Art-pop duo Water From Your Eyes coming to Regency Ballroom

Originally published in the SF Examiner on February 21

Listening to Water From Your Eyes — the New York art-pop duo that will be playing at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on Feb. 27 — can make for an utterly delirious experience.

The sonic backdrop for their songs is hallucinatory and wildly energetic, arrays of jagged guitars slicing through jittery synth compositions and throbbing rhythm movements.

The instruments all blend and merge together — not in the wall-of-sound shoegaze style, but in an alien, minimalist manner in which the original aims and purposes of each tool are deliberately upended.

On top of this beguiling combination is the dispassionate and deadpan vocal delivery of singer Rachel Brown, who emerges above the instrumental chaos with an almost angelic serenity. Brown, who uses they/them pronouns, gives the distinct impression of someone who stops by a riotous all-night rave purely for the refreshments.

“You know, when it comes to my delivery, I’m mostly just trying to enunciate my words correctly,” Brown said. “I feel like I talk pretty dryly most of the time, and that translates into how I sing. I don’t get that animated too often, unless it’s about pretty stupid stuff.”

Brown’s vocal takes might be unconventional, but they only add an illusory excitement to the work of Water From Your Eyes, a disparate approach that can make each song feel like a mystery to unlock. On the group’s latest album, 2023’s “Everyone’s Crushed,” the band’s fearlessness is taken to new heights, with traditional song structures and tropes eschewed in favor of relentless exploration.

“When we’re working on recording the vocals and doing the lyrics, the way Rachel handles everything is very natural,” said Nate Amos, the other half of the duo.

“It almost feels detached from what’s going on in the words, but that’s kind of what makes it all work,” Amos said. “I feel like not emphasizing a particular emotion in the vocal delivery turns the song into a little bit more of an inkblot. Then it can be interpreted in different ways rather than like, ‘Oh, this person sounds so sad or so happy or whatever.’”

Water from Your Eyes started nearly a decade ago, when Amos and Brown were both living in Chicago. The two were dating, but they eventually split up, and Brown relocated to New York City. Intent on maintaining their burgeoning musical collaboration, Amos moved to New York as well, and the band has steadily developed and evolved its sound over the course of five full-length albums.

The early catalog of the band is more steeped in traditional indie-rock settings, with acoustic guitars and soothing synths accompanying Brown’s expressive and expansive singing style. The duo continued to venture outside of those familiar terrains for each successive album, culminating in the adventurous atmosphere of “Everyone’s Crushed,” which was released on the legendary indie label Matador Records. Each track acts as a palate cleanser, providing an alternative reality to its successor song. The tunes include brooding, scratchy industrial offerings (“Open”), austere ballads (“14”) and sleekly polished club bangers (“Out There.”)

“I actually thought, at the time we were making this album, that it was all pretty tame,” Amos said. “There was definitely no intention of like, ‘Let’s really push it with this one’, although I guess I see why some people might think it’s a little weird.”

Despite the uncommon nature of the album, it was widely celebrated, landing on best-of-2023 lists from outlets such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Pitchfork.

“It’s been really nice to see how this has been received,” Brown said. “It’s kind of been unbelievable in a way that I know this is all happening, because I’ve seen it. But in no way has any of this registered.”

The duo has come a long way from its early beginnings, a sentiment that can be best distilled from the music video for “Barley,” a propulsive track highlighted by Brown’s brazenly monotone opening line, “One, two, three, four/I count mountains.” In that video, Brown and Amos play corporate drones working in a joyless, fluorescent-lighted office space.

“Neither of us have had typical office jobs before, but we’ve both had these very frustrating jobs in the past,” Amos said. “I think we both have a greater appreciation for where we’re at now after doing that kind of work.”

Delightfully offbeat Being Dead can't wait for first-ever SF performance

Originally published in the SF Examiner on February 21

According to Being Dead, the Austin-based group that performing at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco on Sunday, the band’s origins can be traced back to its two founding members.

Both of them had a special appreciation for the unvarnished wonders of the human body.

“We were actually in rival nudist colonies, and we met after they merged together,” said Cody Dosier, who more commonly goes by his nom de plume, Gumball. “But it turned out to be a very aggressive community and everything became very degrading. And we both decided that we weren’t having fun doing that anymore and that we should challenge ourselves by creating art — by making music.”

Sounds like a heartwarming story — but Dosier and his creative partner Juli Keller (who goes by Falcon B----) don’t always stick to it. They’ve also told reporters that they met at Yale University, at a Cinnabon bakery and at their 10-year high school reunion.

Regardless of the band’s true past, what’s most exciting about Being Dead is what they’re doing these days. The band’s long-awaited full-length debut, “When Horses Would Run,” which arrived last year, is a kaleidoscopic collection of art-rock, garage, psychedelic, pop and lo-fi tunes.

“There wasn’t some masterful design with the album — we just have a lot of different kinds of musical tastes,” said Falcon B----. “We tried to put things together and weave them all into one interesting piece. Then we just kind of crossed our fingers that the outcome would be fun. It feels like an adventure that way.”

The songs range from delightfully offbeat gospel tunes (“God vs. Bible”) to careening surf-rock anthems (“The Great American Picnic”), to jazzy renditions of female empowerment (“Muriel’s Big Day Off”). And of course, no album is complete without a mission statement hyping up the band’s aim of “having a good time” (“We Are Being Dead”).

Somehow, it all works — listening to the album feels exactly like the kind of winsome journey hoped for by Falcon B----.

It can be fun to play spot the influences on the album — there is the shrill dexterity of icy post-punk group Women; the reckless, nobody’s-behind-the-wheel manic energy of Dehd; and the ebullient, adventurous nature of the Unicorns — but collectively, the sound is pure Being Dead: a singular and unique output.

“Considering that we basically just threw random darts at a dartboard, the album sounds pretty cohesive,” Falcon B---- said. “There were a number of influences we wanted to include, but it was pretty much all improv. It works, but that’s just mostly by chance.”

The rollicking sonic landscape of “When Horses Would Run” is matched by equally evocative lyricism, with Falcon B---- and Gumball detailing mythical creatures, strange cult scenes and images of suburban ennui. They have an endearing soft spot for animals, particularly the equines that make up the album title.

“Horses are very strong, and they’re actually the fastest land animals in the world,” Gumball said. “It’s called horsepower for a reason. I’ve never heard of anything called cheetah power.”

While “When Horses Would Run” marks the band’s first full-length recording, the band has been playing live since 2016 and has built up quite the cult following, particularly in its hometown of Austin, Texas. Their frenetic shows have a reputation for being surreal pieces of performance art, with the occasional audience plant provoking the band into increasingly outlandish acts of onstage zaniness.

“We’ve always had this small underground following, which has been pretty neat,” Falcon B---- said. “It definitely makes the shows more fun and interesting.”

Falcon B---- and Gumball — who are joined in the band by bassist Ricky Moto— are already working on their follow-up album to “When Horses Would Run,” which they hope to release this fall. Their current tour, in which they are opening for the atmospheric act Husbands, is the most extensive of their career to date, and they have plans to visit Europe and the U.K. in 2024 as well.

Sunday’s show at the Rickshaw Stop will be the band’s first-ever appearance in San Francisco, a moment its members are eagerly anticipating.

“I was planning on living in San Francisco for a while, but I have never been there in my adult life,” Falcon B---- said. “I can’t wait to go to Golden Gate Park and look at sailboats crisscrossing the big blue ocean. We both think San Francisco is a great city.”

It might not be a nudist colony (or a Cinnabon), but with its long history of proudly celebrating unconventional characters, San Francisco seems like the perfect venue to host Being Dead.

Snail Mail to host two days of music at Great American Music Hall as part of annual Noise Pop fest

Originally posted in the SF Examiner on February 21

If you are fortunate enough to run into Snail Mail singer-songwriter Lindsey Jordan in public these days, you’ll probably notice that she’s holding a camera or a phone to document the moment.

Jordan first burst upon the scene nearly a decade ago as a precocious wunderkind, releasing her debut EP, “Habit” as a 16-year-old. Her first full-length album — 2018’s “Lush,” a fully-formed collection of wistful indie-pop songs — landed her on endless music publication lists for album of the year.

Yet during those halcyon early days, when she was touring relentlessly and playing nonstop, Jordan had little time to reflect and appreciate the uniqueness of her situation. Now, she said, she has a renewed focus on capturing and cherishing the ephemera of her prodigious music career.

“I’m way more in like an archivist period in my life,” said Jordan, now 24. “I’m keeping passes and souvenirs from everywhere now. When everything first happened, it was just so much, so fast, and it wasn’t like I wasn’t grateful for everything, but it just didn’t really register. Now, I want to take a lot of pictures and, you know, keep wristbands and just try to appreciate everything a little more.”

Expect plenty of Polaroids to snap on March 1 and 2, when Snail Mail hosts two days of music at the Great American Music Hall. A festival-within-a-festival, the two shows are being billed as the second annual Valentine West, an event curated by Jordan featuring some of her favorite artists (the event title is a tribute to her sophomore album, “Valentine.”).

The two-day gathering will be a highlight of this year’s Noise Pop Music and Arts Festival, an annual weeklong-plus music event that takes place in multiple venues throughout the Bay Area.

This year’s Noise Pop lineup features legendary hip-hop group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, lo-fi troubadour John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, and avant-garde impresario Laetitia Sadier of the post-rock outfit Stereolab, among more than 100 other acts.

There will be plenty of Bay Area groups included in that lineup, including ubiquitous musician Stephen Steinbrink, who will open for Snail Mail on March 1, and Richmond district dream-poppers The Reds, Pink and Purples, who will take the stage March 2.

“We toured a little with Stephen when he was playing in [now-disbanded] Girlpool and just became massive fans of his work,” said Jordan. “I haven’t been following the San Francisco scene super closely, but every band I’ve heard from The City, I’ve really liked.”

Valentine West will be one of only a handful of live dates for Jordan and Snail Mail this year. Even though it’s been more than two years since the release of “Valentine,” Jordan said she is intent on keeping up a semi-regular touring schedule for Snail Mail (which is a multipiece ensemble live) to keep its performances tight, and also to ensure that the band stays on people’s peripheries in an age of ever-dwindling attention spans.

She’s also mindful of maintaining a healthy approach to her work. Following the runaway smash success of “Lush,” Jordan said she struggled with the overwhelming stress that accompanied the whirlwind life of a musician.

Despite those challenges and a lingering sense of outsized expectations entering her second album, Jordan managed to dazzle again with “Valentine,” which was released in 2021. Featuring slight changes to her vocal inflections, more emphasis on gauzy synth work (Jordan is a highly celebrated guitarist) and increasingly mature lyrical interplay, “Valentine” represented the next logical evolution of a talented artist.

“I’m really proud of that album, because I was just going through so many natural disasters in my life at the time,” Jordan said. “Coming off ‘Lush,’ I was putting myself through the wringer, asking myself, ‘How am I going to do this again?’ But eventually I was able to navigate things and I just feel so much better as a result of that experience.”

Jordan said she’s working on new material, although she doesn’t have a definitive timetable for the next Snail Mail record. She said she doesn’t want to push the album too far out, though, because she understands just how precious the opportunity she has at the moment.

“I started this thing off as this teenage pop project, which always made me worried that people’s attention would kind of fade away after the whole teenager thing kind of died down,” she said. “I was always nervous that I wouldn’t be able to come up with enough songs to keep us from fading into obscurity, so it’s been so important for me to keep myself out there and continue pushing myself as an artist.

“But I feel like I know what it takes to keep the Snail Mail ship running now. It’s kind of a rickety pirate ship at times, but we make it work.”

Adventurous art-rock outfit Mandy, Indiana to make its SF debut Friday

Originally posted in the SF Examiner on December 7, 2022

One of the great joys of listening to Mandy, Indiana’s debut full-length album, “I’ve Seen a Way,” is not knowing what comes next.

At one moment, the band is a sleek synth-pop group, writing tunes made for the dance floor. Later, it's a grimy industrial outfit, making music you’d hear in the dimly-lit underground clubs of Berlin or Paris. Then suddenly, it's a brainy and cerebral art-rock unit, creating thought-provoking tracks that challenge the notion of traditional song structures.

That dizzying combination is by choice. While every number shares one unifying commonality — an urgent, latent sense of angry defiance — the eclectic array of musical approaches was meant to push the boundaries of what kind of songs can and should correspond with another, according to the band’s founder, Scott Fair.

“A lot of album writing is kind of contrived — like, there are instances where people are telling themselves, ‘oh, we need a ballad here,’ or ‘now we need a fast song here,’ and there’s not much thought beyond that” Fair said. “We looked at this album as an opportunity to put the most jarring elements together to see if they could work.”

Despite the rebellious nature of the album, it has been a hit with fans and critics. Pitchfork recently named “I’ve Seen a Way” No. 20 on its list of the best releases of 2023, and the band just played a raucous sold-out show in Brooklyn. On Friday, it will make its San Francisco debut with a performance at the Brick and Mortar Music Hall.

The roots of Mandy, Indiana can be traced back to 2016, when Fair and vocalist Valentine Caulfield met in Manchester, England, while playing a show together with some of their former bands.

The two both expressed an affinity for each other’s musical styles, and when their respective groups came to an end, they decided to link up for a new creative endeavor. Despite, the transcontinental nature of Mandy, Indiana — Fair, synth player Simon Catling and drummer Alex Macdougall are based in Manchester, while the French-born Caulfield is located in Berlin — the band was able to collaborate on songs that blended their diffuse and discordant musical tastes.

After years of experimenting together, the band (whose name is inspired by the ’90s cult teen show, “Eerie, Indiana,” about another fictional town in the Midwest) released a five-song EP in 2021 that generated significant notice in hippish music circles. The group took the template set out by that EP — random bursts of violent noise combined with irrepressible synth beats — and expanded it to create “I’ve Seen A Way,” which came out in May.

The band is uncompromising in its artistic vision, as the songs of “I’ve Seen a Way” lack anything resembling a chorus or traditional song arrangements — and Caulfield made the conscious decision to sing all the vocals in French.

“I come from a classical music background, and I was always inspired by the opera,” Caulfield said. “And a lot of times those songs are being sung in German and Italian, so one really understands what they’re saying, but people very much appreciate that sense of performance. And I wanted to replicate that feeling, because this band is really a way for me to perform.”

Despite the growing buzz surrounding their debut full-length album, the various members of Mandy, Indiana all kept their day jobs, a sense of economic security that they said contributed to the adventurous artistic nature of their work.

“This has never been a full-time thing for us — it’s a creative outlet that lives alongside our regular lives,” said Fair. “I think that’s actually quite liberating because it means we’ve never sort of focused on how to make it more commercially appealing or viable. We use this as an escape to be as kind of out there as we want to be, which is where our tendencies really lie. That gives us a lot of creative fulfillment.”

The sequencing of “I’ve Seen A Way” keeps the listener perpetually alarmed. A cavernous, clanging post-rock number (“Mosaick”) is followed immediately with an auto-tuned dance anthem (“The Driving Rain (18)”); a jaunting and stomping punk track (“Pinking Shears”) is paired with a nocturnal, darkwave offering (“Injury Detail”).

Anyone expecting convention and uniformity in their music will be sorely disappointed in this album — and that’s fine with the members of Mandy, Indiana.

“When we were making this album, I thought there would be like, at most, 50 people who would listen, but they would absolutely love it,” said Caulfield. “So, it’s been quite weird seeing how well it’s been received. It gives me hope that there is a space out there for weirdos like us.”