Chasing Fridays: Tiffany Day, Poison Ruïn live, Hooky Q&A, more

I was crazy busy this week – and will be for the next two – grinding out the last few chapters of my shoegaze book, so I haven't had much time to sit and ponder on new music. That doesn't mean I haven't been listening. I just don't have any trend-watchy reports or thorough unpackings to deliver this week. Instead, I decided to just write about what I've been enjoying, whether it's new or old, with the goal of recommending some cool shit to the loyal citizens of Chasing Sundays nation. I also interviewed the Philly electronic/chillwave/bedroom-pop/kinda shoegaze duo Hooky, who just dropped an awesome new beat tape that I had questions about. If you don't listen to Hooky then you're a damn fool. Learn why below.

Tiffany Day - Halo

I'm workshopping an idea called the smol popstar. Charli XCX. Ninajirachi. Slayyyter. Tiffany Day. Surely others that I can't think of right now, hence why this is a work in progress. But what all of these artists have in common, other than their post-hyperpop sonics, is that they make dance-pop that's laced with an underdog sensitivity. A tender timidity that specifically relates to their popstar aspirations. Charli's "i might say something stupid" is the chief example, a tipsy little ditty about fumbling her way through cocktail parties and feeling inferior as a terminal b-lister at a-list functions. It's a crack of vulnerability in her hard-bodied diva facade that's now, of course, undercut by the fact that Brat made Charli a mega-star. Now she's the one hosting the high-status soirees where other, lesser singers can nervously sip the wine.

Ninajirachi's brilliant 2025 breakout has the song "Sing Good," another dinky detour from her dancefloor detonations where she reckons with years of self-doubt. A sentiment that now feels quaint amidst her ascendent status. Slayyyter's insecurities on WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA are drenched in a boozy abandon, but it's yet another "musician who just might not have what it takes to be a popstar suddenly becomes one" success story. Tiffany Day's Halo is less successful, but the record angles for the same premise: smol feelings encased in big songs. For the most part, Day's Halo is a slate of electro-house revival cuts that drop her in the same musical milieu as Brat, Ninajirachi, and 2hollis. All of those artists strike a delicate between serving relatable humanity and impenetrable club nobility, but Day's music gets so bogged down in the personal that it hinders her musical payoffs.

There are great songs on Halo, and I even enjoy the expositional intro "EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WANTED," where she sings about working her whole life to achieve stardom only to have cold feet once the record contract is under her pen. The way her auto-tuned android voice chirps over the minimalist synth arrangement sounds expressly influenced by "i might say something stupid" and "Sing Good," but it's a satisfying build-up to "DOIT4ME," a hair-swinging rager that provides tangible reassurance that she has the popstar chops. Sadly, the record peaks there. Most of what follows is bright, bedazzled recession pop – music that should be reckless and fun – that's neutered by constant references to insecurities and mental health struggles.

Day could've made those themes work in a different musical context, but here they clash awkwardly with the surrounding beats that beg to bounce around a turned-off brain. Early 2020s hyperpop was a better avenue for crying-in-the-club fare, but I found my eyes rolling further back into my skull each time I threw this album on expecting the same gratification I get from Day's contemporaries. She needs to stop worrying about saying something stupid and just say it.

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

For some reason this was the Deafheaven record I chose to sleep on. I love Sunbather, really love New Bermuda, love last year's Lonely People With Power, do not love Infinite Granite, but I never really gave 2018's Ordinary... a proper chance. How foolish of me. This record is an absolute blast, more balls-out metal and swaggeringly rock 'n' roll than their prior works, with some incredibly shreddy solos and titanic sing-alongs that pierce through Deafheaven's air of stoic cool. It's resplendently gratifying in all the ways you want from Deafheaven – giant vistas of blackgaze that rain down like a meteor shower viewed from the peak of Everest – while also flexing the boundaries of the band's identity without totally losing themselves, as they did on Infinite Granite. You probably know all of this already, but in case you don't, this is a priority listen.

Various Artists - ​Bangs and Works Vol. 1: A Chicago Footwork Compilation

I've been reading Dhanveer Singh Brar's 2021 book Teklife/Ghettoville/Eski: The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music In The Early Twenty First Century, which I picked up because I've been trying to read up on electronic music history and saw that a third of this book is about footwork, a genre I love yet only have an elementary knowledge of. Unbeknownst to me, the book is written in an extraordinarily dry academic tone, and though Brar's sociological assessments of contemporary Black music forms are intriguing, it's not the primer on footwork that I was hoping for.

Regardless, I've managed to yank a couple factoids from the dense thicket of SAT words that line each page, including an introduction to this crucial footwork compilation featuring tracks from many of the genre's pioneers: DJ Rashad, RP Boo, DJ Spinn, etc. ​​RP Boo has become one of my favorite producers in recent years, but there're so many other awesome footwork scientists who contributed to the Chicago scene's explosion in the early 2010s. This compilation, a touchstone of the genre that I'd somehow never heard until now, is a fantastic entry point into one of the coolest American sounds of the century.

Killing Me Softly - Spring Promo '26

Killing Me Softly are a metalcore band from Leeds who've been around for a few years now, but didn't catch my ear until they dropped an incredible EP on Streets of Hate/Northern Unrest last year. Now they've returned with a two-song promo ahead of their journey to the States this summer, and I'm seriously considering going back to fucking Syracuse to see them play with Sin Against Sin. That's how good these songs are. The easiest way I can describe Killing Me Softly is: what if Converge's "The Saddest Day" was a band? Their songs are shrieky and psychotic, bolting in dynamic directions you didn't expect them to take. But they always serve you up a fucking devastating mosh part that, like "The Saddest Day," makes me want to flail in my bedroom until something breaks.

Hood - "Boer Farmstead"

I was listening this mix that features a Betty Hammerschlag song at the top when suddenly I heard something that made me stop poking around my phone and say, "what the hell is this?" It was "Boer Farmstead," a song by the relatively obscure English post-rock band Hood, who I'd never heard before this week. I still haven't heard any songs other than "Boer Farmstead" because this song is so fucking magical that I want it to play on loop for hours.

Late-90s post-rock of the Labradford/Bark Psychosis variety is what you're getting here, but this track has such a light, liminal quality that really does capture the cold glow of the morning sunrise captured on its cover. It's basically one big loop of jazzy, minimalist drumming and boney guitar noodles speckled with murmuring flutes and purring clarinets. The repetitive female vocal sounds like a melody she's working out in her head while she wanders solo through the woods, muttering under her breath to keep herself company. Maybe next week I'll listen to the other songs on this album. Or maybe not.

Swash - Powers of Ten

I listen to a lot of music from Copenhagen these days that has a very specific Nordic sensibility (cloud-rock). Swash, on the other hand, are a Denmark group who sound more American than most modern Brooklyn bands. The cover art for their new LP, Powers of Ten, screams Parquet Courts (a band I love) and everything about their sound reminds me of 2010s East Coast indie, but not in a boring, reductive way. Swash have clearly studied the blade of Exploding in Sound Records, as there're shards of LVL Up, Washer, and even Ovlov to pick out among these nine sturdy, fuzz-filled bummer bangers.

Poison Ruïn, The Serfs live @ 222 Ormsby

I saw Poison Ruïn again. If you recall, while reviewing the badass lead single from their new album Hymns From the Hills, I mentioned that I hadn't really liked their live show the first couple times I saw them. I thought their music became samey after a few songs and the repetitive mid-tempo trots started to make my eyes glaze over. I liked them better this time. For one, they opened the show with "Lily of the Valley," the darkened power-pop song that kicks off their new record, which is definitely my favorite Poison Ruïn track at this point. While watching them play that and some other melody-forward rockers from their new joint, I realized that Poison Ruïn are basically a rock & roll-inclined power-pop band (Cheap Trick, Kiss) trapped in the shell of a d-beat band.

D-beat is the dullest of the hardcore sub-genres, so when they're in that mode, unless the track has savory licks like "Eidolon," I really can't muster the enthusiasm to care. But when they're playing songs like "Lily of the Valley" and "Hymns for the Hills," I'm rockin'. Though not as hard as I was rocking with their tourmates The Serfs. The Cincinnati trio (featuring at least one member of post-punk greats The Drin) played an utterly mesmerizing set of minimalist synth-punk that sounded like a more tranced-out Suicide or a less cornball Sisters of Mercy. Drummer-vocalist Dylan McCartney pounded militantly on a stand-up kit that included a clangy slab of thin metal (pictured above), while his two bandmates delivered synth leads and basslines that were alluringly danceable and also narcotically catchy. When McCartney yanked out a harmonica to wail between his smokey huffs, I was sold. See this fucking band.

Chasing Down

Scott Turner
of
Hooky

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

Hooky are a band I've covered a lot on Chasing Sundays – because I love them. The Philly duo of Scott Turner and Sam Silbert are signed to Philly powerhouse Julia's War Recordings, and though a couple of their tracks crossbreed with shoegaze, and the band have recently toured with TAGABOW, Feeble Little Horse, and Her New Knife, Hooky are on their own tip. Their new beat tape, World Music, is a grip of mostly instrumental electronic music that has all the neo-psychy lo-fi charm of Hooky's older stuff, but bangs harder than anything they've ever released. "They Live" is a chopped-up trap knocker with misty synths that remind me of chillwave, but bass that's deep enough to host a drill rapper's haunting boasts. In between songs like that and the trancey "Gushers," it's just hackey-sack vibes.

For this week's Chasing Down Q&A, I asked Turner about fucking with shoegaze fans, mash-up music, wook art, chillwave and more. Read the full interview below – and the 50-plus others in the archive, with a new one added each week.