Club Night Embrace Friendship on Inspiring and Improbable New Album

Photo Credit: Marisa Bazan

“Oh, how I love my friends!”

Those are the endearing words achingly delivered from Club Night frontman Joshua Bertram roughly halfway the band’s long-anticipated and improbably great new album, “Joy Coming Down.”

That paean to companionship is one of the many stirring lyrics found in “Dream,” a zigging explosion of coiled tension, dramatic release and restless energy that serves as a thesis statement of sorts for the album. 

Because, while “Joy Coming Down” is about many heavy things—anger, sadness, regret and confusion—it is ultimately an album about friendship. The kind of friendship that survives real disappointment, upheaval and uncertainty. In short, the friendship that defines the collective bond that powers the members of Club Night.

“This record obviously took a long time to make, so when we started writing it, we weren’t the same people that we are now,” said bassist Devin Trainer. “I can only speak personally, but from my experience, the importance and the meaningfulness of our friendship has only multiplied over the years. It’s kind of all we have.”

That circle-the-wagons unity has been borne out of a seemingly endless series of professional setbacks and personal changes, which, when viewed as a whole, lead one to believe that the release of “Joy Coming Down”—out today—as something of a minor miracle.

Shortly after Club Night released their fiendishly exciting and visceral full length debut album “What Life,” their label and champion, Tiny Engines, imploded amidst a series of financial malfeasance accusations. (The label has since re-formed under the guidance of owner Will Miller, who was not involved in the fiscal shenanigans. Miller has been a long time supporter of  Club Night and fittingly “Joy Coming Down” is being issued on the reborn Tiny Engines.) 

The band had written plenty of material prior to the label troubles, but when the pandemic hit, the group essentially shut down operations for an entire year, feeling creatively stifled and uneasy making art during a time of global suffering. Following the pandemic, both Bertram and Trainer relocated, to Detroit and Portland respectively, leaving the band with only two members—guitarist Ian Tatum and drummer/programmer Nicholas Cowman—left in Oakland, where Club Night was formed.

Despite those litany of travails, the band remained disarmingly upbeat about the prospects of one day completing “Joy Coming Down.”

“I don’t ever remember thinking at any time that we weren’t going to finish this album,” said Cowman. “It took a long time, yes, but I never really doubted the final product.”

That final product is a deeply ambitious, wildly inventive epic, with “Joy Coming Down” definitively delivering on six years of promise. It may sound hyperbolic, but there is no band around that sounds quite like Club Night. 

While they might borrow intricate instrumentation techniques from Midwest emo legends Cap’n Jazz and Bertram’s dynamic delivery at times recalls UK indie rockers Los Campesinos!, there isn’t a group capable of shoehorning as many sounds, tempos, feelings and genres into a single finished product. 

Every track feels like an operatic suite, but where lesser bands might create that atmosphere through indulgent bombast, Club Night’s variegated approach is driven by pure, desperate emotion. There has never been a false note or a single point of artifice in Club Night’s catalog and “Joy Coming Down” is no exception.

The key to Club Night is a musical formula that can only be described as generous. Egalitarian to the core, Club Night songs are composed like a puzzle, with each member nestling their contribution within the bigger picture—all making their individual mark known without distracting from the end goal. Tatum’s guitar licks range from delicate, gossamer ribbons to thick, chunky riffs, Trainer and Cowman’s rhythmic concision forms the foundation of the sound and an array of samples and eerie voice manipulations add to the world-building feel of the music.

“I think our sound is kind of a product of necessity,” said Tatum. “It’s almost that DIY approach—as in, this is what we each bring to the table, so let’s see what we can do. A lot of times, Josh will bring us an idea and then we all take our turns kind of taking it apart and then putting it back together. That’s just how we work.”

That locked-in, utterly unique sonic output—call it math rock, art-rock, indie rock, whatever—would make “Joy Coming Down” an imminently listenable album even if it was filled with purely instrumental tracks. But that universe is amplified and expanded by Bertram’s unmistakable and endlessly rangy vocal contributions. Known in the past for his whimsical, waifish falsetto, Betram builds upon that high register for “Joy Coming Down” by adding dramatic baritone shouts and violent interjections, creating the impression of an ongoing conversation throughout the album.

“I take this job really seriously—it stresses me out to sing, because all these songs are so epic,” said Bertram. “All our instrumentation and composition is so beautiful and I don’t want to step over it with some bullshit. I’m so in awe of how talented these guys are and sometimes I get so excited singing over their music that I end up just blaring stuff out. For this album, I wanted to create something a little more dynamic—to almost have two vocalists with two different identities.”

Underpinning those energetic, tetchy vocal arrangements are Bertram’s most personal, moving and poetic lyrics to date. In the past, Bertram’s words were opaque and interpretative—beautiful fever dreams and streams of consciousness that felt like fragments of a reverie. On “Joy Coming Down,” his lyrics are more direct, focusing on both the universal and personal. There are screeds bemoaning the cyclical and cynical recklessness of political leaders (“Palace”) sitting alongside mournful elegies of familial loss (“Judah.”)

Towering over all the tracks is “Rabbit,” a glorious coda written in honor of Bertram’s musical mentor, Scott Hutchinson of Scottish band Frightened Rabbit, who tragically took his own life in 2018. For that song, Betram’s heart, aorta and ventricles are all laid bare, returning to the motif of thankfulness for friendship first explored in “Dream.” On “Rabbit,” he sings that he’s “found hope in the memories,” a moving ode for anyone who’s lost a loved one–something that’s achingly familiar for me personally.

As I have touched upon for this website, my good friend Nick recently passed away. I wrote about how music has helped keep his memory alive, so when I hear Bertram deliver those words it fills me with a rush of emotions—chief among them gratitude for having someone describe my feelings so deftly and delicately. 

It feels all the more meaningful coming from Betram—someone I’ve been friends with for several years now. Over that time, I’ve grown to know the other members of Club Night, and I can’t think of a more earnest, kind and authentic group of individuals.

That’s why it’s no surprise that “Joy Coming Down” is an homage to their friendship—a brimming, nontoxic and supportive fraternization. The album is bolstered by its two poles—“Rabbit” being an invocation and eulogy for those gone, and “Dream” being a reminder and celebration of those still here. That depth and significance is not lost upon the members of Club Night, like when they hear Betram sing “the kindness that you have shown/I am so grateful for” on “Dream.”

“It means everything to hear that,” said Trainer.  “That’s the main DNA of the band—our friendship is the central thing. It’s absolutely fucking enormous to hear those words from Josh.”

With their roster scattered across three states, it’s unclear what the path forward is for Club Night, but all the members of the band expressed interest in touring and supporting the album if it made sense logistically and financially. Regardless, the individuals of Club Night will remain connected, in one form or another.

“I hope these guys are aware of how desperate I am for their approval, because I respect them so much,” said Bertram. “They are my family. It’s not like we grew up with each other—we found each other through the music. This band has been a pretty amazing bonding agent.”

Lauren Matsui Embraces New, Softer Sound as Rhymies

Photo Credit: Jess Lynn Goss

Wherever Lauren Matsui plays music, loud noises tend to follow.

As the guitarist and vocalist for her shoegaze outfit Seablite, Matsui performs amidst a cacophony of swirling, dissonant feedback, a quaking wall of sound that is both viscerally violent and disarmingly beautiful. While helming bass duties for post-punk outfit Neutrals, her steady rhythmic output meshes within the waves of the band’s jagged, explosive guitar moments.

Her latest musical project, however, shies away from the raw instrumentation and outsized clamor that are defining elements of Neutrals and Seablite. Embracing soft, billowing keyboard sounds and sweet, electronica flourishes, Matsui is showing a decidedly different side of herself with Rhymies, her one-woman synth-pop outfit, which is debuting a four-song EP, “I Dream Watching,” today.

“I’ve noodled around with synths in the past, so this project is something I’ve been interested in exploring for a while now,” said Matsui. “I've always included a little bit more noise and my songs were kind of built out of jam sessions. This was an opportunity for me to make music in a more self-contained way.”

Matsui, who previously dabbled in synth-pop with her briefly lived duo, Plastic Pulse, said she was inspired to explore the form once again after being asked to contribute a Cleaners From Venus cover song for a compilation album being organized by Dandy Boy Records founder Bobby Martinez (Dandy Boy is releasing “I Dream Watching” as well.)

“I really wanted to contribute a song, not only since I’m a Cleaners fan, but also as an exercise—to challenge myself,” said Matsui. “I asked Bobby if there was one song on the compilation that he wished he heard, and he responded with ‘Gamma Ray Blue.’ So, I went ahead and recorded a cover of the song—it was something completely different, but it showed I could make a structured pop song out of my synth noodling ”

Armed with an array of analog synths and keyboards collected over her prolific music career, Matsui set about recording a series of pop songs that emulated 80s new wave icons such as Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark and Depeche Mode while also capturing the radio-friendly classicism of megastars like Madonna.

She immersed herself in the programming intricacies of the vintage machinery, teaching herself new tricks with sequencing, arpeggiators and drum machines. The result is a layered, voluminous sonic landscape, drenched in waves of ebullient, buoyant synth moments that feel big and bright.

EP opener “Bal Masque” opens with a dramatic, world-building synth crescendo, evoking classic 80s movie soundtracks (Vangelis’ Blade Runner score for one), before hastening into a propulsive pop piece. “Crashing Lead” is a skittering, puckish snapshot of electropop bliss, while the title track is awash in atmospherics, containing multitudes of moving parts that make it feel sweeping and vast. It all feels surprisingly vast—belying the homemade creative roots of the EP.

“One of the appeals of this project was that I could do it anytime,” said Matsui. “I would literally just wander from the kitchen to the bedroom, plug in and play.”

The enveloping, soothing vibe of the album is emotionally enhanced by Matsui’s cooing, expressive vocals. Unlike her work with Seablite, when her delivery is typically caught in a whirlpool of guitar pedals and white noise, Matsui’s vocals are elevated and clear, adding depth and profundity to the mix.

“It was a little scary to have the vocals be more centered,” said Matsui. “It’s always a weird thing—you’d think I’d be used to hearing the sound of my own voice after all these years, but I still get caught off-guard sometimes. I do shy away from my voice at times, but I really pushed myself to kind of embrace what I sound like.”

While the “I Dream Watching” EP is arriving today, Matsui will formally celebrate the birth of the Rhymies with a record release show at the Make Out Room on April 26. Despite the intricate nature of the songs—they all feature overdubs and layers and layers of parts—Matsui will play the tracks solo. She said game planning how to perform the songs in a live setting has been one of the challenges she embraced with the material.

“Figuring out ways to play these songs live has been almost equally as fun as making them,” said Matsui. “They’re basically being reinvented. I’m using more samples  and gridding things out. I’ll be running everything via MIDI, including a vocal looper. . It’s been daunting, but super fun.”

And despite being in two other bands, Matsui said she’s eager to keep making music under her Rhymies moniker. She has plans to put out more music and continue to play live shows.

“I don’t think I can ever stop now,” said Matsui. “This project has been incredibly rewarding. Plus, after spending I-don’t-even-know how many hours programming these synths, I can’t just quit on this project. I’ve invested way too much time to turn back now.”

Show Details:
Rhymies record release party with Still Ruins and Loner Statue Release
Where: Makeout Room
When: Saturday, April 26, 6:30 p.m.
Tickets: $15, available at the door.

Album Preview: Hectorine’s Ethereal and Ambitious “Arrow of Love”

Photo credit: Emily Dulla

At first blush, Hectorine’s latest album, “Arrow of Love,” is an epic tale of adventure. 

Dreamed up by Oakland songwriter Sarah Gagnon, the sole creative force behind Hectorine, the record recounts the heroic saga of Inanna, a warrior goddess from Sumerian myth who travels through hell, is betrayed by her sister, suffers demons and is ultimately redeemed. 

It is the stuff of legends, but peer a little closer, and this fantastical fable feels eerily familiar. The story catalogs dramatic lows and soaring highs—victories and defeats, tears of joy and tears of sadness. In short, it sounds an awful lot like modern love.

“This is clearly a breakup album,” said Gagnon. “I don’t know if I was conscious of it at the time, but that’s just how my brain works. I’m not a mathematician—one of the ways I connect with the world is through myth. Those ancient archetypes and stories are how I’m able to relay my emotions. There is a lot of death in this tale. But not to be incredibly dramatic, but every relationship ending is a kind of death. This album is about finding strength and agency in your life while mourning what’s gone.”

On May 23, Gagnon will release “Arrow of Love” through Take a Turn Records, an imprint run by local musicians Ray Seraphin and Luke Robbins. The second single from that album, “Everybody Says,” is out today.

Expressing loss through allegories and metaphors is nothing new for songwriters, but Gagnon conveys yearning and heartbreak on an ambitious scale rarely attempted by artists. It’s a bold move and one that pays obvious dividends, as the listener feels transported to another world entirely—an evocative, folkloric place, where everyday emotions take on heightened, larger-than-life meanings.

The narrative sketched out by Gagnon provides the roadmap for this powerful excursion, but what makes “Arrow of Love” seem truly fantastical is the ebullient sonic touchstones that power the album. 

Borrowing from the dreamy airiness of Fleetwood Mac’s later discography, the dramatic flourishes of Kate Bush, and the symphonic movie soundtracks of classic 80s movies, the album feels both medieval and alien—the score from a distant, foreign world. Tinkling synths and billowing waves of sound provide a warm, lush ambiance to the album, with ornate instrumentation—glockenspiels and marimbas are featured prominently—imbuing “Arrow of Love” with an apocryphal, mythical atmosphere. 

“’Labyrinth’ was definitely an influence—we were going for that kind of sentiment,” said Gagnon. “We recorded this album at [Producer] Geoff Saba’s studio, and he had this Korg Wavestation that just added some dreaminess to everything. Whenever we were stumped, we would sprinkle in a little bit of the Wavestation. It created this new age kind of vibe to the album, which is what we were going for.”

Like the undulating intonations of the Wavestation, the album is pitted and pocked with high and lows, with Gagnon using Innana’s perilous flight as an avatar for her own relationship challenges.

The album starts off with “Is Love An Illusion,” a glittering disco number that sets the terms for the conflict, punctuated by Gagnon’s heartbreaking query—“tell me baby/how did we lose our love.”

From there, the emotional rollercoaster picks up velocity, plummeting to a nadir with “No Hallelujah,” a puckish reimagining of Leonard Cohen’s classic hymnal, where Gagnon and her ex compare themselves to redeemed martyrs like Joan of Arc.

“It’s not like I sat down and set out to write a homage to Leonard Cohen, even though he’s one of my favorite songwriters of all time—this kind of just happened,” said Gagnon. “I love that he’s written about Joan of Arc before, and I know you can’t have a song title with ‘Hallelujah’ in it that doesn’t make people think of him. But fundamentally, this song was about a suffering competition between lovers. Like—who has endured the most. With that song, the descent really starts on the album.”

From the depths of that noble penance, Gagnon slowly leads the listener on a journey back to the surface, cataloging moments of fearlessness, bravery and self-love, a trek that reaches its peak in the album’s penultimate track, “Take a Chance With Me.” A beautiful cacophony of strumming acoustic guitars, whirring synths and plinking glockenspiel notes, “Take a Chance With Me,” is the Beach Boys reconfigured for an 80s child—a Wall of Sound for Millennials. 

Hopelessly optimistic, the track is a reminder of what truly makes “Arrow of Love” special: Gagnon’s emotive, powerful and striking voice. While the lyrics detail an unforgettable story and the sound carries us to a wholly unknown world, Gagnon’s delivery is what provides the emotional foundation and anchor of the album.

It would be a glorious sendoff to the project—a happy ending that chronicles the rebirth of self-ownership with Inanna’s Phoenix-like emergence from the ashes. But, as we all know, love is not that simple, and the album closes with “Slip Through My Fingers,” a sorrowful lamentation of lost opportunities.

“I wanted it to be true to life,” said Gagnon. “That song is about fear in a lot of ways, and whether that fear is serving you or not. I don’t think it’s necessarily a pessimistic ending. It’s more ambiguous, like life.”

It’s a fittingly amorphous conclusion to a universal creed—existence is a hard, difficult slog, but each journey’s end represents the beginning of something new. That holds true, whether you’re a warrior goddess or an Oakland songwriter. 

Processing Grief Through Music

With Nick, circa 2016, at a show at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley

Other than it essentially being an unpaid labor of love (literally unpaid for me, at this point), music writing is the best job in the world.

I get to interview artists who I’ve long admired. I’m able to ask them questions that have been brimming in my brain for years. And then I get to synthesize those thoughts in a way that ideally convinces readers of the power and profundity of the artform.

And another unspoken rule about being a music writer is the free tickets. It’s generally understood that if you write a feature on a band (one that alerts readers of an upcoming performance), their publicist will provide you with a couple of comped passes to the gig. 

Yeah, it smells a little of quid-pro-quo, but it’s not like I’m writing for the Washington Post and shadily covering  up some abusive corruption. I get to write glowing articles about musicians I love, and as a way of showing their appreciation, they toss me a couple of tickets, gratis.

For years, that extra free ticket of mine was a hot commodity among my friend group. Before everyone got a little long in the tooth and started having kids, seeing a free performance of some band we all loved was a top rate experience. From about 2013 to 2019, I had to judiciously choose among a wide roster of candidates about who to ask to join me for a show.

One of my first choices was always my pal Nick. I met Nick in 2009 through my other friend Jeff, and we immediately hit it off. We enjoyed hanging out and having fun with our friends, and we had the same rascally sense of humor (rascally meaning we were unafraid to pummel a joke into the ground, and said “joke” was often only funny to an audience of two—me and him.)

We also shared a deep and abiding appreciation for music. The roster of bands we both adored was endless (Pavement, the Walkmen, the National, Built to Spill, Cut Copy, Beirut, New Order, LCD Soundsystem, Free Energy, the list could go on and on.)  Nick also loved himself some jam bands like My Morning Jacket and Phish (hey, agree to disagree) in addition to classic acts such as Pearl Jam and the Rolling Stones. But his favorite group of all was Sigur Rós, the dreamy, ambient collective from Iceland.

I had so many classic nights going to local shows with Nick, courtesy of my cherished free tickets. Vince Staples. My Bloody Valentine. M83. Dean Wareham. Beirut. (Confession time: we tended to chatter a bit during those live sets. I think we hold the Bay Area record for most time being shushed. Not exactly a coveted award. Sorry everyone! I know that’s annoying!)

One year, I scored us some passes to the Huichica Music Festival in Sonoma. Nick tried to convince us all that he saw My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James casually hanging out among the fans, clad in a poncho (Nick was a sucker for a good poncho.) We all expressed deep skepticism of the claim, considering his prodigious intake of mushrooms that day, but social media reports later confirmed his hunch. Sorry Nick, we should have believed you.

In 2023, Nick and I travelled together to Utah for the Kilby Block Party, a sort of heaven on earth for aging indie heads like ourselves. It was just the two of us going to the festival, but our company was all we needed to have a great time. 

One of the highlights of the multi-day fest was seeing the Walkmen, freshly reunited and sounding as glorious and clangorous as ever. The band’s lead singer Hamilton Leithauser punctuated their show by chucking loafs of French bread out into the crowd. Nick and I, feeling uplifted by that bit of surrealism, started hoisting up our vinyl copies of the band’s seminal album, “Bow and Arrows,” which we recently bought from the merch tent. Leithauser, apparently endowed with eagle eyes, called us out in front of the huge crowd for having purchased bootleg copies of the LP (I guess the fest was selling unsanctioned Walkmen records?) For the rest of the festival, random people would come up to us, and laugh about the dressing-down we received.

By far, the most unforgettable night that Nick and I had together was a Black Lips show at the Great American Music Hall. In a rare bit of unfettered access, I was awarded two backstage passes for the gig, courtesy of a story I had written for the SF Weekly. 

We showed up to the band’s green room prior to the show, and even though I had interviewed the Lips’ Jared Swilley just a few days earlier, he clearly did not remember me. We hovered awkwardly in the background, until Nick, emboldened solely by his own personal fortitude, grabbed a bottle of Jameson from a nearby table and started swigging away. The band, perhaps impressed by his utter brazenness, immediately loosened up afterwards. 

We spent the next two hours gloriously partying with the Lips and their assorted hangers-on. I ended up stage diving that night. Following the show, I was separated from Nick and I had assumed he had called it a night. After a few minutes, I was able to track him down—he was at the entrance to the backstage door, ready to keep hanging out, which is what we did, until the wee hours of the morning.

On Friday, March 14, Nick passed away, just over a year after being diagnosed with cancer. Toward the end, his condition worsened precipitously, but a large collection of his friends were able to say a last goodbye to him at the hospital that Thursday.

There were a lot of tears. And some laughs. And of course, music.

In that cramped hospital room, we played Sigur Ros and Pearl Jam and Pavement and Phish and Beirut. Despite being frail, Nick would bust out his trademark air guitar while the songs drifted out from someone’s iPhone. He could barely speak, but that didn’t stop him from mouthing the words to the Stones’ “Beast of Burden,” a longtime favorite of his.

In his final moments, Nick had his wife Silvia and their young daughter Rory by his side. His beloved Sigur Rós played as he entered into his next adventure. 

It’s impossible to type those words without tearing up. But it also reminds me of the power of music. 

No form of art has a relationship with ownership that is as permeable and malleable as music. And I’m not talking about possessing physical media or paying for streaming services. I’m referring to that magical moment of transference, when a song is released out into the ether, and the listener is able to impart their own feelings, emotions and associations onto that tune. 

The minute that Brian King and David Prowse put out “The House That Heaven Built,” that track no longer belonged solely to the Japandroids. It also belonged to me, Nick and all our other friends who spent endless late nights screaming along to that anthem. The same goes for songs by the Black Lips, the National, M83 and every other band Nick and I saw together.

After being diagnosed, Nick was often too weak to make it out to live shows. He rallied for a few, though. The last performance we saw together was the Walkmen at Bimbo’s, which meant the return of our old frenemy, Hamilton. The band played as if they personally knew Nick’s time was limited. They were absolutely glorious—loud, raucous and unhinged. Nick was having a blast, and I was hugging him throughout the show. It felt like old times.

So now, every time I play one of our favorite songs, those bands will actually be singing about Nick to me. Whenever I hear the “Rat” or “In the New Year,” my mind will go to Bimbo’s, and that image of Nick, happy and restored, will come rushing back. 

I’ll think of the epic last show. And I’ll smile. 

Broken Dreams Club Interview: This is Lorelei

Photo Credit: Eve Alpert

For years, Nate Amos uploaded hundreds of scrappy, fuzzy tunes to the Bandcamp account of his recording moniker, This Is Lorelei. Essentially demo recordings, the songs provided a glimpse of a prolific musician with a profound range, unafraid to explore any genre or sound.

In 2024, Amos finally formalized those recordings, releasing his first “official” album as This is Lorelei. The record—“Box for Buddy, Box For Star,” is the culmination of those intriguing early recordings, showcasing a boundless talent. 

Featuring dust bowl folk songs, heartfelt indie pop tracks, glitchy electronica numbers, club bangers and anthemic love ballads, “Box for Buddy, Box For Star” was one of the best releases of last year and brought welcome new attention to the talents of Amos, who also stars as one-half of the avant garde duo, Water From Your Eyes.

On Thursday, April 3, This is Lorelei—now a three-piece band—will perform songs from “Box For Buddy, Box For Star” at Café du Nord. The show will be presented by local production outfit Throwin’ Bo’s.

Broken Dreams Club spoke with Amos about the background of the record, feeling inspired by Shane MacGowan and Elliott Smith and what’s next for This Is Lorelei and Water From Your Eyes. 

Ok, you’ve got another round of gigs starting up this weekend. How are you prepping for this latest batch of live shows?

Well, with the kind of live form Lorelei is in right now, I basically tour and then kind of come back with a revision. It’s taken a while to figure out exactly what to do with it, because the project is so kind of scatterbrained in terms of instrumentation. It’s been an interesting process to figure that out. But I think it seems like the answer is always simplicity. I have someone playing lead guitar now, so I just play acoustic guitar and sing and don't worry about other stuff. And it's gotten way more fun and interesting for me.

I was looking up videos of our shows from earlier this year. It was just you and an acoustic guitar, right?

That’s what we did in January, yeah. There have been some other setups as well. I did one tour as a power trio last year, where I was playing electric guitar and trying to do double duty vocals and lead guitar. It’s just really fun to have someone else worry about one of those.

Was last year your first kind of “proper” This is Lorelei live shows?

I guess it depends on what you mean by proper. Lorelei has existed for a long time. Back in the day in Chicago, there was a really chaotic live Lorelei band. I think the biggest performance was 10 or 11 people one time. If you kind of knew the songs, I would basically enlist you to join in the band. As long as there was a bass player and a drummer, I would just book a show. And then I would tell everyone else, basically, show up if you want. That yielded a couple of really fun moments and a host of bad performances. And then, for years, I just did karaoke sets. I didn't even have any of the words memorized. It would just look at the computer and stand there and sing. So, It's really been the last year or two that the live band has really developed.

Got it. So, back to the beginning—you’ve been recording songs under the This is Lorelei moniker for years and uploading a ton of those tracks to Bandcamp. What prompted the decision last year to finally release an “official” This is Lorelei album?

It was a combination of things. For a long time, Lorelei was more of a demo idea sandbox. If I had a really good idea from Lorelei, I would just lift it for another project. That still applies to Water From Your Eyes. At least a handful of things from every Water From Your Eyes album are kind of just plucked up from This is Lorelei. It wasn’t really until the last couple of years that it felt like Lorelei developed an actual direction of its own, separate from me personally. It kind of just became more and more of a focus. Before, I would just put a song up on Spotify or Bandcamp whatever, without doing any press or anything. And my manager got really frustrated with me. He was like, ‘dude, let me shop one of these.’ This was honestly the first album where I worked on it hard enough that I didn't want to just put it out without any kind of notice.

And how are you able to differentiate these songs from Water From Your Eyes songs, or My Idea songs? There is something distinct about This is Lorelei, but the musical tastes on “Box for Buddy, Box For Star” run the absolute gamut—I mean so much is covered here. When you have such a wide range like that, how are you able to determine what makes sense for This is Lorelei?

I guess it’s basically a gut reaction. At this point, I kind of have my Lorelei brain and Water brain. This is obviously a question that comes up a lot. The answer that I tend to give is it's kind of like playing two different sports. There is the basic idea and scope of things you could possibly do that are similar, but there are different objectives and different muscle groups being used. And the way it's kind of naturally evolved is that Water From Your Eyes is a kind of exercise in rejecting tradition. Whereas Lorelei has kind of turned into a thing where it really is more about embracing existing songwriting archetypes. If I didn't have separate outlets for those two things, I don't know if anything would work. It would probably just be a mess. 

I know you’ve discussed this topic ad nauseam, so apologies for bringing it back up again, but you’ve talked about making this music while sober, which must have been incredibly daunting at first. Did that process get easier as you kept going? Were you able to really convince yourself that you could do this thing?

It was an odd period of time for me and getting sober was a big part of it. There are a lot of things you have to do in the aftermath of long term substance abuse, in terms of just mental health. Once you kick your thing, you have to learn how to be a person without it. And at that point, I still hadn't really done that. The only thing that I could do was obsessively get into my music. Ultimately, the reason this album got so much time poured into it, is because I was desperately looking for anything to do that wasn't working on my actual self. I wouldn't say it was easy, but I was very focused, at least.

So, in its own way, was this process therapeutic?

I try not to rely on that too much, because I spent too many years being like, ‘I don't need to do therapy, because I can express myself through my art’. I mean, that's kind of the ultimate cliche. There/s weight to that, but it can also be such a cop out. I know I've used it as a cop out.

I think everyone was just amazed at the wild diversity of songs on “Box for Buddy, Box For Star,” and I love that you start the album off with a real curveball track—this lonesome cowboy, tears-in-my-beer country tune, “Angel’s Eye.” That’s such an amazing tune, but clearly not indicative of the entire album. What made you want to kick off the record with that song?

I'm a sucker for a good red herring. That’s something I tend to do, but not to be deceiving. There’s a balance to it—I wouldn’t want to use really stylistically different songs at the start of an album in a way where it's just like, ‘check out how different I can sound!’ That wasn't the intention with this album at all. One of the things I was thinking about at the time was how a lot of albums tend to start in this very focused place, and then kind of drift off towards the end in different directions. I wanted to harness that same dynamic curve, but invert it. In a lot of ways, stylistically, this album is way more cohesive in the second half. It kind of begins as this ball bouncing back and forth—an up and down thing. And then the ball stops bouncing as high and kind of settles into this very comfortable place where that album lands. For me, the final resting place of the album was always [album closer] “An Extra Beat For You And Me”—that was kind of the point of the whole process. That’s the song that I feel like I wrote this whole album to get to. And “Angel’s Eye” and “Perfect Hand” were the two songs that were most different stylistically, so I think they worked best in the beginning of the album. I didn’t want to cut those songs because there wasn’t a good place for them, so I put them one-two in the sequencing.

And I’m going to spare you from going over this whole album, track-by-track, because I really could, but I wanted to touch base on a few of them. “Dancing in the Club” was one of my favorite songs of last year and it has this immortal line in there—“But a loser never wins/ And I'm a loser, always been.” I love it because it claims ownership over that. Indie music is supposed to be for losers and this song really feels like it belongs to indie fans. Did you have it in mind for this song to be a kind of defiant mantra?

Yeah—that’s the joke. It’s a club song by a person who would never get into the club. That song is funny because it ended up being produced in such a hyper specific style, even though it came from a place of simplicity. I was trying to write melodies that would function on their own without the assistance of any chord progression or things. I wrote about 90% of the melody and lyrics to that song walking around outside with nothing else going on. I like the idea of melody that sounds just natural when you’re humming it, walking through the woods. When you go that route, the lyrics that tend to fall into place have a certain melancholy. I was listening to a ton of Shane MacGowan at the time. Someone had sent me “Fairytale of New York,” which I had somehow never heard before—because a song on a Lorelei album reminded them of it. And then I went down this Shane MacGowan rabbit hole and thought to myself, ‘fuck, I have not written a real song in my life.” I've written joke songs, essentially, and he was someone who's tapping into the essence of the human condition that's relevant in rock music but also feels ancient. Basically, I listened to Shane MacGowan, had a panic attack, and realized I needed to write a good song.

I saw MJ Lenderman perform a cover of that song a few weeks ago. I know you two are friends. He has an interesting downtempo take, which I thought was great. What were your initial reactions to his version?

I heard him do it before he was playing it live and thought it was really cool. He’s got that voice—that very specific vocal delivery that can just communicate emotion. There are lots of really good singers who don't have that. There are lots of really bad singers who are great at singing, because they do have that. And he’s a great singer. I’d never really written a song with the idea of someone else covering so fundamentally in mind, before writing “Dancing in the Club.”

So, you wrote that song with the idea that it could specifically be covered by MJ Lenderman?

Not specifically by him, but I did have the idea that it could be covered. You want to write a song that other people want to sing—artistically, that's the dream. To have one of your songs leak through into the canon of songs that people play when they think of songs to play. That’s one half of the dream. The other half of it is like—it’d be really nice to have a cash cow.

Next stop, Sabrina Carpenter is covering that one.

Exactly. Or some country dude. And that's why it was really cool hearing Jake [MJ Lenderman] play it, because he showed it could be transposed into that country sound. For me, the main mark of a certain kind of song that is really good, is how it translates into being done in different styles. 

My favorite song of last year was “Where’s Your Love Now.” It reminds me of a modern day Beach Boys song and it feels to me equally about finding power in sobriety and emotional independence, outside of a relationship. Was that a ripped-from-the-headlines experience? Is that song autobiographical?

Yeah, I would say that song, at least more than anything else, was an autobiographical one. Most of the songs on the album are, it's just a question of how many layers removed they are. Sometimes it works better to push it a little further away, like “Angel’s Eye”, which kind of has its own narrative, or “Perfect Hand”, which just devolves into wordplay. But “Where’s Your Love Now” was definitely one that I wanted to remove as many of those layers as possible. I wasn't trying to write any particular kind of thing, but that’s just what happens sometimes. A lot of these songs went from not existing to being fully recorded and largely mixed in two or three hours. Nothing good ever comes from sitting down and trying to write a song. In my experience, it just has to happen organically, and then you have to latch on to that moment.

Again—you have such a wide range of sounds and approaches and genres on the album and there seem to be countless influences. One of the few songs that I view as having a direct forebear is “Two Legs,” which has this very Elliott Smith, “XO” feel to it. Were you listening to him at the time of making this album? Did he have an impact on the sound of that particular song at least?

He's someone who’s deeply ingrained in my songwriting. When I was about 15, someone gave me a copy of “Figure 8” on CD, and that blew my mind. His sense of arrangements on the “XO” and “Figure 8” period is something that has always stuck with me. I mean, with Elliott Smith, you can't be a guy who double tracks your softly sung vocals without that being the first thing that everyone thinks about. I knew what I was doing, but it actually started off as more of a Ram/Wings thing really, which sort of overlaps with Elliott Smith. In terms of production style, I was definitely thinking of Paul McCartney primarily, but I doubt I could have made it through that whole thing without at least thinking of Elliott Smith a few times. 

I read that you view This is Lorelei as kind of a low-priority side project. Are you surprised at all that the album has resonated the way that it has?

It’s been a shocker. Because Lorelei predates Water From Your Eyes by five years or so. It’s the oldest running thing of mine, and so I'm very used to it not being something that elicits any sort of response, which I was always fine with, because it was kind of my secret thing. But I do feel like it turned into a more serious project at some point, slowly over the last five years. I'm really glad that it's happening on this album, as opposed to some of the others. 

You’ve always been super prolific—have you been working on follow-up This is Lorelei songs to this album? What about Water From Your Eyes? 

I'm kind of constantly flipping back and forth. I'm working on writing new Lorelei stuff now and the next Water From Your Eyes album is done—it’s in the bag. The idea is to alternate years with those projects, at least as long as I can keep up with it. 

So, Water From Your Eyes will be touring and putting out an album out this year?

Yeah—it’s going to come out later this year—it'll be announced soon. There’s a bunch of stuff planned for this year for Water From Your Eyes and I would love for another Lorelei album to come out next year, in 2026.

Are you excited to be coming back to San Francisco? Water from Your Eyes has played here plenty. But I think this will be the first This is Lorelei appearance?

This is going to be the first time that Lorelei has played any further west than Chicago, unless I'm forgetting something. I'm really excited to be playing in San Francisco. It’s funny how different touring can feel with different bands. I never really realized that until this last Lorelei tour. I'm so used to going on tour as Water From Your Eyes, which has a very specific headspace to be in every night. And it's just different touring with Lorelei. But I think we are all excited to be coming out to California now.

Show Details:
This is Lorelei with Starcleaner Reunion
Where: Café Du Nord
When: 8 p.m., Thursday, April 3
Tickets: $27, available here.

Oakland’s Kathryn Mohr Stuns With Stirring Debut Album, “Waiting Room”

Photo Credit: Senny Mau

The myth of the origin story has a long and uncomfortable history of overshadowing the works it's credited with inspiring.

For years, Justin Vernon had to answer questions about his solitary sojourn in the woods when explaining the making of Bon Iver’s 2008 masterpiece, “For Emma, Forever Ago.” The members of Pink Floyd couldn’t discuss their epic prog-rock adventure, “Wish You Were Here,” without recalling the time they were visited by their tragically unrecognizable former bandmate, Syd Barrett. For generations, historians linked “Wheatfield With Crows” with the apocryphal tale that Van Gogh immediately shot himself after completing the painting.

But at the risk of continuing a legacy that’s uneven at best, it would be impossible to talk about Kathryn Mohr’s hauntingly gorgeous new album, “Waiting Room,” without providing some context about how the record was crafted.

To create her eerie post-rock tour-de-force, the Oakland-based musician decamped to Stöðvarfjörður, a tiny fishing village in Iceland. Mohr spent most of her 30-day stay at the coastal hamlet ensconced inside a crumbling warehouse, which had only recently been repurposed from a fish factory into a studio space for local artists.

The result of that month-long trial-by-ice is a spectral 11-track album marked by negative space, absent melodies and cavernous atmospherics. “Waiting Room” is a ghostly, oddly thrilling experience and the warehouse is its omnipresent co-creator.

“I’ve always been really drawn to abandoned buildings,” said Mohr, who will perform at Indexical in Santa Cruz on Saturday, March 22. “I have a real affinity with the energy that’s left there. I wanted to capture what I felt like was a really unique and beautiful situation. It was an opportunity to document a place, while also writing songs that were inside of me, because I felt like I had a lot of songs to get out.”

A native of the South Bay, Mohr has been creating atonal, challenging no-wave music for the past half decade, pulling from disparate sources like Sovietwave and Yoko Ono’s primal scream endeavors. 

Eventually, a demo of hers made its way to Jonathan Tuttle, the owner of the venerable San Francisco music label The Flenser. Home to an array of virtuosic black metal, darkwave and other left-of-the-dial outfits, there could not be a label in America more suited for Mohr’s talents.

Through The Flenser, Mohr connected with ambient drone specialist Madeline Johnston of Midwife. In 2022, the two decamped to Johnston’s isolated farmhouse in New Mexico to record Mohr’s stirring EP, “Holly,” setting a precedent of sorts for the secluded creative process that powers “Waiting Room.”

Because, make no mistake about it, it’s difficult to imagine this record being made anywhere else. After hearing about the fish factory from a friend who is a visual recording artist, Mohr arrived in Iceland with a rough sketch of songs she wanted to record. However, she abandoned those ideas early on in the process, instead opening herself up to the inspirations of her Iceland environs.

“I scrapped everything I had and really just had no expectations of myself,” said Mohr. “I flipped a switch in my brain and said, ‘I don’t have to do anything, I don’t have to make music.’ And once I did that, I sat down and started writing. There was this sort of emptiness in my mental space—I was very alone and isolated. There was nobody. I just embraced that feeling.”

Empty noise brims throughout the record—every missing note hums with tape hiss or pulsing feedback. That ghostly apparition is a character that recurs throughout “Waiting Room,” a lurking specter hiding in the recesses of the vast, cavernous industrial plant. You can practically see the wintry breath that accompanies each song.

Mohr recorded nearly the entire record in a large windowless room, and that harshness bleeds into the songs. “Diver,” the album opener, is an austere acoustic number, with Mohr’s simple guitar strumming rising barely above her voice, which mordantly repeats, “This comfort/Discomfort is bad for your health /but what can we do / when it comes to you?” 

“Driven” follows much of the same pace, a brooding elegy where Mohr’s voice sounds like it’s carried off in the wind and “Petrified” is an ambling anti-folk number—a Julien Baker-inflected piece that has been plunged into cold, dark waters. 

For “Waiting Room,” Mohr mostly eschews the analog synth and electronica-infused pieces of her earlier work, instead relying on quiet acoustic guitars and strange sonic manipulations. On “Take It” and “Elevator” the guitars are louder and noisier, but the album is mostly marked by its somberness and discomfiting placidity. The most notable contributions are the field recordings of the warehouse and the Icelandic countryside captured by Mohr. 

“It was really magical to be able to record all those sounds,” said Mohr. “There’s the wind and the water, but also this buzzing fluorescent light. I always listen to shortwave radio whenever I’m recording, and I was able to incorporate that as well.”

Elements of Grouper, Slint and a host of bands from The Flenser can be heard in “Waiting Room,” but the vibe is unmistakably Mohr’s. While she acknowledges the profundity and brilliance of those artists, Mohr said she typically avoids listening to those musicians when making albums.

“I love those bands. I love Grouper—I love her [Liz Harris] methodology and the beauty of her music,” said Mohr. “But I can’t really listen to it too much, because it makes me so emotional and sad. I need music that takes me away from my emotions.”

While she might not take direct inspiration from those acts, she manages to attain the same elusive goal of those outfits—to create beauty from darkness. 

“Waiting Room” is a sad, unnerving record, but there are countless moments of unmistakable reverie contained within its unforgiving settings. Like witnessing the gnarled, glazed branches of a tree after an ice storm or appreciating the crumbling grandeur of post-industrial landscapes, “Waiting Room” is a pursuit to find grace in the unconventional. 

That dichotomy has been recognized by numerous music critics and publications. Pitchfork, music’s most venerable tastemaker, awarded the album its coveted Best New Music label.

“I think music criticism is flawed, but it’s still very flattering,” said Mohr. “I discovered so much amazing music from Pitchfork as a teenager. To receive that kind of attention—and to read something that captured my intent so articulately—was pretty surreal.”

Surreal is an apt way to sum up the entire “Waiting Room” experience. It is an album of vast, oceanic landscapes and cloistered rooms—is it both claustrophobic and boundless. 

To find that balance, Mohr needed to travel to the far reaches of the globe. As a result, we are all able to steal a fortunate glimpse into that wholly unique world.

Show Details:
Kathryn Mohr with Still House Plants
Where: Indexical
When: 8:30 p.m., Saturday, March 22
Tickets: $20, available here.

Soccer Mommy Delivers Predictably Great Performance at the Fillmore

There are few things more reliable than a Soccer Mommy record. 

For the past seven years, Sophia Regina Allison, the brainchild behind Soccer Mommy, has released a series of vulnerable and elegantly crafted indie pop albums. Her 2018 debut album, “Clean,” introduced her as an emotionally raw, lovelorn singer-songwriter. Subsequent Soccer Mommy releases have added more gauze and sonic layering to the barebones, lo-fi offerings of that initial record, but the basic template has remained the same—Allison singing plaintively about heartbreak, loss and self-doubt over fuzzy tunes that recall 90s alternative rock acts such as Hole and Liz Phair. 

On Saturday night at the Fillmore, Allison and her band brought that same dependable energy to a sold-out crowd, the second of her two gigs at the venerable venue as part of her headlining slot for this year’s annual Noise Pop Fest.

Drawing heavily from her celebrated 2024 release, “Evergreen,” Allison performed faithful, emotive versions of her studio albums, blasting through her setlist with the able backing of her four-piece touring band.

Other than a few friendly thank-yous to the receptive Fillmore crowd, Allison kept the stage banter to a minimum, befitting an artist whose priorities always seem to favor substance and productivity over performative, superficial statements.

The crowd reacted warmly to the nine songs Allison performed off “Evergreen,” but perhaps the biggest response came to her set closer, “Your Dog,” the defiant screed against abusive relationships that’s long been a “Clean” favorite.

Following a brief sojourn backstage (very brief—Allison really doesn’t seem to have time for silly theatrics), the band came back for a two-song encore. She closed out her performance with a fiery performance of “Don’t Ask Me,” a powerful shoegaze track from 2022’s acclaimed album, “Sometimes, Forever.”

It was a thrilling end to a predictably great show. We’ve been trained to expect brilliance from Soccer Mommy, and on Saturday night Allison and company more than lived up to that promise.  

Al Harper Highlights Standout Collection of Local Artists At This Year’s Noise Pop Fest

Photo Credit: Kari Orvik

The early musical memories of San Francisco-based musician Al Harper sound cribbed straight from the pages of the great American songbook—a sort of portrait of an artist as a young woman. 

Growing up in Bakersfield, Harper spent the days of her youth travelling with her dad in his 1969 convertible, blasting tunes from the old Sounds of the Seventies tape compilations, which featured classic acts such as Fleetwood Mac, Linda Ronstadt and The Carpenters.

However, it wasn’t until years later, after seeing those artists without the lens of rose-colored glasses, that Harper was able to truly appreciate those bands—to hear the musicianship above the memories.

“That was always my dad’s kind of music—something that I would sing just with him,” said Harper. “But then when I was in my 20s, I started listening to those artists again and realized that they’re amazing. Not just the hits of bands like Fleetwood Mac, but their whole albums—they were all so technically gifted. I began to understand that my love for that music wasn’t just based on nostalgia.” 

Now, Harper deftly captures those vintage sounds, reimagining the light textures and soft passages of Laurel Canyon songwriters, 70s studio acts like Todd Rundgren and the country Americana of her native Bakersfield to create music that feels revivalist but also contemporary. 

Her latest release, 2024’s “The Analemma Observation League,” is full of buoyant, jaunty and joyful pop nuggets—a collection of sun-dappled tunes that feel perfect for the open road or a day at the park. 

On Sunday, Harper will play selections from that album at the Kilowatt as part of the annual Noise Pop Festival. A multi-day musical extravaganza taking place at dozens of venues in San Francisco and Oakland, the festival recently announced a sterling addition of local artists, highlighted by acts like Harper. 

The depth and breadth of the bands affirm San Francisco’s always-solid standing as an incubator of creativity, and Harper stands out as a unique element of that scene. After being inspired by a couple of childhood visits to the city, Harper enrolled in San Francisco State University upon her graduation from high school. Once enrolled, she immediately fell in with a group of scrappy, like-minded musicians (included in that cohort was Mike Ramos, the purveyor of the opaque, exploratory outfit Tony Jay, a frequent collaborator with Harper.)

As the case with most DIY-inspired artists, Harper embraced lo-fi, punk leanings, focusing on the power of performance and immediacy over technical prowess. It was only after a long musical voyage—one that included a sojourn to New York City for a few years (that was briefly delayed after a frightening car accident)—that Harper began to feel comfortable sounding fresh and fuzz-free.

“I felt really shy at first about having this crisp, clean sound, because in my heart, I’m a lo-fi kind of person,” said Harper. “But that kind of approach just didn’t feel true to what I was writing. Logistically, I really just want to sing—that’s my main instrument. And it’s pretty hard to sing well in that lo-fi, noisy environment. It was definitely scary to have everything be so clear and straightforward, especially because I grew up in this scene that wasn’t really doing that thing.”

While those initial fears might have delayed Harper’s embrace of a more polished sound, her instincts are more than validated on “The Analemma Observation League.” The second full-length release under her own name, following 2021’s “Promises I Kept,” the album showcases Harper’s powerful, clarion-clear vocals. Evoking luminaries such as Stevie Nicks, Kate Bush and Jenny Lewis, Harper’s warm and rich deliveries add a degree of hushed approachability to the songs.

Standout tracks on the album include opener “Day One of the Sunflower,” a lush, brimming statement filled with lilting harmonies, and an inspired cover of Melanie’s 1971 release, “Some Day I’ll Be A Farmer.” At the centerpiece of the record is “Let Me Be,” a magnum opus of sorts, combining jaunty melodies, vibrant keys and beautiful group vocals.

“’Let Me Be’ was a long time in the making—something I pieced together over like a decade,” said Harper. “I had this verse I was messing around with for years, and then I saw that Beatles documentary that everyone was watching during the pandemic and was kind of inspired to finish that song. I was never really a major Beatles fan growing up—I just didn’t listen to them for whatever reason—but seeing the production efforts in that documentary really motivated me to finish that song.”

Appropriating Beatles-like production efforts is a far cry from her halcyon days as a punk rocker, but Harper pulls it off seamlessly on “The Analemma Observation League” (an analemma is a diagram of the sun when photographed from the same time and place over a year). Working alongside prolific local producer Jason Kick, Harper played most of the instruments on the album, wielding everything from guitar to percussion to Wurlitzer organs to her own field recordings.

Although her sound sets her apart from the gloriously ramshackle janglepop of Slumberland bands like Chime School and the Umbrellas, and the eerie tape-hiss beauty of outfits like Tony Jay, April Magazine and Cindy, Harper is not completely alone in her adoption of the shimmering and sunny. Other local groups like Silverware and Yea-Ming and the Rumors harness a similar kind of aesthetic.

“At first, I was like, ‘oh my gosh,’ who am I going to play with now,’” said Harper. “But this scene here is special. Honestly, I feel like that’s what keeps me going, to keep pushing through on this level. We’re not doing this for the money—we’re doing this for pure love. We have a very healthy little ecosystem going on here.”

Harper closes out her album with “This Time Take Time.” A hymnal that sounds like a Christmas Noel for people who celebrate the holidays in the desert, the song is a self-help mantra that serves as a NorthStar for her winding, wending journey. 

“I actually thought of the last song after walking my baby around in a stroller,” said Harper. “I just had this epiphany to let things happen and not worry too much about them. When you’re putting out an album, you don’t know what’s going to happen—you don’t know if anyone will actually ever hear it. So, I just set my mind to put this out into the world and let it go. I wanted to appreciate things as they come, and not take this too seriously.”

Show Details:
Al Harper with Marika Christine and Uncle Chris
Where: Kilowatt
When, 8 p.m., Sunday, February 23
Tickets: $20, available here.

Wild Pink Bring New Muscularity to The Independent For Two Sold-Out Shows

Photo Credit: Fire Talk Records

During the early days of Wild Pink, the heartland rock band won a loyal following for making music both devastatingly earnest and exceedingly delicate. Led by the soft cooing of chief songwriter (and sole permanent member) John Ross, the group created worlds of fragile beauty, imbued by quiescent synths and plaintive piano pieces. 

As such, Wild Pink studio albums were drenched in somnambulant atmospherics and wistful, gossamer thin assemblies. The hushed nature of the songs and their multilayered production methods, however, made it difficult for Ross and company to faithfully replicate that sound in a live setting. And with the band touring increasingly more behind a steady output of great albums, being able to authentically transfer the sounds of the studio onto the stage took on greater importance for Ross.

The result of that redirected philosophy was last year’s majestically weighty album, “Dulling the Horns.” Easily the heaviest record in the band’s oeuvre, “Dulling the Horns” finds Wild Pink exploring chugging guitar riffs, feedback-laden dissonance and cascades of metallic sonic manipulations. Wild Pink might have once moved like a lithe featherweight, but now the band has bulked up into the heavyweight division, and audiences are hearing the fully realized sounds of a group embracing its muscularity.

“I think ‘Dulling the Horns’ came from me feeling kind of frustrated with how I was doing some of the songs live,” said Ross. “There was some studio stuff that just didn’t translate—certainly my vocal delivery didn’t sound the same. I just wanted this album to feel fun—to have the record sound just like the live show. We haven’t really done that much before.”

On February 17 and 18, Wild Pink will bring that newfound heft to The Independent, where they will open for acclaimed singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman (it’s a lineup that truly deserves the title of dream billing.)

Ross and Wild Pink provided a glimpse into this bigger, denser approach with 2022’s “ILYSM,” a sprawling and adventurous album that delved into an array of industrial-leaning directions while topping out at the one-hour mark. But nothing on that release approaches the immensity of songs like “Cloud or Mountain” or “Disintegrate,” two standouts tracks from “Dulling the Horns” that act as sturdy exemplars of the album.

“Cloud or Mountain” starts off innocently enough with a string of brisk guitar strums, but at the 10-second mark the song collapses on itself, as those brief lilting moments are crushed by a wave of crunchy distortion. Much in the same vein is “Disintegrate,” which is marked by stomping kickdrums, thick basslines and grunge guitar aesthetics (also, saxophones!) On the latter song, Ross pushes his vocals into a new register, evoking an urgency and desperation not often heard in other Wild Pink tunes. He said that track was inspired by “Save it for Later,” a jaunty number by new wave legends the English Beat.

“’Disintegrate’ is definitely one of my favorite songs on the album,” said Ross. “Again, it was about just having fun making a song. I really wanted to embrace that approach for the album.”

That feeling of levity is noticed throughout “Dulling the Horns,” a reaction of sorts to the stern and serious undertones of “ILYSM.” A confrontation with his 2022 cancer diagnosis, “ILYSM” was understandably anguished thematically and lyrically (Ross is now cancer-free and healthy.) 

“Dulling the Horns” is more relaxed and jocular, evidenced by songs like the “Eating the Egg Whole,” a skittering, quick-moving piece that references late 90s sports arcana, including commentary on Michael Jordan’s iconic wardrobe choices.

Ironically, Lenderman wrote a similarly wry ode to His Airness back in 2022, when he penned the “Hangover Game,” a hilariously conspiratorial take on Jordan’s heroic “Flu Game” in the 1997 NBA Finals.

“You know, I told him I had not heard his song yet when I wrote ‘Eating the Egg Whole’—I swear that was just a coincidence,” said Ross. “That said, I’m sure we’re going to have plenty of conversations about 90s NBA basketball.”

Jordan is among a number of famous (and infamous) persons that populate “Dulling the Horns,” with Ross also name-checking David Koresh, Lefty Ruggiero and the death cult Heaven’s Gate. Ross said there was no grand narrative tying everyone together (an idea that Jordan would likely appreciate, given the sordid reputations of the others.)

“Sometimes songs make more sense after the fact,” said Ross. “I don’t really know why those people and names popped up in my brain. It’s just really fun to write about other people, to kind of turn attention away from yourself for a moment.”

That sense of seeking joy is consistently cited by Ross when describing the entire infrastructure of “Dulling the Horns”—from the cheeky, impish tales that account for the lyrical output of the album, to the blown-out sound that makes for a raucous, rocking live show. Based on the euphoric reaction to the album—it was lauded by critics and named best rock record of the year by Paste Magazine—Ross’ blissful instincts have paid off.

After surviving such an intense health scare, it’s no surprise that Ross is eager to embrace a lighter, more easy going attitude—a feeling that can be easily transferable to the crowds assembled at Wild Pink shows, now that the band has a more honed formula for bringing their music to the masses.  

“I feel very fucking lucky—like I dodged a bullet,” said Ross. “I didn’t have to do chemo or anything dramatic like that. It really inspired me to appreciate what I have—to keep my output high and really make music that’s fun to listen to. I’ve made challenging records. Now I’m here for the fun ones.”

Show Details:
Wild Pink with MJ Lenderman and the Wind
Where: The Independent 
When: 8 p.m., Monday, February 17 and Tuesday, February 18
Tickets: Sold Out!