Chasing Fridays: Water From Your Eyes Q&A, Double Virgo, She's Green, more

I am, as the saying goes, so back. I took last week off from Chasing Fridays because I was in the Finger Lakes with my family doing Western New York shit (swimming, bonfires, listening to Midwife in my headphones while my family did a wine tasting). It was relaxing, but I honestly had nearly as much fun returning to my blogging post this week and writing about the below platter of new releases.

I realize my newsletter hasn't been super shoegazey lately, so I wrote about five projects this week that could qualify as such. As well as some emo, some outré rawk 'n' roll, and something that could meet Nina Protocol's qualifications for "cloud-rock." I also did a really fun little Q&A with Water From Your Eyes singer Rachel Brown, whose music I largely adore and whose personal taste I greatly align with.

Total Wife - "second spring"

It made me really happy to learn that Total Wife are dropping a new album on Julia's War this fall. The Nashville shoegaze band's 2022 LP, a blip, is one of the best, most underrated 'gaze albums of its era, and while 2023's in/out didn't catch me in quite the same way, this new single "second spring" is an absolute gem. Everyone's feeling a little fatigued by the shoegaze revival right now. Yes, even me. But when I hear a song like "second spring" in my headphones, the way the guitars lurch out of tune and enflame with distortion like a disturbed hornet's nest, how the chirping vocals float around the mix like a lime rind bobbing in a bottle of Corona, the way the drums pile-drive and clatter like a cordless jackhammer, my "days since I last heard a good shoegaze song" ticker resets. And I'm reminded of just how lucky we are to be living in the era of bands like Total Wife.

Double Virgo - Shakedown

Double Virgo are a band that two members of bar italia played in prior to the latter group's takeoff. People six to 10 years younger than me really love bar italia for some reason, but I've never found them all that remarkable. Regardless, I checked out Shakedown, the new Double Virgo record, because it came out on year0001, the Swedish label that was best known for hosting Bladee and his Drain Gang cohorts before they departed late last year. Now, with bands like Horse Vision and full body 2 on their roster, year0001 are reinventing themselves as a reliable hub for chic alt-rock with an internet-savvy aesthetic. Unlike the spindly Horse Vision and the gauzy Full Body 2, Double Virgo are an out-and-out, hip-hip-hooray, grab-yer-mates-and-raise-a-pint Rock Band – despite presenting themselves as outré oddballs.

Their sound is a anglophilic patchwork of snarky proto-punk. scraggly Britpop, and Libertines-y garage-pomp that sounds like it's trying to be conservatively retro and subversively modern at the same time. On a whole, that tension – the sheer number of awkwardly weird, awesomely conventional ideas clashing and congealing in amusing, exciting, dull, grating ways – makes Shakedown a rock record that's both fun and puzzling to listen to. On a song-to-song basis, the results are less consistent. The shoehorned electroclash beats and baggy post-production distract from Double Virgo's natural inclination to rollick and roar. When they're banging on their guitars with a boozy abandon and singing like they're 12 drinks deep in a hotel lobby at 3 a.m., I'm enamored. When they try dropping in the alarm sound from Kanye's "I Am a God" into a Stoned and Dethroned-era Jesus and Mary Chain cut, I'm rolling my eyes. But hey, at least every song on Shakedown elicits a reaction.

She's Green - "Willow"

She's Green are one of the most-hyped shoegaze bands without an album out. I began seeing the Minneapolis group's name thrown around late last year, and then they earned significant buzz touring with Glixen earlier this winter. None of their previous singles have left any real impression on me, and I thought their set in Pittsburgh was, even as far as shoegaze shows go, rather boring. This new song, "Willow," has begun chiseling away at my indifference, but I'm still not fully there.

She's Green singer Zofia Smith can belt high notes that are normally reserved for the Alvvays's of the scene, and their drummer Kevin Seebeck plays with serious inertia, throwing in some kinetic fills toward the end that rebuff the band's frequent Slowdive comparisons. What's lacking are the guitars, which grab hold of a chiming glide note and then hang there limply. The effects and production choices are what most resemble Slowdive on "Willow," and I actually think She's Green would be better-suited with a dryer, dirtier palette. Not to sound heavier, but to emphasize their biggest trump card: Smith's candescent voice.

There are two types of shoegaze bands: slurry and articulate. Most bands are the former simply because it's easier to pile on more reverb, more layers, more harmonies until a song has that waterlogged blush. Articulation within the shoegaze framework is more difficult because it requires tactful songwriting, more sophisticated production techniques, and, chiefly, better musicians. I believe She's Green think they have to settle for being a slurry shoegaze band when in fact their arsenal (Smith's voice, Seebeck's drums, the riffing these guitarists are capable of, as heard on their best song, "Graze") is better suited for sturdier packaging.

ear - "Fetish"/"Valley Serpent"

My internet pal Madeline Frino – a.k.a. The Most Tapped-In Girl in NY – put me onto this two-songer about a month back, and I haven't stopped returning to it when I want to hear something that makes me go, "damn, what will you think of next, upstate NY private liberal arts school kids?" The first song, "Fetish," sounds like Water From Your Eyes remixing an ML Buch song. Glitchy breakbeats, synths you can feel between your teeth, and chopped-up vocals that arpeggiate like a gif of dominos toppling. "Valley Serpent" is closer to the abstract pop of claire rousay's oeuvre, though with a charged-up beat of its own that sparks and jabbers until it's sucked into the ether. At which point it's time to run 'em both back.

Fernando Motta - Movimento Algum

I've got two pieces of advice for aspiring music writers: 1) never read the comments 2) always check the emails. If I didn't open Fernando Motta's message in my inbox, then I may never have heard the Brazilian artist's new album Movimento Algum, and that would've been a shame. This verdant shoegaze epic imagines if Parannoul went hi-fi; if M83 never abandoned the sound of Dead Cities...; if bdrmm's widescale Britgaze didn't feel so precious and overwrought. I'm honestly floored by how clean this record sounds without ever wearing the stupefied expression that so many glassy-eyed 'gazers who want to get a little psychedelic – a little Radiohead – with it feel compelled to put on. To me, the majority of modern shoegaze bands attempting to capture the regal glisten of Slowdive or the cumulus fluff of Airiel just sound artificially sweetened. Movimento Algum reinforces that with masterful production and great songwriting, shoegaze's organic flavor remains unparalleled.

Aunt Katrina - This Heat Is Slowly Killing Me

I wrote about the first single from this record, but I'm making a point to big-up the full release because it's preposterous that this isn't already huge. It bears mentioning that Aunt Katrina are helmed by ex-Feeble Little Horse co-founder Ryan Walchonski. It also bears mentioning that this group don't sound that much like FLH and deserve to be digested and enjoyed on their own terms. What's familiar? The pop efficiency, the stray shoegaze gusts, the attic crawlspace obliqueness of it all. What's new? Warmer production, more fanned-out arrangements, and hooks – sometimes played on a guitar, mind you – that are svelter, cozier, and more atmospherically rich than what most indie bands of Aunt Katrina's ilk are capable of writing.

Vivienne Eastwood - Take Care

When my friend sent me this record, I initially assumed that Vivienne Eastwood was some 2020s-born shoegaze soloist crafting their sound in the image of DIIV and TAGABOW. As it turns out, this New York band date back to the early 2010s, and their early music sounds like the chillwavey dream-pop of its time. Take Care has traces of the early Captured Tracks sound, but I like how this record rearranges those pieces into a contemporary format. "Demise" uses auto-tune to juxtapose the chilly bassline, and the effect is used again in "Ancient Signs," a standout that shovels layers of sod-like fuzz onto the otherwise sprightly, vaporous set. I think this brisk, 22-minute jaunt would pair well with that new Photographic Memory album, It Looks Sad.'s Sky Lake, and the original Small Black EP.

Jejune - "Greyscale"

I was listening to that First Day Back album a good bit and my dear friend/Violent Treatment collaborator Hugo Reyes recommended I try this emo jawn on for size. I live in this song now. It's my new uniform. I'm never taking it off. Jejune are a long-dead Boston emo band from the late 90s who're currently getting the reissue treatment from Numero. "Greyscale" is a song from their 1997 album Junk, and it's one of those eternally great emo songs that has that ineffable 90s sound that can never be replicated even by the greatest revival-era bands. It has the explosively angsty loud/soft dynamics of Sunny Day Real Estate's "In Circles," and I'd like to think, though I can't confirm, that the beautifully oppressive volume of those guitars are equally inspired by their Boston scene elders in Swirlies. Is "Greyscale" shoegaze? Not even close. But it's an emo song with shoegaze's torrential impact.

Chasing Down

RACHEL BROWN
of
Water From Your Eyes, thanks for coming

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

You know when you show up to the house show too early, putter around the back of the space while the bands are still loading in, realize your presence is unwanted, decide to take a few laps around the block – but then get caught up with something else and don't return until the show is already halfway over? That's my relationship with Water From Your Eyes. As I wrote last year, I enjoyed their late-2010s records when nobody really talked about them, and then slept on their music until 2023's Everyone's Crushed – which I reviewed for Endless Scroll and didn't like very much. Then I saw them live in early 2024 and was so gobsmacked that I went back to 2021's Structure and had that LP in regular rotation all of last year.

Now I'm all caught up. Water From Your Eyes' new album, It's A Beautiful Place, arrives next month and I think both the singles are glorious. "Life Signs" is a skronky, teeth-grinding art-rock ripper, and "Playing Classics" is a transcendent disco voyage that evokes the taut, mesmerizing jams that are a cornerstone of WFYE's live show. I love the way this band – and This Is Lorelei, WFYE guitarist Nate Amos' solo project – utilize repetition and build their songs out like labyrinthian marble mazes constructed with wacky twists and streamlined straight-aways.

For this week's Chasing Down, I asked WFYE frontperson Rachel Brown (who also makes music as thanks for coming) about pop music, Lana Del Rey, the most underrated Brooklyn band, WFYE's new music, and more. Read the full Q&A below.

What was the last song you heard that made you cry? Why did it get ya like that? 

I feel like the last time I cried listening to a song was “Everything Is Embarrassing” by Sky Ferreira on New Year’s day. First of all, perfect song. Second of all, I really relate — or more so, related, past tense — to the narrative of the song. On this particular occasion I was worried I was going to find myself in the exact same situation again. 

According to this playlist of yours, you're a pretty big Lana fan. What's your go-to Lana song and why? (mine is "California" fwiw)

Mine is also "California" lol. I listened to it multiple times a day while I was in Europe last fall. I am a recent Lana convert, not to say I haven’t always appreciated her music, but last summer really drove it home for me as a self proclaimed fan. "California" is just so beautiful and catchy, it has everything I want to feel when I listen to music.