to Mid-City Studio to record with Matt Seferian (Pope), Good Kind wastes no time in forging its own path. Broken down into individual anecdotes, these songs are seared by the sweaty and compact musicality and unique structure of Wolffe’s instrumental demands. With the accompaniment of his twin brother, Turner Wolffe, on bass and Rob Florence on drums, Good Kind’s strength comes from the moments that waver between full fledged tenacity and the DIY charm that Wolffe commends.
Photo Courtesy of Wesley Wolffe
These days, you don’t have to go far to feel ashamed about being a human. Now that our ability to witness the world can come from our pockets, so does our ability to see how easy it is to hate, destroy and turn a blind eye to what really matters. “I always knew that I wanted to be political with my music,” Wolffe conveys. Like the rest of us during the pandemic, Wolffe was trapped in his room, feeling useless as he could only watch each bit of string that holds us together unravel with ease. “I feel like in that time period when I was writing those songs, the range of emotion that I was feeling was very, very slim. I was just becoming numb to things,” he says. “I think I was just grieving, at the risk of sounding cliché, the loss of youth that I was experiencing as a kid in their early twenties.”
Stark in its deliverance, Good Kind opens with a reminder; “Words are just words when/ Directed towards performance.” “Trinkets”, from the very beginning sets an uneasy distance between words and actions as a frantic guitar falls in line with the band’s heavy drive – Wolffe conducting the arc from a first person perspective. “I’ve never felt a great need for self expression when it comes to my personal relationships and what not,” he admits. “My life is no different than yours. I love and hate in the same way most people do. No one needs my take on those types of things – especially these days.”
Where Wolffe’s writing style sticks out is his ability to detach, leaving his own world views to embody new perspectives of ego, greed and ignorance, something he explains, “I think that’s why I can get into a character. Instead of just giving my perspective on something that’s fucked up, I can try to find a way to give somebody else’s perspective that might be on the wrong side of whatever issue it is.” A grueling task to say the least, to embody those that are taking the world in the wrong direction, becomes a game of observation, performance, and then reflection. “I feel like I need to hold a mirror up to them so that’s why my songs are in the first person,” he says. “Writing like this isn’t necessarily grounding – it can be exhausting and I’d like to think it’s challenging for the listener as well.”
“I didn’t kill no one/ All this talk of funds/ Ask me if I care,” is a hell of an opening line. “Streets” is one of the most pivotal songs in Wolffe’s repertoire, thriving in a hostile demeanor that the band creates with their unfeigned performance. Yet Wolffe’s attunement to this character, with such deadpan candor, is striking when taking the gravity of this plea – as we witness ignorance and the implementation of wrongdoing beginning to melt and mold down into a targeted vendetta. Songs like “Good Kind” and “About Me” are love letters to personal greed and being indifferent to the suffering that follows in suit. “Am I hurting you with my silence?,” he sings on the song “Boulder”, a song of manipulation and distrust, and a line that takes the cake when it comes to provocative cluelessness.
“I guess it’s not far off for me to to think of myself in that way as well – to be like a really fucked up narcissist guy,” Wolffe admits, “so it’s interesting to tap into that world and write a song about it and then it can just exist.” In no way is it idolization, but a satirization of how people continually miss the mark of what it means to be human. Good Kind becomes an exercise of holding ourselves accountable in our daily actions – observe, perform and reflect. For as hard it can be to admit, we all have moments of ignorance towards our faults – and in a way, Wolffe holds the mirror to us as well – to break the loop between performance and real action that can make all the difference.
Wesley Wolffe is donating all the proceeds of his bandcamp purchases to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund which you can purchase here. For more information on how you can donate, head to their website that is linked above. You can also purchase a CD of Good Kind through New Orleans-based label, Kiln Recordings.
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