All Eyes On
Ellevator Are Done Waiting in the Wings
For Canadian indie rockers Ellevator, patience truly is a virtue – not least when a debut album has been years in the making. The group of childhood friends from Guelph, Ontario — who officially formed Ellevator in late 2017 — arrives with the epic The Words You Spoke Still Move Me, produced by ex-Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla on Arts & Crafts Productions. The album is the result of about a dozen years playing music in various iterations, including a stint as a more folk-oriented band in Guelph. It’s a testament to patience and preparation, being ready to burst from the wings onstage. It’s as much about the trio’s past playing cramped apartments, church basements, DIY shows, small bars and wedding gigs in various groups as it is about its future — how many bands arrive with...
How American Authors’ Dave Rublin Helped The Habits Create Their Latest Hit
The way Wolf Bradley met Andrew Macatrao sounds like the beginnings of a teen soap opera. They were 14 years old, studying at the San Pedro City Ballet School and competing for the same parts. The ballet school was owned by the former’s parents, making Bradley and Mactrao dance academy rivals. But this wasn’t Center Stage or Pretty Little Liars. The rivalry didn’t last forever. At 15, Bradley received a guitar for his birthday, and Macatrao already played drums. Like most teenagers, they were both “really bad” at their respective instruments, but that didn’t stop them from forming their first interestingly-named band. “We found common ground through music, and then became best friends ever since,” Bradley recalls over the phone, before diving into the origins of their first band’s name. “W...
Inside the Candy-Sweet Crescendo of Joyce Wrice
If there’s anything to learn from Joyce Wrice, it’s that she’s unbreakable. We’re about 20 minutes into her pre-show makeup routine at New York’s Terminal 5, as she fires off answers to questions about her first nationwide tour and her debut album, Overgrown, when an eyelash mishap almost hinders her ability to keep the interview going for a brief moment. But Wrice never pauses. The R&B up-and-comer finishes her thought with complete focus, even with the irritation of an eyelash being removed from her right eye. She doesn’t miss a beat, and maybe never has, given that’s just how she treats her live set on the Candydrip Tour. “You see people like Janet, and Missy Elliott, and Aaliyah, and Britney Spears. You could tell like, ‘Damn, that’s just in them,” Wrice tells SPIN as she sits mid-...
The Mysterines Are Ready to Takeover
Lia Metcalfe doesn’t see things in the same pink chiffon light that more optimistic folks do. To this sleeve-tattooed, raven-haired, Doc Marten-armored, ebony-garbed Brit, the outside world has always looked and felt more like Blue Velvet, both the material and the surreal suburban-nightmare film of the same name by one of her aesthetic heroes, filmmaker David Lynch. And — rather than shivering like a chihuahua in fright — she’s eternally grateful for those dark visions. Ever since childhood, they’ve inspired her, and they’ve now helped define the Liverpudlian’s sinister coliseum-rattling rock combo, The Mysterines. Only 21, Metcalfe carries herself with the prescient weight and wisdom of a world-weary old soul. It’s a maturity that could be traced back to her showbiz father, Andrew Metcal...
Jane Inc Is Dance-Pop With Depth
“I was very obsessed with Jimi Hendrix when I started playing guitar, but I don’t know if it was because of guitar that I became obsessed, or if I was obsessed with him and then guitar followed,” Carlyn Bezic says over Zoom. The Toronto-based Bezic is the musical mastermind behind the electronic pop group Jane Inc, whose new record, Faster Than I Can Take is out now via Telephone Explosion Records. Bezic’s musical pedigree sprang to life at an early age, starting with growing up in a musical house with a mom who exemplified the consummate performer as a singer, dancer and part-time piano teacher. Then, in high school, she and her brother formed a band with him on drums and her on guitar and vocals. “A lot of the songs came out of just finding interesting chords,” Bezic says. “I definitely ...
How Vicky Farewell Chose Herself
Vicky Farewell loves boy bands. The bubbly, bouncy pop of the early 2000s enchanted her back when she was just Vicky Nguyen, a classical music dork from the O.C. Since then, Nguyen’s musical palette expanded. Her R&B and soul-laden productions have been used by Silk Sonic’s Anderson.Paak. She’s played piano in WILLOW, Kali Uchis, and Mild High Club’s live bands. You would never know she still harbors such a kinship with the music of the frosted-tips era. “It evokes that happiness of when I was still in awe of music in general,” Nguyen tells SPIN over Zoom on a day when the L.A. sun is blinding-white behind her. “I wanted to portray that in my music because that’s what feels good to me.” Sweet Company, Nguyen’s debut record as Vicky Farewell, is joyful and dreamy, much like her de...
Momma: A Modern Band With a Nostalgic Sound
There’s a revealing lyric in Momma‘s standout new song “Speeding 72” that says a lot about the members of the New York-by-way-of-Los Angeles quartet: “Meet up on a Sunday, filling up the ashtray / Nothing gets in our way, always in a new place / You can catch us around, listening to ‘Gold Soundz’.” That reference to a road trip soundtracked by a 1994 Pavement song would seem pretty on-brand from a bunch of wizened old indie heads, especially with the beloved Stephen Malkmus-led outfit about to tour this year for the first time since 2012. But for a group of musicians like Momma’s Allegra Weingarten and Etta Friedman, who were in diapers when Pavement initially broke up in 1999, it has a much deeper meaning. [embedded content][embedded content] “Allegra and I listened to so much Pavement as...
Rainsford Is Over the ‘Sad Girl’ Era
Rainsford seems like the L.A. girl who has it all: the perfect family (her mother is Andie MacDowell), the perfect Instagram (she’s a model), and even the perfect soul (she adopts stray kittens.) But as she explores a future in pop music, her lyrics about life’s imperfections are, oddly enough, her best feature. Take “Brutal,” the 31-year-old’s hard-charging duet with the Norwegian pop singer Anna From the North. “I’m crying to a song that I used to dance to,” Rainsford intones in her bruising lower register. The song is reminiscent of Dua Lipa, Robyn, and Usher. She implores a lover to cut through the ambiguity and give her a straight answer (“brutal is better than confused,” they sing in unison.) Musically, “Brutal” is a no-brainer for an album single, but Rainsford isn’t so sure.&...
Carolesdaughter is Pop-Punk’s New Mormon Mall-Goth Mastermind
Thea Taylor is no model Mormon. Growing up in a strict religious household in Southern California, the youngest of 10 kids was tattooing and piercing herself by age 13. A few years later, the teen’s “bad little kid” habits, as she describes them, evolved into serious trouble: drug addiction and stints in rehab. But while in a six-month program in 2019, Taylor brought along her acoustic guitar. A deluge of introspective songwriting sessions ensued as the young artist channeled her feelings of melancholy and hopelessness into her music. She scribbled lamenting lyrics like “I think rock bottom’s fake, ‘cuz I’ve been here for a while now / Don’t think I’ll ever leave, ‘cuz pain just makes me smile now.” Once home, Taylor — who’d never publicly released any of her songs — decided to record and ...
Vibarco Creates Waves In Reggaeton With Electric Wash EP
As a songwriter, Vibarco has co-written multiple hits for Latin pop star Maluma. But as an artist, the Colombian only recently stepped out with his debut EP, Wash, last month. Vibarco’s seven-track release created buzz within the reggaeton scene, pushing the boundaries of Latin music while mixing in pop and EDM influences. A few weeks after Wash’s release, Vibarco seems ready for his name to jump out of the liner notes of other artists and onto the marquee. “Wash has a lot of Anglo beats, but the writing is super reggaeton,” Vibarco tells SPIN via Zoom from his home studio in Medellín, Colombia. “I love trying to find those mixtures. I love when you take a risk and it pays off.” Vibarco’s music career is based on taking chances. Born Vicente Jiménez Gómez del Barco in Medellín, he learned ...
Boulevards: Riding Through the Mud High on Funk
Two years ago, Jamil Rashad decided after three studio albums, he was done playing small. “I wanted to be in the conversation of artists like Leon Bridges, Black Pumas, the Thundercats of the world,” Rashad eagerly shares with SPIN. So in the summer of 2020, the North Carolinian soul-singer who goes by the name Boulevards, fired off a string of direct messages to artists he admired with his new music and an invitation to collaborate. “I felt like I was on the verge of something good,” Rashad says. “It took me records to get to this point.” The faith and persistence paid off when Blake Rhein, the guitarist of Durand Jones and the Indications, sent a DM in response, agreeing to produce his new record. Electric Cowboy: Born In Carolina Mud, was released via New West Records’ imprint Normaltow...
L’Eclair Are Jamming Their Way to Instrumental Bliss
Unlike the precision timepieces and artisan chocolates for which Switzerland is world-renowned, the music of Geneva-based instrumental sextet L’eclair morphs freely, never adhering too long to a singular genre or vibe. That blink-or-you’ll-miss-it compositional panache has helped make L’Eclair one of the most exciting European musical exports in recent memory, as evidenced by the group’s fourth and latest album for the Bongo Joe label, Confusions. Recorded by L’eclair’s longtime engineer/manager Benoit Erard at “a crunchy chalet” in a remote sliver of the Swiss Alps, the 14-track collection evinces an impressive command of rhythm, dynamics and electro/acoustic alchemy, recalling no less than vocal-free titans such as Can, “TNT”-era Tortoise and The Heliocentrics. To be sure, Confusions is ...
