Interviews – Page 17 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Interview: Yanni Papadopoulos of Stinking Lizaveta on the Magic of Instrumental Music and New Album Anthems and Phantoms

Stinking Lizaveta, photo by John Singletary

Stinking Lizaveta is a trio from Philadelphia that formed in 1994 creating instrumental rock with roots in prog, jazz and cinematic music. The style the group has developed from the beginning has been summed up with the descriptor “doom jazz” because its sound has often combined heaviness with a musical complexity and elegance. Stinking Lizaveta establishes a mood early in its songs and its compositions vividly express ideas and emotional nuance that engages the listener’s imagination. The band’s sound has evolved and explored ideas and concepts across nine albums including its new record, 2023’s Anthems and Phantoms which features some of Stinking Lizaveta’s most unvarnished compositions and some of its most fully realized. Fans of bands like Earth and Hermanos Gutiérrez will find much to appreciate about the Stinking Lizaveta catalog and in particular the left field paths it takes on the new record into deeply evocative soundscapes. We were able to pose some questions to guitarist Yanni Papadopoulos about the his band’s history and the new album. Currrently Stinking Lizaveta is on tour with a stop in Denver at Hi-Dive on July 6, 2023 with Telekinetic Yeti, Somnuri and Hashtronaut.

Stinking Lizaveta at Bender’s Tavern in Denver, March 30, 2007, photo by Tom Murphy

Tom Murphy: When you formed this band it was the beginning of the end of alternative music as a force in mainstream music. How did you come upon the idea to do an instrumental band with some heavy sounds and jazz in the mix at that time? What kinds of sounds inspired you? I think back and my brain lands on stuff like what the late Peter Brötzmann was doing with Last Exit, or Naked City, Don Caballero and the like being in the vein of what you have done. Maybe later on stuff like Zs.

Yanni Papadopoulos: Initially we were inspired by Black Flag’s Family Man album. One side was instrumental rock, and the other was Henry reciting poetry. Greg Ginn also had an instrumental band called Gone. I never saw them or even heard their music, but I ran into a couple of guys that loved their show. They said something like, “ Man, those guys just came out and ripped it up!” Another friend of mine named Frank said he saw Gone play on the street in Philly, and it was intense! It was a tradition for bands to have an instrumental track on their albums. So we decided to just make that the whole thing. We were also into progressive rock, out jazz and soundtrack music, all of which gave us the idea that people will like what we do.

How did the band go over early on and where did you find a niche either in clubs or DIY type spaces? Were there other bands that you connected with in the early years of your own group?

Initially we connected with Pittsburgh PA, where Don Caballero was laying the groundwork for underground rock, and we made a deep connection in Richmond VA, where “mathrock” in the form of King Sour and Breadwinner was turning people on. In Philly we made friends with Dysrhythmia Flay, and Ninefinger (Mike Dean of COC’s band). There was also a great connection with an instrumental band in New Orleans called Spikle, and we even played with Clearlight at Check Point Charlie’s. In DC we made friends with Spirit Caravan, and years later Wino took us to Europe with his band The Hidden Hand. Our identity really started to form within the Emissions from the Monolith Festival in Youngstown OH. We played with tons of great bands there like Keelhaul and Mastodon.

What do you feel that instrumental music allows you to express or in general to communicate that might be more challenging if you had to include vocals with lyrics?

Vocals and lyrics tether the music to an image, make it more terrestrial. Instrumental music can occupy a deeper space in your imagination. If I want to write a song, I’ll start with a lyric. If I write a riff, does it need a lyric? I don’t have time for that kind of homework.

The new record, Anthems and Phantoms, continues with the kind of surprisingly clear and energetic lines of music that was there even on …Hopelessness and Shame. But it’s even more sonically spare yet intricate than say the psychedelic sound of Sacrifice and Bliss. Was there anything that helped to inform the different sonic direction of this new collection of songs?

During the Sac and Bliss period I was using a wah pedal, a delay and a tremolo, and I really got into that vocabulary. You can also hear it on 7th Direction, and Journey to the Underworld. On Anthems I put the effects away and just plugged into the amp. That’s how I’m playing live now, and will be for the whole tour. I don’t want any pedals now, not even a tuner, just chord into the same Mesa Boogie amp I bought by accident and have been using for 30 years.

It seems that there are implied themes in song titles that you explore without defining that for your potential listeners throughout your career. Titles like “The Man Needs Your Pain” is so on point and evocative and cultural references like “Zeitgeist, The Movie” and “A Day Without A Murder” from Sacrifice and Bliss seem to point to larger themes of human society and civilization. What sorts of themes do you think run through Anthems and Phantoms?

Anthems feels like an emergence from the dark, a movement into light from uncertainty. There are more major chords. Tunes like Let Live and Serpent Underfoot want to be uplifting without taking too much of your time. It wouldn’t be a Stinking Lizaveta album if we didn’t get down with tunes like “Blue Skunk” and “The Heart.” “Heart” has a little bit of a Manchester vibe for me, and “Skunk” is cracked blues, we go there.

The cover art for the new album is striking and mythological in a way that resonates with your previous record Journey to the Underworld. Who did the visuals and how do you feel it reflects the mood and themes of the album with the squid-legged Medusa type creature with crab arms holding the boat, floating over the world?

The art is done by Alexi’s son, Mike, with no direction at all from us. He just graduated from art school and banged out a good one. We have indeed become such a mythical beast as a band.

There’s a great deal of diversity in the sound palette on all of your records so the descriptor of Stinking Lizaveta as doom jazz while good as shorthand for what to expect seems to be something you’ve outgrown. What new areas of musical expression do you feel like maybe came more to the foreground on the new record?

I’m always trying to answer the question of what is missing from the music that hits me. We see so many bands every year, and when I pick up my guitar I try to be the one that joyfully participates in rock music, but also redeems it from its shortcomings. Not everyone will get us, it takes me years to even listen to my own music, but I’m usually pleasantly surprised once I get some distance from it. Keep finding new things to practice and get out of your comfort zone. Stinking Lizaveta is our life’s work, that’s how we approach it.

Stinking Lizaveta on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E03: Bestial Mouths

Bestial Mouths, photo by Elemental Eyes Photography

Bestial Mouths began in 2009 as a band that early on might be considered post-punk but even its debut EP, 2009’s Stabile Vices, had elements of noise and industrial set to ritualistic rhythms with tribal percussion. All along, vocalist Lynette Cerezo who has a background in fashion and design brought to performances a striking visual presentation that drew upon the imagery of mythology and dreams in a creative interplay with the music. Cerezo’s lyrics have always explored issues of gender, identity and personal liberation and whether combined with the performance or not, certainly enhanced by the live experience, meant as a conduit for mutual inspiration and uplift by challenging arbitrary societal notions of “proper” social roles and behavior and aesthetics. A Bestial Mouths show and the music embodies aspects of the subconscious and what has traditionally been relegated to artistic darkness and the feminine, the intuitive and the supernatural. Cerezo through the practice of her art reclaims all of that as a source of power and dignity by demonstrating how it isn’t negative, that it is a part of a complete human life and that such things can be harnessed to the benefit of the self and all.

More recent Bestial Mouths records starting with the new arc of music since the project has been mainly headed by Cerezo since 2018 has reconciled the early post-punk and Goth sound and noise completely with the more mystical and non-Western experimental sonic ideas and rhythms that have been a feature if not the focus of the music since the beginning. But in 2020’s RESURRECTEDINBLACK, the first Bestial Mouths record crafted with Cerezo at the creative helm it’s all there for a listening experience not unlike the psycho-mystical depths of a Dead Can Dance album but darker and more harrowing and cathartic. The new album R.O.T.T. (inmyskin), with the acronym standing for Road of Thousand Tears drops on August 11, 2023 and continues the path of its predecessor but with the songs seemingly emerging from the murk that seemed entirely appropriate for a set of songs from a time of great uncertainty and treading new musical paths. Those appreciate Diamanda Galás’ elemental catharsis, psychic fearlessness and avant-garde sensibilities might find a great deal to appreciate about Bestial Mouths as will those with a taste for the political industrial punk of ADULT. and Jarboe’s deeply emotional and unfettered vocal performances but while in Swans and since.

Listen to our interview with Lynette Cerezo of Bestial Mouths on Bandcamp and catch the group perform in Colorado on Wednesday, June 21 at Vulture’s in Colorado Springs with WitchHands and eHpH and on Thursday, June 22 at Hi-Dive in Denver with Church Fire and DJ Shannon Von Kell as well as other dates announced on the band’s website (linked below) where you can find more information and links to listen and purchase music and merch.

bestialmouths.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E02: Atmosphere

Atmosphere is a hip-hop duo from Minneapolis, Minnesota comprised of rapper Slug aka Sean Daley and DJ/producer Ant aka Anthony Davis. Slug and Ant have been influential well beyond their own remarkable work as artists as co-founders of the respected Rhymesayers Entertainment imprint which has long been one of the torchbearers of underground and alternative hip-hop going back to the mid-90s and releasing not just the work of Atmosphere but that of Aesop Rock, Brother Ali, Eyedea & Abilities, Dilated Peoples, Grayskul and others. Including its debut album Overcast! (1997), Atmosphere has released thirteen full albums and ten EPs up through the new record So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously (2023) making the project one of the more prolific acts in hip-hop. In its various lineups and incarnations Atmosphere has consistently paired sensitive and thought-provoking lyrics with a sonically rich and diverse production ranging from some more classic hip-hop sounds to the clearly experimental and avant-garde all to deliver powerfully evocative music that engages the imagination and the heart. In the live setting Atmosphere create an intimate and inviting energy that creates an environment of the shared experience as Daley’s lyrics aim to not just tell relatable stories with roots in his own direct experiences but with resonances for common experiences and emotional spaces we’ve all known. On the new record the songs take us through a journey through unrest and hope, the latter the primary feeling Daley hopes to convey to everyone that shows up to an Atmosphere show because it is hope that lingers and can carry you through trying times into those that are better.

Listen to our interview with Slug on Bandcamp and catch Atmosphere on tour now including a date in Englewood, Colorado at Fiddler’s Green on Friday, June 16, 2023 for a festival date as Dirty Heads & Atmosphere & Stick Figure w/DENM, The Grouch and Mike Love. And then returning to the Denver area at Red Rocks on September 17, 2023 with Danny Brown, Souls of Mischief, The Grouch & Eligh w/DJ Fresh, Mr. Dibbs and Breakbeat Lou of Ultimate Breaks & Beats. For more information on Atmosphere and Rhymesayers please visit the links below.

Rhymesayers
atmospheresucks.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E01: Kyle Bates of Drowse

Kyle Bates is a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work has most often been heard as his musical project Drowse. Founded in 2013 in Portland, Oregon, Drowse has released a few albums and numerous EPs and split releases. The music could be considered in part ambient, slowcore, shoegaze, drone, experimental folk and perhaps even transcendental black metal. But all categories aside, each Drowse recording is a journey into unique and nuanced emotional spaces exploring and living within a flow of emotions and thoughts that open the mind to new ideas and interpretations. And more so the moods, frequencies and textures on a Drowse recording, or really any of the releases in which Bates is involved, express a state of mind that one enters after having moved past a peak of anxiety or personal darkness and contain that tenderness and rawness one often needs to pull oneself out of a place of acute pain and psychological paralysis. The gentleness of the music is part of its power and appeal as Bates seems keenly aware of what it’s like to experience that period in life where you don’t feel like you can push or strive any further and you need an experience that is the opposite of that very modern and American internalized urge to keep at things to the extreme and prove yourself endlessly more and more. The core sound of Drowse is that of the musical equivalent of acceptance of one’s human limitations and of being open to what will nurture your well being and spark your imagination into nudging you toward fulfilling experiences.

Throughout his work as Drowse Bates has collaborated with Maya Stoner (Floating Room), Thom Wasluck (Planning for Burial), Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Taylor Malsey, Amulets, Daniel Schmidt and others. In 2023 Bates released an album as Kyle Bates and Lula Asplund called A Matinee that expands upon the format of his songwriting and production with two extended tracks that sound like an improv session one might have stumbled into in cutting room floor recordings of Alan Hankshaw and/or Brian Bennett had they been asked to provide music for a forgotten and mystical place. While it may sound like Bates’ work sets your mind into a different place than where it began upon listening to it, it does, but it is not escapist. Like the work of Grouper or Tim Hecker, Bates’ music has delicate immediacy that engages as it soothes and it stirs the emotions and the imagination.

Listen to our interview with Bates on Bandcamp and catch Drowse on tour now throughout the US and select dates in Europe through August including at the Hi-Dive in Denver on Monday, June 12, 2023 with Agriculture, Sprain and Palehorse/Palerider. For live dates and to hear A Matinee please visit the Drowse Bandcamp page linked below the interview and for more information on Bates’ projects and performances visit kylebates.net.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E50: Antibroth

Antibroth is the kind of band that defies easy categorization even though its angular rhythms is in line with post-punk but its energy is more what you’d expect out of a hardcore band but the sonics are more experimental and the sense of humor more surreal than fits neatly into a genre. The trio formed when Jeremy Mock and Dan Switalski met in the music production program at Denver University where they also met original drummer Wesley Wolfe. But early in the band’s existence Wolfe moved on to other concerns and Hayden Bosch stepped into the role after Mock saw him play in his former emo band at a school event and was struck by Bosch’s hard hitting style. Antibroth formed with its current line up right before the 2020 pandemic but when shows started happening again in later 2021 the group was able to demonstrate how it had been able to develop and woodshed material and became a fixture in the Denver underground who as relative newcomers encountered all the odd situations new bands face in terms of shows and venues available to them but quickly encountered hardcore shows at Seventh Circle Music Collective, Mutiny Information Café and other venues where hardcore and increasingly other likeminded bands were performing. Anyone that got to see Antibroth got to see a group with a lot of energy that harnessed a math-rock-esque precision worthy of Hella and Don Caballero and channeled it into music that could sound sometimes thrillingly unhinged but always captivating for not sounding like much else you were likely to encounter in Denver music with strong hooks and memorable melodies. And now Antibroth is closing the chapter of its existence with a final EP Satan and the Dying Baby (out June 16, 2023) and a tour with Endless, Nameless from Denver out to the East Coast and back. The three members of the band are going their separate ways on good terms and in the history of music many of the best bands have two and a half albums and some singles and done. Antibroth has definitely left its mark on anyone fortunate enough to catch one of the band’s spirited shows.

Listen to our interview with Antibroth on Bandcamp and give a listen to Satan and the Dying Baby and its other releases at the link below. Also below is the tour route for Antibroth’s last hurrah of live performances.

Antibroth Spring/Summer 2023 Tour with Endless, Nameless
June 9 – Denver, CO
@d3artswestwood w/ @rosevariety @wrathofthelamb

June 11 – Lincoln, NE
Rancho Rodeo w/ Säbo

6/12 – Ames, IA
@theaholeames w/Moscow Puzzles and Perfect Strangers

6/13 Chicago, IL
@subtchicago w/ @tenmonthsummerband

6/14 Dayton, OH
@blindrageshop SUPPORT TBA

6/16 Queens, NY
@barfreda801 w/ @fallofthealbatross @voicemail.bandcamp @_mineshaft

6/17 New Brunswick, NJ
Mum’s House w/ @pyre_screamo @hysteria_the_band

6/18 Philadelphia, PA
@breadboxphilly w/ @mtworry @queasy.does.it

6/19 Pittsburgh, PA
@mr_roboto_project w/ @fficus_pgh

6/20 Cincinnati, OH
@dsgn_cllctv w/ @tinafeyband @badman.cin

6/21 St. Louis, MO
@sinkholestl SUPPORT TBA

6/23 Lawrence, KS
@toiletbowl.lfk w/ @jackoffs.lfk @thesewingcircle.kc

6/24 Wichita, KS
@lumberyardks w/ @jackass.the.band @noboysict @badeyesmusic

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E49: Ivan Julian

Ivan Julian is a guitarist, singer and songwriter who many may know as a founding member of Richard Hell and the Voidoids. He has also contributed to music by as well as performed with the likes of Isley Brothers, The Clash (for instance he played on “The Call Up” from 1980’s Sandinista!), Matthew Sweet (with whom he toured for a number of years in the 90s), The Bongos, Shriekback and others. The child of a Navy officer, Julian spent a great deal of time living in other parts of the world including Haiti and Cuba but ended up in Washington D.C. as happens with families who have jobs with the federal government. Julian began playing guitar in his early teen years and was a touring musician at age 17 as a member of The Foundations. In his 20s Julian was part of that influential CBGB’s scene and crossed paths with a broad swath of the punk world and No Wave scenes and formed a group called Lovelies in 1988 with his then life Cynthia Sley of Bush Tetras. In February 2023 Julian released his new album under his name called Swing Your Lanterns, an album about the nature of character in a time of troubles and how that overlaps with the human condition, it’s an album about timeless themes of love and loss, dreams and contemplating the deeper meaning of it all. Musically it brings together the sounds of Julian’s long career with elements of punk attitude, blues, R&B, pop and art rock. It finds Julian in an imaginative mode with poignant commentary on our current era.

Listen to our interview with Julian on Bandcamp and give a listen to Swing Your Lanterns on Bandcamp where you can also purchase the album on digital, CD and pre-order the limited edition 160 gram vinyl.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E48: Rue Bainbridge

Rue Bainbridge at Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival, April 21, 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Rue Bainbridge is the duo of Gryphon Rue and Benton C. Bainbridge who fuse an expanded practice of cinematic and sonic art. Using a hacked game console and other electronic devices to generate imagery and synth and musical saw to shape unique tones and frequencies in a way that generates what the project calls “electric calligraphy.” In the live setting the duo use a mesh screen upon which to project the minimalist yet intricate visuals improvising together with the sounds/music in a dynamic interplay unlike much of anything else in the realm of experimental music and visual art. The visuals and the sounds invite those present to engage in a mutual act of imagination and interpretation and in the live setting Rue and Bainbridge play off the reactions and responses of the audience in a way that makes each performance unique as each takes place in a different environment geographically and emotionally/psychologically.

Though initially getting off the ground in New York City and crafting performances in unconventional spaces and those more so, Rue Bainbridge have presented their shows on five continents in art museums, outdoor venues, for broadcast and a wide range of spaces inspiring the creative expansion of the project. In 2022 and 2023 Rue Bainbridge performed at the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival and for the 2022 event they employed a large wall as part of an impromptu canvas for the visuals and in 2023 it was indoors at the Center For Musical Arts. The wide ranging visual expression with stylized geometric shapes and luminous sketches in sync with composed and improvised drones, field recordings and other samples and textural and harmonic tones felt like being witness to and immersed in a nonverbal yet deeply emotionally communicative act of a shared experience alive for those moments like a collective performance art piece. It had an effect that struck one as intimate and cosmic at once and one that you knew was ephemeral and more poignant because of it.

After the show I got to speak with the duo in one of the other performance spaces in the venue and we discussed a bit of their background and approach to their craft and performance and the heady ideas that have informed what they try to do with their art.

For more information on the project and their shows please visit Gryphon Rue’s website and follow Rue Bainbridge on Instagram.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E47: scott crow

Now known more for his political activism and writings on subjects as diverse worker cooperatives, animals liberation, environmentalism, prison abolition, police brutality, anarchism and general alternative economic models to capitalism including mutual aid and disaster relief, scott crow was also a member of political industrial dance acts Lesson Seven and Audio Assault. One might compare Lesson Seven’s music to EBM and electronic industrial groups like Skinny Puppy, with whom the project toured on the latter’s 1988 VIVI Sect VI tour sharing a similar political ethos. At the time most of those industrial and adjacent bands, a good number with whom Lesson Seven shared the stage with over the years, had an outlook critical of a political and social order that had become entrenched in the USA and more or less globally starting in the mid-1970s and dramatically throughout the 1980s with the Reagan and Thatcher regimes in America and the UK respectively: a crypto-authoritarian and austerity policy agenda that has worked to dismantle environmental, labor and civil rights laws and regulations hard won by over a century of grassroots struggle and a brief window of relative political openness to change. The music crow and his bandmates and likeminded artists made commented on this state of affairs with insight and gave it an accessibility that dance-oriented music can, perhaps echoing the famous words of Emma Goldman from her 1931/1934 autobiography Living My Life: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution.” Meaning the austere and joyless, inhuman and uncompassionate, revolutionary culture she observed regularly throughout her lifetime that missed the point of human and non-human liberation broadly.

As an author crow reflected on his life and work in his first book Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective (2015) and published selections of his work in Emergency, Hearts, Molotov Dreams (2016). The record label Emergency Hearts crow started to release new music with a similar ethos to that of his own early time in music that resonates through to today and to reissue some of the older albums that have been neglected for decades. Releasing work and collaborations between artists such as Dead Voices on Air, Laibach, Lee “Scratch” Perry, the recently passed Mark Stewart (The Pop Group), Del The Funky Homosapien, Angelo Moore, Mark Pistel, Time (the Denver-based rapper and political writer), Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), MDC, Sole and a host of others has brought crow and not only his sense of the fusion of music, culture and politics but his ear for music that is and can be impactful to a modern era of music at a time when it can spread more rapidly and not merely serve as background entertainment due to its vital content.

Listen to our interview with crow on Bandcamp and for more information on the artist, writer, filmmaker, father and organizer, please visit scottcrow.org and for Emergency Hearts releases, take a look at the label’s Bandcamp.

Interview: Julia Wolf on Horror, Humor and Her Debut Album Good Thing We Stayed

Alt-pop artist Julia Wolf dropped her debut full length album Good Thing We Stayed in January 2023 via BMG. Wolf grew up in the North Shore part of New Jersey as a shy and quiet young woman who was evidently observing the world around her with keen social and psychological insight because her body of work as a songwriter has a striking depth that brings to every song on at least the new album an unexpected resonance regardless of your background that invites repeated listens. Wolf headlined her own tour in the wake of the release of the album and is now supporting Quinn XCII on his national tour with a concert at Red Rocks on June 6, but with her own solo headlining show at Meow Wolf Convergence Station on June 5 with YaSi. We had a chance to ask Wolf some questions via email.

Tom Murphy: Good Thing We Stayed is your debut full length but it comes after some strong early releases including the Girls in Purgatory EP. Were there themes and subjects you felt more free to include in the songwriting for these new songs?

Julia Wolf: Yeah, I definitely felt more freedom to story tell the journey of where I started to where I am now through an entire album versus trying to squeeze it into a single here or there. It really runs through the highs and lows of working towards your dreams which is a way more discouraging road than people realize. This album highlights the good, the frustrating, the anxiety whilst all being written through the lense of someone on the shyer side.

TM: I read that horror films are a bit of an obsession of yours and might have been an influence (directly or indirectly) on the new album. How so? What is it about them that resonates with you creatively? What are some of your favorites older and newer?

JW: Since I was little I’ve always gravitated towards horror (we can thank my mama for that one)! And so it’s always been the genre to really capture my eye and allow for a full escape from reality verses a fiction or romance piece. Back in the day I was a real loner, didn’t have friends really, ate lunch alone that kind of thing. And horror was the only thing that helped distract me fully. When it comes to my visuals I do try and implement it as much as possible especially for songs like “Dracula” or “Hot Killer” where I bring references straight into the lyrics. Some of my favorites are Insidious, Skinamarink, The Rental, Barbarian, and of course any of the Scream movies (literally have a Ghostface tattoo)!!

TM: The album seems to follow something of a loose story arc. Was that something you planned or perhaps sequenced after writing the songs?

JW: I never went into the studio with the intention of creating an album. But after more and more sessions we would put certain songs to the side like “Rookie of the Year” that felt they were a part of a bigger story. Once I felt the story was complete the album was done!

TM: The lyrics on every song seem really open and vulnerable, sensitive, even in moments of expressing confidence. That seems to suit the often melancholic mood of the music. What about that way of writing do you think is compelling for you rather than the swagger of a lot of pop music?

JW: Thank you so much!! I guess I’ve come to understand many people write over music/beats that have already been made but I find it to be too restrictive. When there’s no music to go off of I have the freedom to write without structure or boundary and can also free form a melody that doesn’t have to fit what’s already been created ahead of time.

TM: One of the most striking things about your songs is how they’re so grounded in vivid experiences and personal and cultural references. Like the mentions of the North Shore and Blockbuster countdowns. But someone that makes an appearance here and there is your sister and it seems like she’s someone you look up to and don’t want to disappoint. Whether that’s a literal reference or not what makes her an important part of your songwriting?

JW: Cami has been my entire world since I was about 5 years old. We were always inseparable but it wasn’t until my older years even in high school when I was really struggling constantly alone at school, so uncomfortable in my own skin, that I would know without a shadow of a doubt, she could put a smile on my face everyday no matter what. She has helped me become the person I am today. I go to her for everything and vice versa. I love her and therefore she is in everything I do; I’m always thinking about her.

TM: The line in “Gothic Babe Tendencies” “I always choose the dark but what if I surrender to the sun?” is so poignant. What role do you feel like exploring ambivalence and mixed feelings plays in your music?

JW: It’s been a huge one because unfortunately most people are disappointing. I’ve had to realize time and time again that just because I would do something and put the extra effort in, doesn’t mean somebody else would. But through that I find myself learning to be independent, to not hold on when someone is showing true colors, and not fear being on my own. With that I can put it into the music and hope to show someone they don’t need to settle either.

TM: We’re in a precarious time politically and socially in the USA and really the world. Why did you think it was important to publicly associate yourself with an organization like WRRAP and its mission?

JW: Even though my platform is a tiny one, I think every voice, every comment, every share still counts and opens up someone’s eyes to what’s going on. I will always try to publicly associate myself with what I feel is right and fair and in turn make people understand where I stand and know that our community is a safe space for everyone.

TM: “Get Off My” truly transforms a specific and literal expression into the more accurate if metaphorical meaning with humor. Though there are heavy subjects and sad songs and heartbreaking moments on the album, what do you think humor helps to highlight or express more realistically in a song?

JM: I think it’s just instantly relatable. A phrase like that is one everybody says all the time as it applies to so many situations in one’s life. So when you hear it you don’t have to think twice to know that on some level here you can scream those lyrics out and feel a bit better about whatever’s bugging you!!

TM: All pop music is a stylistic hybrid these days and your songs have guitar, synth/keyboard and trap beats as well as maybe some more acoustic percussion here and there. Was that approach more a product of your bedroom production? What music helped you to realize you could do that on your own with confidence even as someone who grew up shy?

JW: I think my sound is a product of what influences me today and what I listened to growing up. When I was younger it was all the alternative bands or pop punk concerts you could imagine. It was emotional and made me feel tougher than I actually was, which is probably why I loved it as a shy person so much. As I got older I started really getting into rap and loving that genre sonically so much. So yes, those days in my bedroom were just me trying to bring those worlds together. But it wasn’t until I met my producer Jackson that it finally started coming to life. Now I find myself slowly drifting more and more back into that alternative world so I’m excited to share what’s coming up next!

Julia Wolf LinkTree

Julia Wolf on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E46: Water From Your Eyes

Water From Your Eyes at Larimer Lounge, December 6, 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

As Water From Your Eyes, Nate Amos and Rachel Brown have made a career of using an eclectic and ever evolving palette of sounds to explore ideas and concepts through what could be considered dance pop. That is if your frame of reference might be the experimental electronic and punk out of New York and Los Angeles of the last fifteen years. Its 2020 album 33:44 is something you’d expect more out of a band on the Northern Spy label with its beautifully dire, ambient and modern classical soundscapes that are almost an homage to Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” crossed with Howard Shore’s work for the films of David Cronenberg. But the duo’s most recent album Structure at times sounds like what might have happened if Aphex Twin in writing Selected Ambient Works Volume II had decided to turn those into pop songs. Except that Water From Your Eyes inserts enigmatic spoken word elements that serve as a a meta narrative that re-configures traditional album sequencing and gives the whole album a non-linear quality made cohesive by reimagining the nature of how creative work is structured. In these ways Water From Your Eyes fuses the avant-garde and pop songcraft into a highly accessible form that in the live setting creates an inviting mystique. The group signed to Matador Records in 2023 which released its new album Everyone’s Crushed on May 26 of that year.

Listen to our interview on Bandcamp with Amos and Brown conducted in the back area of Larimer Lounge prior to its show opening for Palm on December 6, 2022 and delve into the new album and the band’s back catalog at the link below. For more information on Water From Your Eyes please visit waterfromyoureyes.com.