Chasing Fridays: untitled (halo), Rio Da Yung OG live, Computerwife Q&A, more

A couple things at the top. 1) I reviewed the new Living Weapon album for Pitchfork, which received the highest score of any album I've written about over there. And deservedly so. 2) You can still pre-order my book, "When the Sun Hits: The High-Volume History of Shoegaze," via most digital retailers in the U.S. (and soon in the UK, Europe, and other parts of the world as well!). Thanks to everyone who's pre-ordered thus far, it means a lot and is super helpful to my book's rollout. Learn more about it here.

And now for this week's Chasing Fridays. I wrote about the impressive new single from the cool kids of cloud-rock, shared my experiences at the Greg Mendez and Rio Da Yung OG shows, and then interviewed the grunge/shoegaze/bedroom-pop criss-crosser Computerwife, who just announced a new album that's been previewed by two of the best songs she's ever released. I've wanted to get a proper Computerwife writeup on Chasing Sundays for a while, and she was an amazing interview subject who answered all of my questions honestly and thoroughly. You're gonna love it.

untitled (halo) - "aimee lou wood freestyle"

There are a couple things about this new untitled (halo) song that surprised me. One is that they're on Dirty Hit now, which makes sense considering they're a trendy band from L.A. with a strong visual aesthetic, but it still took me aback for some reason. Maybe it's because untitled (halo) have always been a vibes-based cloud-rock band that I never found to be particularly interesting, though not offensively bad either. I liked their fizzy, oily 2023 EP, towncryer, well enough, and a couple of their singles have perked my ears up over the years. But untitled (halo) have never made a song as singular as "aimee lou wood freestyle," which is one of the boldest "indie-rock" songs I've heard all year.

I've written a lot about the ongoing cross-pollination between internet rap and internet indie in recent years, but "aimee lou wood freestyle" is the first song I've heard that confidently stretches beyond aesthetic signifiers and actually attempts to hybridize the two styles in a novel way. This is basically a shoegaze song laid atop a jerk beat, or a cloud-rock song with a rap verse from a member of untitled (halo) who sounds like Bladee. deer park's turbid production for Jawnino's "Mattress" approached this sound, but untitled (halo) go one step further by incorporating staticky shoegaze fuzz that sears the edges of the mix while the band's vocalists – one dreamy, the other domineering – drift over the beat like barbecue smoke.

It's still missing the memorable hooks that separate the good cloud-rock (Chanel Beads) from the boring (RIP Swirl), but I admire that untitled (halo) have the guts to truly go for it in a way most other dream-rockers never would.

Greg Mendez, Maria BC live @ Bottlerocket

It's simply astounding to me how good Greg Mendez is. This was my third time seeing the Philly singer-songwriter, who I foolishly dismissed during the hype cycle that followed his 2023 LP, but then passionately came around to the following year after seeing him perform a couple times. I normally wouldn't expect a soloist who makes mousy, minute-and-change pop songs with an acoustic guitar and a tiny Casio to excel in the live environment, but I actually think that's the best way to experience Mendez's music. After a stark, hypnotic set of ethereal chamber-folk from his tourmate Maria BC, Mendez casually strutted through the crowd and took his place on the stage.

Seated, slouched-over, and eyes permanently cast downward, he began slinging out songs with the measured consistency of someone skipping stones while lost in thought. Each one sounded exactly like they do on his records; shrewdly simple in a way that's deceptively complex; honest not by choice, but by necessity; bewilderingly catchy yet always a little bit embarrassed of their own spellbinding allure. Mendez's power is in the numbers. Every song is great on its own merits, but what had me rapt was watching him play one after the other without an ounce of showmanship to distract from each tune's unspooling of secrets. And when he was done, he smiled nervously, stood up, and darted right through the crowd again. As unassuming as a fellow stranger on the subway.

10 thoughts on Rio Da Yung OG live @ Mr. Smalls

At this point, it's safe to call Rio Da Yung OG one of my favorite rappers. I've listened to the Flint MC more than most artists in 2026, which started with me playing catch-up to 2025's F.L.I.N.T. at the top of this year, and then never taking that album – or any of his other tapes – out of my weekly rotation. When I saw the workhorse rapper was coming through Pittsburgh this summer, I knew I had to shell out the $50 to see him, and I'm glad I did. Below are 10 thoughts on his performance at Pittsburgh's Mr. Smalls Theatre – because Rio likes numbers, and I do, too.

1) The openers for this show were a crew of Pittsburgh rappers led by the boisterous manager/MC Tjuan Benafactor, a 44-year-old who spent most of his time on stage instructing the crowd of 20-year-olds to follow him on Instagram. I made a pact with myself during his set that I would put more effort into tapping into Pittsburgh's local rap scene, because there's no way in hell that a guy with 2,000 monthly Spotify listeners bragging about his alleged platinum records with Snoop Dogg and his stash of unreleased tracks with DMX is the best this city has to offer right now.

2) I genuinely had no idea what the crowd size or demographic makeup of this show would be, but I snatched my ticket online a couple days prior in case it sold out. It did not. The 800-capacity venue was at most 1/5th full, which could've been because the show wasn't promoted well, or because Pittsburgh's rap scene is – as I've noted in previous articles – pretty dismal right now. The people who were there – mostly late teens and early twenty-somethings, though also a couple middle-age high-rollers in the VIP section intermittently making it rain with flurries of ones – were extremely stoked to see Rio at least, which was heartening.

3) Rio's DJ warmed the crowd up with a hodge-podge of zillennial anthems that every kid around me rapped aloud intuitively. Chief Kief's "Faneto," Sheck Wes's "Mo Bamba," a YoungBoy song I didn't know the name of. The only Flint track I heard was Babyfxce E's "PTP," which did spark the floor alight and signaled that this audience was actually familiar with Rio's strain of regional rap.

4) Rio finally walked out to "RIO FREE," the first-day-out title-track from his 2025 tape that celebrated his release from prison after serving three years of a five-year sentence. The phones stayed up while people yelled along during the beat cuts, and Rio stalked the stage with a casual slickness. He looked relaxed.

5) It didn't take long for him to play "Different Music," the scene-setting intro to F.L.I.N.T. where he raps about crying his first tears in years when he called home from prison to learn that Flint rapper Baby Ju died. Rio's mouth flashed a frown when he rapped that line, but then he was back in celebratory mode a couple bars later: "Goin' broke the only thing that I fear," I sang back in unison with some youths to my right who knew every word all night.

6) Rio's a perfectly capable artist on his own, but his chemistry with frequent collaborators like Rmc Mike and YN Jay is a huge part of his discography's appeal. I was a little bummed that neither of those guys were tagging along on this tour, but a few tracks into his set, Rio announced that there was a special guest in the building – and it was YN Jay! The Coochie Man himself! Only about half of the people in the room seemed to know who he was, but his cheerful presence onstage clearly warmed Rio's heart and made the show feel like more of a family affair.

7) YN Jay rapped a couple solo songs, did a couple tracks with Rio – including the newly released "Sneaky Beat" – and then just hung around all night with the 15-man posse that lined the perimeter of the stage. My favorite YN Jay moment was a brief freestyle battle between him and Rio that didn't last long because Rio clearly had the upper hand.

8) My favorite song Rio played was "Great Day," where he he starts off by rapping, "It's a great day, I made a hundred racks/I just checked my bank account and did jumping jacks." He did not do jumping jacks onstage during that bar, but it would've been cool if he did.

9) Rio ended the night by playing his biggest song, "Legendary," three times straight. It's a great track from his 2019 album 2 Faced, and all phones went up to capture it – including several people filming on Snapchat live, which is hilarious to see young people actually using. I was a little bummed, though, at how emphatically people yelled along to the coarse transphobic bar in the song's climax. An unfortunate part of Rio's oeuvre is the abundance of violently misogynistic bars that especially turn up on his otherwise great mixtapes with Rmc Mike, Dumb and Dumb3r and Dum and Dumber Too. It's disappointing, but so it goes I guess.

10) Literal seconds after Rio strolled offstage, most of the crowd began bolting for the doors as if there was a free money truck waiting outside. YN Jay and a couple other posse members lingered on the stage for a minute or so after, and I got the impression that Rio probably would've done an encore if the room cheered for it, but for whatever reason these kids didn't want that. Or didn't know they could ask for that? I've never seen teenagers dip so quickly at the end of a show. Maybe they just didn't want to get harassed by Benafactor, who was lumbering through the audience at the end of the night forcing t-shirts onto people who clearly didn't want them. My god, Pittsburgh needs a reset.

Chasing Down

Addie Warncke 
of
Computerwife

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

I was wondering when Computerwife would return with a new album, and this week we finally got the good word. The NYC band led by musician Addie Warncke dropped a self-titled LP in 2023 that, at the time, felt part of the surrounding lo-fi shoegaze boom. In hindsight, it's clear that Computerwife was – and remains – on a refreshingly different tip. Computerwife wasn't so much bedroom-pop as it was bedrot-pop: dim, foggy, caked in a self-imposed layer of soot. The two singles from her new album, Born From a Wish, add just enough levity to her sound to make them fun to listen to, which is a new sensation in Computerwife's catalogue. "Foreverrr" is a brisk, buoyant grunge-pop number, and "Nobody" is a fleshed-out ripper with a teeth-grinding guitar lick that properly rawks. I love it.

For this week's Chasing Down Q&A, I learned about Warncke's very specific influences ranging from Autolux to Airiel, her boredom with shoegaze, the way becoming a pro musician pulls you away from a local scene, why she likes to write with a preconceived structure, some of the most life-changing artists she's ever heard, and much more.

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