San Francisco singer/songwriter Matt Jaffe has released “Just an Echo” from his upcoming full-length titled White Roses in the Snow, and the song is an absolute homerun.
Jaffe’s reverb-laden vocals keenly cascade over the unparagoned instrumental, combining scintillating synthesizers with slick guitar riffs. The tune radiates a throwback vibe coupled with contemporary production and poignant lyricism. Lines like “Between you and me, we’d furnish a whole cemetery / With old souvenirs we’d be so much wiser to bury” leave the listener with perturbing words to chew on before launching into the closing chorus.
We asked Jaffe for some personal background on the conception of the song. “‘Just an Echo’ will always be linked to Covid. Not its subject matter, but the act of writing it. For part of 2021, I stayed with family in SoCal; my uncle, an avid guitar acquirer, had a Breedlove guitar and I picked it up and this song spilled out. Different instruments harbor different songs and this song will always be the one that found its way out of that guitar on my first day in that new living situation.”
Concerning the remarkable production and unconventional array of instrumentation, he said, “When we recorded the song, my producer and I strived to make the song not a rock song. We’re both guitar lovers so we, ironically, wanted to forge a path away from our roots. We successfully escaped many of our tropes and were satisfied to find a sound that owed to my longtime heroes but also defied definition by them.” He cites the New Wave era as one of his largest musical inspirations.
“Just an Echo” will stick with you—the catchy melodies and brain-picking lyrics are more than enough to urge you to hit replay again and again. Save “Just an Echo” on Spotify here, Apple Music here, or purchase on iTunes here. Trust me, you’ll want to go ahead and add this delectable slice of indie electro-rock to your current rotation.
“You look at me with such conviction / You’d have a non-believer fooled”
It’s that time of year. 2021 is finally coming to a close, and with it we will reflect on all the music this year had to offer. From amazing solo debuts to unexpected comeback records, plenty of LPs blew us away in 2021. As a quick recap of 2020, our top three albums from that year were Cherry Blossom by The Vamps, folklore by Taylor Swift, and Superbloom by Ashton Irwin. Before we get into the 2021 list proper, let’s give a rundown of some honorable mentions and shoutouts that we hope you’ll take the time to listen to. (In no particular order.)
Honorable Mentions & Shoutouts
Honest Men – Field of Vision
Snail Mail – Valentine
Julien Baker – Little Oblivions
Piqued Jacks – Synchronizer
Ashley Monroe – Rosegold
Citizen – Life In Your Glass World
Maple Glider – To Enjoy Is the Only Thing
Tune-Yards – sketchy.
Delta Goodrem – Bridge Over Troubled Dreams
Birdy – Young Heart
Grayscale – Umbra
Jeremy Zucker – CRUSHER
Fiddlehead – Between the Richness
Vistas – What Were You Hoping To Find?
Porter Robinson – Nurture
Yellow Ostrich – Soft
Madi Diaz – History of a Feeling
Carpool Tunnel – Bloom
Laura Stevenson – Laura Stevenson
Michigan Left – Capsize
Free Throw – Piecing It Together
Best Albums
These are our most played, favorite albums from 2021. To call them the “best” albums of the year seems like a stretch; just because we enjoy something on a personal level doesn’t mean it’s spectacular critically. But maybe you can hear me out on these…
9. Justin Bieber – Justice
Look, I know this is probably not the best way to start out the list, but Justice truly has its moments. Bieber leaves behind the lowkey alt-R&B of 2020’s Changes for a sleek, energetic blend of pop rock, electro, and indie pop on Justice. As with any JB record, it’s still quite sterile and safe. However, despite owning the horrible “MLK Interlude” and other samples of King’s speeches, Justice ultimately serves as Justin’s homerun comeback, especially into the mainstream by scoring big hits like the smooth R&B jam “Peaches” and the gospel-inspired “Holy.” The real gems on this record are found in the deeper cuts. Songs such as “Hold On” and “Somebody” offer up a delectable mixture of ’80s-esque synths and percussion with modern-day production qualities, which is also akin to the more mellow tracks “Deserve You” and “Die For You.” The vivacious reggaeton beat of “Love You Different” will remind listeners of Justin’s memorable outing Purpose, and the world-influenced “Loved By You” gives the album some different flavors. But we find Justin at his most reflective on the rawer tunes like “2 Much,”“Unstable,” and “Off My Face.” The straightforward pop nature of “Ghost” and “As I Am” makes them destined for radio, and the track “Anyone” is surprisingly a romantic power ballad. While the album is a bit all over the board with its styles and collaborators, it still feels relatively cohesive and each individual song shines in its own ways.
Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album SOUR is a sweet listen with a bitter sting to its subject matters. Even more, she seems to ride the wave of a rock revival in the mainstream with searing guitars and live drums, something quite daring for a future star’s initial effort. At only 18 upon its release, Olivia explores typical teenage struggles of heartache, self-esteem, social media, and fitting in, although many listeners beyond her age group have found themselves relating to such topics as well. Perhaps the musicality of the album facilitates that; songs like “good 4 u” and “brutal” will remind you of pop punk bands that found their footing in the mid-2000s, and the tracks “drivers license” and “deja vu” seem to take cues from the playbook of 2010s pop artists like Lorde and Taylor Swift when working with Joel Little. There are a few singer/songwriter cuts on the record as well, like “favorite crime” and “enough for you,” which are nearly timeless in their instrumentation. While I acknowledge that many may rightfully deem SOUR as melodramatic, derivative, and undercooked, it displays Olivia’s potential as a rising artist and writer. Her work with Dan Nigro as producer is obviously reminiscent of Conan Gray’s 2020 debut full-length Kid Krow, which also drew major influence from Rodrigo’s citations like Lorde, Taylor Swift, and others. This sound seems to be carving out a revitalized path in the mainstream considering how successful and eminent SOUR has been throughout 2021.
Okay, okay, maybe this is where the list should realistically have started…
7. Alessia Cara – In the Meantime
Third time’s the charm? After the sensational EP This Summer in 2019, Alessia Cara’s third studio album In the Meantime is possibly her most cultivated and tasteful yet. Instrumentally, Alessia keeps it tight this time around, mainly utilizing guitars, keys, bass, percussion, and the occasional horn section or piano. She also employs vocoder effects on a handful of tunes, which offers some variety, but the vocals alone are still the standout star of these compositions. Alessia’s skill as a singer and songwriter remain unmatched; her voice is velvety and passionate, smooth yet exposed. And her lyrical endeavors here tend to journey outside the box (pun majorly intended). In the Meantime observes emotional self-awareness, coping mechanisms, self-doubt, relationship complications, and uncertainty towards the future, and Alessia approaches these topics with such vulnerability that many big-name popstars would never dare put on display. She also details her struggles with insomnia on “Sweet Dream,” the bouncy lead single that may just be 2021’s supreme sleeper hit (okay, no pun intended).
The bows that tie all these components together are ultimately the production qualities and catchy melodies. Every instrument lives exquisitely in the mix, and the percussion sounds exceptionally crisp. The horn sections are rather luscious, most notably on songs like “Bluebird” and “Box in the Ocean,” and the basslines are as flawlessly rich as can be—my favorite would be that walkdown line featured on “Clockwork.” Alessia Cara truly knocks it out of the park on In the Meantime: her pop sensibility and knack for good hooks coupled with her operatic abilities and pensive lyricism makes for the perfect alt-pop record.
Dream Jacuzzi’s debut album is a perfect example of accidental genius. As they put it themselves in our exclusive interview, “Consciously, we didn’t realize what we were doing at the time, but subconsciously, we were making something that was fairly cohesive.” The tracklist for Lemon Hazy Nights is structured almost entirely in chronological order of when the band made each song, and yet so many tunes transition nearly seamlessly into the next. In the title track, we hear the line, “Tell me, what’s the last thing on your mind before you close your eyes to sleep at night?” On the following tune “Black Walnut,” the listener is met with this cloudy dialogue about sleeping, beginning with the line, “Hey, what’s the last thing you remember before you fall asleep?” and ending with the words “till I fall asleep,” which of course leads into the next track of the same name.
We also hear birds chirping on a couple songs, like “Redbird,” which is another ribbon that ties the album together. The concept of “lemon hazy nights” is referred to multiple times, a fuzzy idea that the band has ultimately left up to the listener to define for themselves, but it begins to feel as clear as day by the time we reach the end. The unintentional attention to detail even shines through on songs individually. On the tune “Rollercoaster,” a glissando-tinged guitar line emulates the ups and downs of a rollercoaster, sliding from one octave to the other, which is something so astute and yet the band executed it completely coincidentally.
Dream Jacuzzi also shows off their musical versatility on this record, from plucky electric guitar lines to coarsely distorted ones, from glossy keys to organic acoustic guitars. “Purple Skies” is hardly nothing more than an instrumental interlude but it certainly is destined to be one of your favorite tracks. Drawing inspiration from bands new and old, such as Tame Impala, Arctic Monkeys, Pink Floyd, and The Beatles, Lemon Hazy Nights is a refreshing fusion of styles melded cohesively together with clean production, smart songwriting, and alluring vocals.
Made on a whim and with gallons of subconscious expertise, Lemon Hazy Nights is an exciting glimpse into what Dream Jacuzzi is capable of if they actually sat down and put thought into crafting an album. But that doesn’t seem to be how they roll; perhaps the winging-it, foggy-headed style is exactly what they needed to pull these ideas out of their heads. After all, sometimes your best thoughts come to you in your dreams.
A tragedy I lived through in 2021 was obtaining tickets to see The Brook & The Bluff live in Opelika and then not being able to actually go. Regardless of such misfortune on my part, the band’s newest album Yard Sale is another smashing addition to their discography. The hometown boys are as talented as they are human, as soulful as they are charming, more than ever perhaps on this latest LP. Heavy basslines, impassioned vocals, and lush guitar strumming is customary for The Brook & The Bluff at this point, but they’ve reached a new pinnacle on Yard Sale. Oh, and don’t forget the catchy as hell melodies. But Yard Sale displays another characteristic that seems to be more elevated than ever: the lyrics. “Being perfect goes at this yard sale,” for instance, is not only a marvelous line, it’s also quite meta. This album is ever so perfectly rough around the edges. The band appears to be having more fun than ever, blending their time-honored brand of blues rock with a familiar yet new Beatles-influenced style characterized by cheery acoustic guitars and off-the-wall backing vocals. They also explore some string-based orchestral instrumentation on “Little Sheets” and tackle their first collaboration on a song with Molly Parden on “Wallflower.”Yard Sale is ultimately a delightful retreat into more vintage musical styles uplifted by contemporary production and thoughtful lyricism, and it’s surely a record you won’t want to sell.
It felt like decades since Melodrama, Lorde’s (incredible) effort in 2017, so of course expectations were through the roof for her radiant return. But Solar Power sounds nothing like her previous records. This album is inching towards psychedelic, delineated by lush guitars and ebullient percussion unlike anything we’ve witnessed prior. Lorde’s signature layered vocals do make an appearance, but she seems to be demonstrating a higher register in her voice and playing with more complicated melodies this time around. Solar Power is more barebones and somewhat minimalistic compared to its predecessors, but it’s quite a welcomed shift in Lorde’s musical catalog. I could almost compare the sunshiny sonority of some of these songs to a peak mid-2000s artist like Natasha Bedingfield (think “Unwritten”) or Corinne Bailey Rae but imbued with hypnagogic styles of the ’60s and ’70s. Although a few of the tracks fall short in the lyrical department, the New Zealand artist delves into some interesting topics, such as “self-care” culture, her famous status, the questionable use of crystals, and the climate crisis we face. This album seems to have flown over many people’s heads. Yes, it’s different and of course it has its shortcomings, but Solar Power is a strong and, well, powerful expansion to Lorde’s discography.
Lucy Dacus flexes her unparalleled songwriting skills once more on her latest record Home Video. Her third full-length is patterned with religious trauma, familial struggles, plights of sexuality, and dissatisfaction with both the past and the future. Lucy’s creative prowess shines through in her lyrics, characterized by inventive personification (“The sunset threw a tantrum”), vivid specificity (“Back in the cabin, snorting nutmeg in your bunk bed”), sprightly imagery (“Eating cherries on the bridge, feet dangling / Throwing pits and stems into the current below”), and, well, existential dread (“The future isn’t worth its weight in gold / The future is a benevolent black hole”). It’s pure poetry, so good that you can’t dream of laughing, and the subjects viewed feel deeply personal to Lucy and yet construed with such relatability. The album is indeed akin to a home video: exclusively intimate but widely understandable. This is accomplished by that unique specificity employed in the lyrics; the pictures Dacus paints are distinct and honest, but the subjects at hand are tangled emotions that the masses can relate to. (Hence the cover art—Lucy is putting this “home video” on display in hopes of an audience.)
It causes Lucy to feel more human than ever, which is facilitated by the rudimentary instrumentation and unpretentious musicality. Defined primarily by guitars, bass, drums, and the occasional piano, Home Video is authentic in more ways than one. Many tunes are stripped-back in their orchestration, like “Christine,”“Thumbs,” and “Please Stay,” which allows their messages to feel even more exposed. “VBS” is a lovely example of how Dacus utilizes the musical composition to bolster the lyrics, singing “There’s nothing you can do, but the only thing you’ve found / Playing Slayer at full volume helps to drown it out” while crackling into a breakdown of distorted guitars. “Partner In Crime” is performed entirely in autotune, supposedly due to some lackluster vocal takes, but this modification of her voice reflects the falsified nature of the lyrics as well, which explains how she would lie about her age to appeal to older love interests.
Overall, Home Video is like a movie you don’t want to miss. I’ve raved about it enough, now view it for yourself. In fact, I “Triple Dog Dare” you. Lucy’s expressiveness will leave you feeling like you got a front row seat to an old camcorder tape, full of personality and rumination on prior life events. Some may consider it diary-like but I find something charming about a fittingly obsolete VHS from days gone by.
2. Luke Hemmings – When Facing the Things We Turn Away From
Imagine a three-way lovechild between Tame Impala, Fleetwood Mac, and Bon Iver while still being original and experimental on its own. That’s essentially a very basic way to describe Luke Hemmings’ solo debut album When Facing the Things We Turn Away From. Confessional and introspective, When Facing is a strong first outing from the 5 Seconds of Summer vocalist and guitarist. The lead single “Starting Line” is, if I had to choose, the least remarkable song on the album, sounding like any typical indie rock soundtrack to some young adult coming-of-age film, albeit still rather enjoyable. Luke shines brightest on his more exploratory moments, marked modestly by his utilization of vocal effects on “Place In Me” and quasi-psychedelic ventures on “Baby Blue.”“Motion” is a dazzling synth-rock tune at full steam ahead, and “Saigon” displays a blissful array of instrumentation. Further still, the more out-of-the-box cuts are songs like “Mum” and “A Beautiful Dream” where listeners are met with glorious walls of synthesizers and guitars amongst changing melodies and vocoder inflections.
Luke’s lyricism is nothing less than impressive, contemplating his romantic relationship and personal sense of self having grown into adulthood under the spotlight. His fiancée Sierra Deaton contributed to many tracks as a backing vocalist and songwriter, which lends a rather wholesome touch to the record. Overall, When Facing the Things We Turn Away From is an exceptional solo debut that avoids being derivative or conceited, offering twelve solid tunes that will stay “living on repeat.”
Yeah, it’s Taylor. Shortly after the surprise drop folklore in the summer of 2020, Taylor Swift returned with a sister album in December titled evermore. Sticking with folklore collaborators Aaron Dessner, Justin Vernon, and Jack Antonoff, evermore is certainly a sister album in sound and demeanor but ultimately serves as an improvement and refinement of what folklore originally aimed to bring to the table. Reflective and emotional indie folk pop (?) is probably the easiest way to define the genre here, but there’s also modern country storytelling on the HAIM-supported “no body, no crime” and orchestral-tinged electropop on “gold rush.” The skittering percussive beat of “closure” and use of vocal effects renders it one of the more experimental songs on the LP, and it may also bring to mind Bon Iver of course.
As folklore presented a shift in Swift’s lyrical writing, evermore further improves upon it. “tolerate it” and “happiness” will undoubtedly leave your heart aching while “ivy” (which has my favorite line: “My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand”) and “evermore” have the power to transport you to another world entirely. “’tis the damn season” and “coney island” explore strained relationships over captivating rhythms, and “long story short” and “dorothea” stand as the more upbeat songs on the album. The lead single “willow” is a saccharine love song though broodingly mystical and enchanting. (“Witchy,” as Swift likes to say.)
All in all, evermore places Taylor at a crossroads once again; does this style of writing and musicality signal the direction for her future projects? Or is this simply a fever-dream-esque glimpse into what she is capable of as an artist unbothered by the demands of the mainstream? Either way, evermore is our number one album of 2021.
Dream Jacuzzi‘s debut full-length record Lemon Hazy Nights drops on December 4th, so I wanted to catch up with the guys on their latest masterpiece. Hailing from Alabama, brothers Lucas and Rhett Jackson and long-time friend Josh Pastor make up this soon-to-be four-piece band. I had a call with Lucas and Josh to discuss the new LP and allow them to introduce themselves a bit more.
Alt Columnist: How did Dream Jacuzzi come about?
Dream Jacuzzi: It started out as just Josh and me (Lucas). We knew we wanted to play music together after about our first year in college, but we didn’t really know anyone else that would be good to play with. We made our first EP Out With The Moon kinda on a whim; we made it in about a week. We pretty much started the band over FaceTime. We actually got really, really good at playing together over FaceTime, even though there’s latency. We got pretty good at it, and we basically wrote all the songs over FaceTime. We met up one weekend, went over everything, and wrote all the parts, and then we went to the studio and just recorded it. That was like the start of the band. I really liked the name Dream Jacuzzi. I knew I wanted it to be Dream something and I thought Dream Jacuzzi was cool, it kinda just rolls off the tongue well. It’s sorta ridiculous but people don’t forget it. It essentially means nothing, it just sounds cool.
AC: So the band started out as just you and Josh, but now Rhett’s in the band too, right? When did he get added in?
DJ: He officially got added in pretty much when we started the album. But he’s been laying down the piano tracks in the studio with us from the beginning. He has always been there, but he didn’t actually start helping us write the songs or anything until we started making the album. But yeah, he’s always been in the studio doing back-up vocals and any keys parts we had on the first EP. He’s been writing music longer than Josh and I have; he has his own solo project that he’s going to come out with pretty soon after the album.
AC: Evan plays drums for y’all live, and you said he wasn’t on the album at all, but will he be on the next few releases or anything?
DJ: Yeah, from now on out, he’ll be playing drums on every recording, anything new that we put out. We just added him to the band after we had already completed the album. We needed to have a drummer, and Evan had always been a fan of our music, plus we get along with him really well. So Rhett and Evan are moving up to the house with Josh and me when they graduate, so we’ll all be living here.
AC: Yeah, so then y’all will be a proper four-piece band since it used to just be you and Josh.
DJ: Yeah, we can’t possibly replicate our music live without a drummer, without keys. On some of our newer stuff, a lot of the recordings have prominent keys parts.
AC: I know you and Josh are both multi-instrumentalists. But who plays bass in the band? You two play lead and rhythm guitar, yes?
DJ: So I play rhythm and Josh plays lead, and on the studio recordings, I play all the bass parts as well. We’re still trying to find a bass player, we’ll get there, but I like writing the bass parts anyway.
AC: Who are like the head songwriters in the group? Do y’all both write collaboratively or what?
DJ: Yeah, most of the time it’s just me (Josh) and Lucas. A lot of our songs start out with me coming to Lucas with an idea or he’ll come to me with an idea. Or we’ll sit down and develop an idea together. And then we’ll bring in Rhett to help kinda get it where it needs to be. All the songs are just me and Lucas’ ideas and we develop them together into what they are.
AC: So before heavily committing to being a musician in a band and such, did you first view yourself as a writer at all? Like a poet of sorts or a creative writer or anything like that?
Josh: No, I didn’t. I’ve always written, you know, but never with the intention of putting anything out.
Lucas: I would say Josh is a very good lyricist, he’s really good with, uh…
Josh: Words.
Lucas: Words! Yeah, exactly. I mean, there’s no other way to say it, Josh is a very good lyricist for sure. I’m okay, I’m alright, you know, here and there I can write some lyrics.
AC: Who are some of your biggest inspirations influences, whether it be lyrically or stylistically?
Lucas: Well, in high school, Josh and I really got into The 1975, so they were a big one for us, as well as Arctic Monkeys.
Josh: I think, lyrically, Alex Turner is like the number one for me. I really like his style of using imagery, like, telling a story by painting small pictures and putting them together.
DJ: Yeah, and Tame Impala for sure. On the production end of things, we’ve really been in love with Tame Impala’s sound. So with all that being said, you can definitely hear—well, at least we think we can hear—the influence. Mac Demarco is also good. Cage the Elephant is a big one, too. We also like a lot of older bands, like The Beatles. We love their writing style. With the guitar parts, we really try to be like David Gilmour from Pink Floyd. He’s my favorite guitar player. We’re also big Deadheads, but I don’t think that one comes through as much.
AC: Yeah, I definitely picked up on Arctic Monkeys in some of the songs on the new album. There were a few moments that reminded me of AM a little bit.
DJ: Yep, we really love AM. It’s a good one.
AC: How did you know you wanted to release an album this early in your career?
DJ: We pretty much did it on a whim. Our first EP was made with a different producer, and our two singles “Blue Dream” and “Stuck In A Daze” were with another producer. Then John Pagonis, our producer now, hit us up. Well, I (Josh) was in my freshman year, taking a chemistry class, and this guy just started talking to me while I was walking to class since he was going there too. And, you know, when you write music, you get really excited about it and you feel the need to tell people, even if they don’t care. But he actually did care! His brother had a small record label and was trying to get a studio in the works. Eventually, he ended up contacting us, and we met with him back in about February of 2019. We didn’t hear from him until August, and he said, “Hey, the studio’s ready, I need a guinea pig to test it out. Free studio time if you come up to Nashville and record.” So we did that and it’s been awesome. He lets us stay at his house and we stay up all night recording tracks. It’s so much fun, honestly. He’s probably one of the best people we’ve met, he’s like our best friend at this point, and we’ve only known him for a little over a year now. We were kinda skeptical, like, this guy is just hitting us up for free studio time? Probably not going to be any good, production might suck, but it’s free and we might as well try it. So we recorded “Redbird” and when he sent us the mix, we were blown away. We really liked it a lot and thought, “You wanna just do an album?” Seemed like the next logical step, of course! Later on, we realized that’s not how most bands normally do things. Most of the time they have a lot of stuff prepared, but we didn’t have anything prepared. We were just, you know, going to do an album. We wrote it as we went on, we didn’t plan it. We didn’t have all the songs written and then go in. We just wrote “Redbird” then the next one and then the next one. Almost the entire album from start to finish was written chronologically. There are a few tracks that were mixed around, but basically from the first track to the twelfth track, that’s almost the order we recorded the songs in. It kinda worked out good, I really like the order that it’s in.
AC: Yeah, Lemon Hazy Nights is a really well-rounded album, and it’s kinda funny to learn that y’all almost just winged it all.
DJ: Yeah, we came up with the line “lemon hazy nights” in the song “Redbird.” It just kinda, well, what should “lemon hazy nights” be? It’s up to the listener’s interpretation. It literally just sounded cool, that’s basically it. It really just means nothing, but I feel like people will find a meaning for it. I think I have to some extent, just based off of context any time we say it. And it just sounds cool. It kinda makes you feel something, and that feeling is something important.
AC: Kinda like the band name. It sounds cool, it’s kinda funny and doesn’t mean much, but it still makes sense.
DJ: Yeah! It kinda represents us, too, because we’re not super serious or trying to be. But it sounds cool and it’s kinda funny at the same time.
AC: How has it been working on an album in 2020 with all the Covid restrictions and such?
DJ: Well, it wasn’t too bad, honestly. This year has given us a lot of time to focus on the music for the most part. John’s studio is at his house, and The Cadishack is the studio. He made The Cadishack for bands during Covid because they couldn’t get live shows, so they would just do livestreams with him at The Cadishack.
AC: Do y’all do any of the production yourselves or do you just leave that up to John?
DJ: I mean, we kinda guide him, you know? We’ll go there to mix it, but it’s not like we’re actually on the computer doing it. Sometimes we’ll pick out sounds we like and send him those parts, but most of the time it’s just him. We’re technically involved in it, but it’s not like we’re doing it on our own.
AC: So on Lemon Hazy Nights, how much of the writing is fictional and how much is from real-life experience? There are some tracks that feel really vulnerable and there are some that feel a bit more vague, I suppose. So how much is based off of actual experiences you’ve had?
DJ: Hm, I don’t know about actual experiences, but I guess it starts with a real experience that creates a real feeling. So we try to write to fit that feeling. It sometimes starts with something that may have happened, but we want our songs to be relatable to everyone else. We want people to relate to some of what we’ve experienced, so some of it is true, some of it is a real experience. But, you know, it just kinda goes back to the feeling. You have that real experience that creates that real emotion, that real feeling, so then you might write about something else that you can see creating that same feeling, it fits the song. So there are things in the album where it’s like it’s true because it felt that way, but then there’s a lot of added stuff and it gets blurry to where you can’t say any song is completely true or completely made up. Some might say it gets a little … hazy.
AC: I’m really interested in the track “Black Walnut” because it’s so, well, interesting. It’s like a little interlude but there’s all this deep dialogue in it.
DJ: Yeah, so we have a tree outside our house that’s a black walnut tree. Last fall, we would go out pretty much every day and throw black walnuts at the black walnut tree to knock over other black walnuts. And around the same time, we had a little instrumental guitar piece that we were working on and it just kinda became that. We wanted to keep it interesting for the album, so we wanted to add some dialogue to glue the album together. That was one of the last songs we did. It’s like the end of Side A, leading right into “Till I Fall Asleep” with the last line of “Black Walnut” being “Till I fall asleep.” I don’t know, it kinda makes you think a little bit, makes you think about the whole concept of dreams, which is our thing at this point. It’s in our name, and we’ve got a lot of tracks about sleeping and dreaming and nighttime. It’s a mysterious thing, like, we just fall asleep and it’s this different form of consciousness. It’s an interesting thing to think about. I mean, you could say this album is a concept album, but it wasn’t intended like that at all because we didn’t have the concept at the beginning. But at this point, you know, it could be.
AC: Yeah, the first couple of times I listened through the album, I picked up on that recurring theme of sleeping and dreaming and I thought that was really interesting. There are also a few other recurring themes, you know? In “Redbird,” there are bird noises, and they come up again in “Black Walnut.” It feels like such a cohesive album, and that’s why I was surprised that y’all kinda made this album so quickly and came up with it off the bat in a way. The other interlude track “Purple Skies” is completely instrumental, but I love it, it’s so unique. The guitar tones and the keys in that song are very, I don’t know, delectable. It’s pleasant to the ears.
DJ: Yeah, the only thing we intended on that one was that we wanted it to lead into “Rollercoaster.” We didn’t know how we were going to do it, but we thought, “Okay, let’s just change the key to E major, same key as ‘Rollercoaster,’ and see how that could piece together.” It kinda worked, you know? We slowed down the tempo, put a filter on it. It gives you this feeling like you’re tripping on acid, I guess. It’s one of our most psychedelic tracks on the album. I love it.
AC: The more I listened to the album, the more stuff that I picked up on, the more I felt immersed in the album. I really like that.
DJ: We were hoping people would pick up on some of the references that we were drawing back to. We thought, It all pieces together, but I feel like no one’s going to realize that. If not, that’s okay. If they do, awesome. We did put a lot of little Easter eggs and details in there, and it’s very cool to see someone pick up on them. But I think it really worked out for us. Consciously, we didn’t realize what we were doing at the time, but subconsciously, we were making something that was fairly cohesive. And while we do feel like it’s cohesive, we think there’s something there for everyone. “Redbird” is way different than “Till I Fall Asleep” stylistically. Those are two completely different songs in our opinion. Some of the songs on the album are really psychedelic and some of them just aren’t at all. There’s something for everyone there.
AC: Yeah, it reminds me a bit of The 1975’s self-titled debut, how a song like “Sex” is totally different than a song like “Menswear” or “Pressure” because the style is just so dissimilar. That’s kinda how “Till I Fall Asleep” came off, you know?
DJ: We weren’t even going to release that one as a single, but I’m glad we did because it’s just very different than any of the other ones simply because it’s really raw, there’s not much to it other than guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. That’s about it.
AC: There’s so much detail put into some of these songs that I really appreciate. Like I wrote in my track review on “Rollercoaster,” you have that guitar line in the background that’s going up and down, like a rollercoaster. And I just remember thinking, How many people are going to pick up on that?! It’s so smart but so effortless in the background.
DJ: Yeah, that’s one of the subconscious kind of things, like, we didn’t realize we were doing that until you said it. That was not planned, that was not intentional. We just wanted to add a slide guitar in, you know, ascending and descending. It was that simple, but it worked out well. Lyrically, there were things that were intentional, and there were things that were unintentional. Looking back on it, it’s really cool to see how it all pieced together just off a whim. We’re really proud of it though.
AC: And you should be because this album is really incredible.
DJ: Thank you. That means a lot, it really does.
AC: What direction do you think you’ll be heading in after this release? Are there any new styles y’all want to explore?
DJ: Yeah, we like to change it up a lot because we’re into so many different things. It kinda gets boring just staying with one sound. There’s only so much you can explore in a certain genre. There’s no telling, really. We’ve had ideas. Let’s make things a little more funky, or let’s just go hard rock, really put on a distortion pedal. We’ve had both of those thoughts. Or let’s just fuck the guitars and do a synth track. I don’t know, there’s really no telling.
AC: I think it’d be interesting if on another EP or album, you just do all of that, you know?
DJ: That’s something we’d be prone to do. Do a really heavy rock song and then do a bubblegum pop kind of song, you know. There’s some charm to that “bubblegum pop” stuff, I think it’s cool. I like pop, but I also like stuff that no one’s ever heard of before. But yeah, there’s no telling where we’ll go.
AC: So since you’re about to release this album, do you have any plans in 2021 in terms of releasing music? Or do you think you’re just going to take a break for a while now?
DJ: We have no plans; we have our sights set on gigging. We’re going to gig a bit, but I think we’ll have something out in 2021. We’re always writing new stuff, we’ve got at least 20 different ideas on our computer right now that we can do something with. We might release some singles here and there, but no definitive plans just yet.
Rachel Wurstner, Alt Col administrator, graduated from the University of Chicago with a master’s degree in creative writing and currently works as a small-town journalist.
DJ: We pretty much did it on a whim. Our first EP was made with a different producer, and our two singles “Blue Dream” and “Stuck In A Daze” were with another producer. Then John Pagonis, our producer now, hit us up. Well, I (Josh) was in my freshman year, taking a chemistry class, and this guy just started talking to me while I was walking to class since he was going there too. And, you know, when you write music, you get really excited about it and you feel the need to tell people, even if they don’t care. But he actually did care! His brother had a small record label and was trying to get a studio in the works. Eventually, he ended up contacting us, and we met with him back in about February of 2019. We didn’t hear from him until August, and he said, “Hey, the studio’s ready, I need a guinea pig to test it out. Free studio time if you come up to Nashville and record.” So we did that and it’s been awesome. He lets us stay at his house and we stay up all night recording tracks. It’s so much fun, honestly. He’s probably one of the best people we’ve met, he’s like our best friend at this point, and we’ve only known him for a little over a year now. We were kinda skeptical, like, this guy is just hitting us up for free studio time? Probably not going to be any good, production might suck, but it’s free and we might as well try it. So we recorded “Redbird” and when he sent us the mix, we were blown away. We really liked it a lot and thought, “You wanna just do an album?” Seemed like the next logical step, of course! Later on, we realized that’s not how most bands normally do things. Most of the time they have a lot of stuff prepared, but we didn’t have anything prepared. We were just, you know, going to do an album. We wrote it as we went on, we didn’t plan it. We didn’t have all the songs written and then go in. We just wrote “Redbird” then the next one and then the next one. Almost the entire album from start to finish was written chronologically. There are a few tracks that were mixed around, but basically from the first track to the twelfth track, that’s almost the order we recorded the songs in. It kinda worked out good, I really like the order that it’s in.
DJ: Hm, I don’t know about actual experiences, but I guess it starts with a real experience that creates a real feeling. So we try to write to fit that feeling. It sometimes starts with something that may have happened, but we want our songs to be relatable to everyone else. We want people to relate to some of what we’ve experienced, so some of it is true, some of it is a real experience. But, you know, it just kinda goes back to the feeling. You have that real experience that creates that real emotion, that real feeling, so then you might write about something else that you can see creating that same feeling, it fits the song. So there are things in the album where it’s like it’s true because it felt that way, but then there’s a lot of added stuff and it gets blurry to where you can’t say any song is completely true or completely made up. Some might say it gets a little … hazy.
AC: And you should be because this album is really incredible.