Chasing Fridays: Throw Spark, Starr 67, if i was a pony Q&A, more

This week's newsletter is relatively brief because you'll be getting a more substantial dump of Chasing Sundays material next week. And also because sometimes, believe it or not, I don't actually have an overbearing amount of thoughts on new music. Sometimes it's just a normal amount. More on that in a second, but first: I have a very special announcement that I'll be revealing on Monday, so stay tuned for that. I think it will be worth the extra email in your inbox. I'll also be posting something else cool and different next week, so keep an eye out for that one as well.

Now back to this week. For this dispatch of Chasing Fridays, I wrote about a bunch of artists who are frankly not popular at all. In fact, you probably don't recognize any of the names in the headline, and I'd be shocked if more than one person in my newsletter pool recognizes the other unnamed artist who I wrote about down below. I think that's cool. I think that's why a lot of people read my work to begin with, because I don't just write about the same stuff that other music writers, Instagram blogs, and Spotify playlists are recommending. So in the spirit of open-minded discovery, I'm not even going to preface the blurbs and interview I did down below. Just have at it.

Throw Spark - Demo

Alright, enough sixth-wave emo coverage for now. As I mentioned in last week's writeup, I don't even really enjoy listening to that stuff on my own time. But I do enjoy listening to Throw Spark. The California trio have evidently been playing shows since last summer, but they just released their first demo back in June, a three-song, 15-minute jawn that sounds like Lungfish and Unwound. Not too many bands these days sound like Lungfish, so that's exciting for people like me who like Lungfish. The first song, titled "12.06.25.1" (most likely the date these tracks were recorded live, given the other two titles end with ".2" and ".3"), begins with an elliptical lick and sullen vocals that struggle to be heard above each tom clack. Then the song sounds like it ends – and then it begins again.

This time as a smudgy, tense jam that grows into a supremely satisfying climax. It sounds like you're seeing them play five feet in front of you in a musty basement, but there's just enough clarity to indicate that Throw Spark are really dialed in for a band in the demo stage. The next couple tracks are shorter than the first, and the reason I even mentioned the e-word at the top of this blurb will become apparent during the agitated chorus of song two. This is what happens when a generation of indie kids build their taste by sifting through the Numero catalogue. Scholarly recreations of niche 90s sounds with a heavy air of deep-cut coolness. Numero should reissue some Lowercase vinyl next so we can get some more of their sound in the mix. And also so I can finally own some Lowercase records.

Starr 67 - "Secret of Nim"

I was very excited to finally see this band last month on a bill of artists who otherwise ranged from pretty decent to terrible. Starr 67 are from Salt Lake City and last summer I stumbled into their peculiar EP, Wyoming Good Luck (Demo), which I truthfully found more intriguing than likeable. I really like this new song "Secrets of Nim," though. After their set in Pittsburgh Caden thought they sounded like Hella and I thought they sounded like Modest Mouse, and then we asked a member of Starr 67 who they're pulling from and he hilariously said Hella and Modest Mouse. I don't think either of those influences are super prominent on this new track, though, which is prickly and trebly and verging on mathy without actually going there (thankfully). There's a reason Karly Hartzman loves them.

Clierri - Suicide Stunna

Over the weekend I saw Pittsburgh-based producer and former Chasing Sundays interviewee E_Death rip a throttling set in a swelteringly hot warehouse space. The type of music that E_Death told me she's currently making is witch rave, a dance-oriented offshoot of witch house that's dark and desperate but also saucy and swaggering. Coincidentally, I also started listening to this artist Clierri over the weekend who makes extremely similar sounding music. Well, she's dumped eight albums onto streaming since 2024, and some of them are more ambient (Space of Waste) and experimental (fake hopeless) than clubby. But the one I've been stuck on, this year's Suicide Stunna, is a gloriously gurgling cauldron of witch house sorcery.

First off, the phrase "suicide stunna" is such an ingeniously edgy and phonetically satisfying title that I can't believe Clierri is the first person to come up with it. She merrily chirps the tagline in the album's ballistic opener, an insistently throbbing hair-swanger comprised of Yeezus-y synths and aggressively pulsing bass. The tempo dips a bit on the following tracks as the songs alternate between spikey rave and slow-mo Salem nods. The fact that every song begins to blur together is part of the form's narcotic appeal, but I like that Side-B jolts the record awake with "ANGEL TEAR$$$" and "ANGEL ULTRA," a two-part techno odyssey through the badlands of heaven where darkened storm clouds sneak off to brood. I don't think anything on Suicide Stunna is revolutionary, but it's a well-executed synthesis of several timeless sounds.

Chasing Down

Marwan Dwyer and Zia Carter
of
if i was a pony

Chasing Down is a Q&A series with artists, friends, and others of good taste.

if i was a pony are a weird little band I discovered a few months ago when they only had two songs out. Now they have three, and although their digital hype quantifiers (streams, followers) are still quite humble, I wager that that's about to change. The London duo of Marwan Dwyer and Zia Carter described themselves as "laptop twee" without me even having to ask, which I think is an accurate place to situate their cheeky, 'net-frazzled indietronica. However, if i was a pony's music – especially their new single "think+Teeth" – exists on the more cryptic, ear-ishly obtuse side of that spectrum as opposed to the kiddishly sincere b7lanket or the cartoonishly absurd Worldpeace DMT.

I think everything they've dropped thus far is delightful, and for this week's Chasing Down Q&A, I got to learn about their origins, their upcoming debut EP, the London scene they move in, their favorite Jonah Paz song, and much more.

Read the full interview below – and the 60-plus others in the archive, with a new one added each week.