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Why I Sing The Blues: Weekend Playlist by Rumput

RVA Staff | October 11, 2019

Topics: acoustic, Danis Sugiyanto, Endah Laras, experimental, folk, indie, Indonesian music, keroncong, music, Playlist, pop, Richmond Folk Festival, Rumput, rva magazine weekend playlist, string bands, Weekend Playlist

Every Friday night, RVA Mag brings you an A-plus can’t-miss playlist curated by Virginia’s most influential artists, musicians, and institutions.

This one comes to us courtesy of Rumput, a delightful Richmond-based ensemble that combines the classic string-band traditions of early 20th century American music with folk music traditions of Indonesia, mainly focusing on keroncong — traditional Indonesian string-band music. Regularly working with Indonesian musicians, both locally and abroad, the dozen-plus member ensemble incorporates a variety of Indonesian instruments, as well as shadow theater, into their multimedia performances.

Rumput has been quite active in the Richmond area recently, and even performed with Indonesian master musicians Endah Laras (vocals) and Danis Sugiyanto (violin) at the Smithsonian earlier this month. They’ll accompany Laras and Sugiyanto again for a performance of keroncong classics at this weekend’s Richmond Folk Festival on Brown’s Island. Their set will take place at 3:15 PM on Sunday, October 13 on the CarMax Family Stage (more info here). If you’re not familiar with Rumput as yet, it’s a great opportunity to expand your musical horizons and enjoy some excellent string-band sounds. Plus, admission is free!

Before that, though, take a listen to the excellent sounds this extensive ensemble have assembled for us all. Featuring not only blues, jazz, and folk sounds from the United States but plenty of traditional sounds from all over the world and even a few modern sounds by contemporary artists, the playlist offers an excellent preview of the many varied influences Rumput draw from in order to create their multi-cultural sound.

“Our playlist is based on songs we’ve played, artists we’ve collaborated with and/or been inspired by, music we’ve encountered while touring Java, and music we’ve turned each other onto while touring regionally,” states the group. “Also, Western songs that stretch time like the Indonesian musics we love.”

Stretch into it, Virginia.

Open this playlist from mobile in your Spotify app HERE.

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

For Landon Elliott, Love Is A Hurricane

Julia Raimondi | September 12, 2019

Topics: album release, alternative, American Paradox Records, Americana, country, folk, hurricane, indie, Landon Elliott, local music, music, pop, Scott Lane

“This record is the most honest I’ve ever been with myself and with the songs,” said Richmond songwriter Landon Elliott of his forthcoming album. 

At 8 a.m. on a sunny weekday morning, local Richmond musician Landon Elliott walks into the small but quaint Cafe Nostra near Brookland Park. Based on their brief exchange, it’s clear that he and the barista know each other. Elliott has a friendly tone to his voice, and there’s a spark in his eyes as he sits down to discuss his new single “Hurricane,” which came out at the end of August. Its music video was released shortly after on September 4, with the Richmond-based recording label American Paradox Records. 

“I’m excited to get the record out,” Elliott said. “I’m still processing it’s happening. It’s been a long time coming, and a long journey to make this happen. It has a lot of sonic differences than what I’ve done before, but I’m still staying true to my songwriting sensibilities. This record is the most honest I’ve ever been with myself and with the songs.” 

The partnership between American Paradox Records and Landon Elliott began in December 2017, after owner Scott Lane saw Elliott play earlier that fall at an open mic night at Poe’s Pub. 

Lane had just moved back to Richmond from Denver when he started his new label, he said, and was wrapping up a record production with Kenneka Cook when he decided to take Elliott on. 

Photo by Joey Wharton

Elliott and Lane had already begun a friendship by that time, and deciding to work together seemed like a natural addition to their relationship. 

“Scott has done a good job of pushing me,” Elliott said. “He’s the label, but also my producer. We co-produced this record together. What Scott was able to do was honor my vulnerability and my personality, and my voice as an artist, while also pushing the direction of things a little bit.” 

“Hurricane” is the first single to be released for Elliott’s new record, Domino — and with a yet-to-be-announced release date, the album represents a period of transition and questioning of a lot of things in his life and his worldview. 

As he hinted, the new “Hurricane” single does have a slightly different tone and sound than the Wildflowers EP he released in 2017, under the name Landon Elliott and The Goods. While the EP with The Goods had a stronger country/folk/Americana sound, which clearly had roots in artists like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, Elliott said he was more inspired for the new album by the 1980s synth pop-rock sounds of Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, and Fleetwood Mac. 

And it shows. The sound of “Hurricane” is multi-layered, and while you can still hear his original Americana sound, there are also layers of synth and a slightly-more refined and mainstream sound than his earlier EP. The pop sound almost hides the raw, honest lyrics about the difficulty of being honest in a healthy relationship… almost. There are plenty of references to ghosts of the past, and the destruction that they can leave in their wake like a hurricane, as the title suggests. 

“This track is about relationships and its many forms,” Elliott said. “The struggles that go into making love work. Love is hard work, to really care about someone truly and know someone fully takes a lot of work.” 

The music video for “Hurricane” also reflects the struggle Elliott believes can be present in maintaining honest and loving relationships. Departing from the usual music video conventions of its genre, this video presents two dancers in a choreographed and improvised struggle for dominance and equality, before they end their performance in unison. Elliott himself is present, and sandwiched between them as they mouth the final lyrics together. 

“I had this vibe in my mind of an 80s ‘Dancing in the Dark’ aerobic style movement,” Elliott said. “I wanted to do a dance video. For my style of music, you don’t necessarily see a more dance-style music video.” 

Lane liked his idea, and suggested doing something even more out-there, Elliott said. 

“I suggested a total visual departure from his Americana genre,” Lane said. 

Lane had seen a dance performance in New York City based on similar themes of the struggle between love and hate. The performance was by a dancer named Georgia Usborne with Brooklyn’s Gallim Dance Company. Lane reached out to her about the possibility of choreographing something similar for Elliott’s video, and she agreed. 

“What Scott really connected to was the raw physicality paired with a space for emotional connections between dancers, and also that emotionality can draw the audience into a story without there actually being a story or narrative,” Usborne said. “So we used that as a starting point, having a man and a woman, and discussing the light and shade of the relationship that can be shown through big physical movements — and also less physical, highly charged moments.” 

The shoot was done in New York City, where Elliott and Lane met personally with Usborne, the dancers and the music video director. While the two dancers, Kayla Farrish and Sebastian Abarbanell, had been able to rehearse the choreographed parts once before — and some of the material was already familiar to Farrish, as much of the performance was inspired by a previous one of hers — they hadn’t had a lot of prior experience working together. 

Landon Elliott, from the “Hurricane” Music Video

To make the pressure even tougher, they only had five hours to shoot the entire video, including setup and take-down, Lane said. 

Despite the intense time pressure, they did it. Their team managed to film an entire music video, complete with some last-minute decisions, such as putting Elliott himself in the video. 

In the end, the video presents itself as a nearly surreal and chaotic dance. The pair of dancers fight and work together throughout the routine, visualizing the struggle of making a relationship work as Elliott sings, nearly motionless on the floor. At times, Abarbanell is seen leading. At others, it is Farrish. Occasionally they work together, and oftentimes their movements seem to contradict each other. In the end, they appear to make their differences work out, coming to lie down on opposite sides of Elliott as the song comes to a close. 

“This is the first music video I’ve worked where the musician was in the video,” Usborne said. “It was fabulous, I loved it. It was very focused, and we all cared a lot about it; there was real heart behind it. The track was super catchy, and it all came together well. It was a real pleasure, and I’d love to work with them again.” 

After the release of the music video, a new single will be released in September. Right now Elliott is on tour with fellow Richmonder Deau Eyes, and the last few dates of the tour will find them pairing up with Josiah Johnson, formerly of The Head and the Heart. 

Locally, Elliott will also be playing at The Broadberry on September 28 for the Shack Up festival, thrown each year by The Shack Band. This will be his first year playing at The Shack Up, Elliott said, and one of his first times playing solo on a platform that big. 

“I love the Broadberry,” Elliott said. “They’re all really good friends of mine. I’m looking forward to hamming it up with them. There’s a lot of bands I love on the bill.”

Top Photo by Joey Wharton

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

DJ Skrt Skrt at Little Saint

Joe Vanderhoff | March 16, 2018

Topics: dance party, DJ Skrt Skrt, house, Little Saint, pop, rap, Techno

Pop, House, Techno, and Rap music curated by DJ Skrt Skrt. Cocktails and beer + a shot specials all night or grab some other tasty temperance drink. Dancefloor’s open, and if the weather is nice the patio will be too! Invite yr friends/yr crush/yr friends’ crushes and stop by.

https://www.mixcloud.com/djskrtskrt/

The Folly’s Anneliese Grant drops new solo EP, catch her release show tonight at Cary St. Café

Amy David | May 18, 2017

Topics: Anneliese Grant, Cary St. Cafe, community, jazz, pop, The Folly

Before Anneliese Grant was captivating us with her incredible vocals in The Folly, the singer/songwriter was performing on her own and after a two-year break, she’s come back with a new EP, Out to Graze.

The five-track album showcases her talent and is a bit of a different direction than The Folly’s sound. This will mark Grant’s third solo release, a follow-up to 2015’s Soul Spectrum.

Grant said Out to Graze, which is also the title of the third track on the EP, was inspired by her time spent on a horse farm during a job transition.

“This idea of frustration with not having done any solo projects in so long and this feeling like I’ve been put out to pasture, like there’s nothing happening, that was the meaning behind it,” Grant said.

The title track “Out to Graze”, which is one of my favorites, very jazzy and smooth and Grant’s voice just glides over the beat, dropped Dec. 2 and the rest was fleshed out in March.

“The rest of the songs as they were coming together, had a very similar sound to that track and it kind of was the thing that got the project going,” she said.

Grant recorded the album in April, putting it together entirely in her room.

“I have this closet studio literally, I do everything in there and it’s nicer than having to find a third party to go record with so that streamlined my process a lot,” she said.

The beats were made by Matthew Rea (Jame Moorfield), a local producer and house music DJ. Grant released the album May 1.

Out to Graze is very different from The Folly’s sound, which tends to blend several genres together. The RVA band consists of Grant, along with Jordan Lette (vocals,guitar), Johnny Powell(bass), Josh Santamaria (drums), and Sid Kingsley(keys) who put out their debut self-titled album back in September and it’s a nice mix of gypsy and jazz sounds, with a little whimsical folk thrown in.

“I started my solo project before I ever met Jordan, that’s actually how he found out about me was finding my music online,” she said. “This EP is really different from the first two EPs I put out and it was a much different process.”

Grant’s solo EP has a bluesy, groovy pop vibe, but one element that’s unmistakable among the two projects is the singer’s powerhouse sultry vocals. Grant delivers in The Folly as well as on Out To Graze and it shows her effort and passion are definitely in both projects as a solo artist and band member.

“I’ve always loved jazz, it’s my favorite kind of music to sing, but definitely more {of a} pop vibe,” said Grant describing her solo work.

It’s hard to pick a favorite on the record, they are all good to grove to on a nice breezy summer day, but “Darling, Darling” and the title track are definitely ones to check out.

Ozark, a member of Satellite Syndicate is also featured on the album with a remix to “Out to Graze”.

Grant will perform her new EP in its entirety tonight at Cary St. Café for her release show. You can also catch her June 4 on WRIR from 1 am to 3 am and at Everybody’s Birthday, a music festival in Amherst, Va. on June 10.

Photo credit: Jason Pevey

RVA Mag #28: Perceptive & Expansive: The development of Young Scum

Shannon Cleary | May 5, 2017

Topics: Citrus City Records, indie, indie-pop, pop, rva music, Young Scum

When you recall memories associated with falling in love, what is the first thing to come to mind? Is it the whimsical conversations that fall into place with an unexpected ease? Is it the way that one evening can feel like an indulged spirit that intoxicates the memory? Or is it as quaint as the way one feels when they hear their favorite song and it takes them back to that place? For Richmond’s Young Scum, they carry a torch that is wrought with classic romantic yearnings that weave themselves into entrancing pop lullabies. With a number of releases under their collective belts, the band plunges forward as they prepare to unveil their proper full-length in 2017.

This article was featured in RVAMag #28: Spring 2017. You can read all of issue #28 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.

The story begins with a Craigslist posting and a farewell to a close friend. In 2014, guitarist Ben Medcalf met original bassist Jason Pirault through an opportunity to sublet a place in Richmond upon moving to the city. Through this digital encounter, Pirault introduced Medcalf to vocalist/guitarist Chris Smith. “Jason dragged me to an Ugly Thrash Demon show and that’s where I met Chris,” Medcalf says before Smith inserts himself into the conversation with a clarification. “It was a weird folk rock band that I was in despite what you might think from the name,” he laughs. Medcalf enjoyed the set and knew almost immediately that he wanted to work on music with Smith. The three were eager to begin working on this new project.

A little while later, the three would come together to wish a fond farewell to their friend Brian Dove, someone who plays an integral role in the past and present of Young Scum. Before moving cross-country to Oregon, Dove, also of local band Antiphons, introduced the trio to drummer Taylor Haag. The group instantly hit it off and it soon became apparent that Young Scum had found their ideal missing piece for the project. “Chris and I hit it off almost immediately due to our adoration for Teenage Fanclub and I was in need of a new band,” Haag reminisces. “So, it worked out perfectly.”

With Young Scum ready, the first rehearsals would take place in the kitchen of Medcalf’s Museum District apartment. “His neighbors fucking hated us,” Smith jokes. As the first set of songs started to come together, the band were eager to play their first show and by June of 2014, the band made their debut at the RNH House. A quick six-song set would reflect a birthing moment for the group as they could sense the growing momentum in the progress they had made as a group. “We ended up releasing that set online, because we thought it was a cool time stamp for us as a band,” Medcalf mentions.

What soon followed was the recording and release of their debut EP Autumn August. The four song collection includes a number of fan favorites such as “Blue Slurpee” and “Met You At A Party,” both of which reflect a particular personal wit that Smith engaged with in the early days of the band. “Whenever I’m writing lyrics for a song,” Smith details, “I try to think of small things that bring me a certain joy and how I can inject those into them. At the end of the day, I am pretty much writing love songs and it seems like the two ideas go hand in hand.”

Autumn August does give the band a bit of a misconstrued portrayal. “When I was recording it, I didn’t really know what I was doing and I think that’s why a lot of the songs ended up sounding a bit quieter,” Medcalf mentions, but the band believed there were other factors at play too. “A lot of the reason for putting the EP out was to help us book more shows,” Smith adds, “but sometimes it seemed like we might shock people when they would see us live and realize that we were a much louder rock band than what they might have expected.”

Close to a year after Young Scum’s first show, Pirault would leave the band, but the band wouldn’t look too long for a new bassist as Brian Dove returned to Richmond around the same time, helping locking down a line-up that remains to this day. After the slight shuffle, the band found themselves in the middle of a prolific writing streak, one that spanned splits with bands Shrunk and Reporters. As the streak continued and their discography grew, Young Scum inched their way closer to what might be their biggest achievement to date.

In 2016, the band began work on their second EP entitled Zona, a release that helped the band shape their aspirations of becoming a loud, noisey pop band. “With Autumn August, Ben and I were mainly playing with clean tones and that evidently came across as sounding a bit more quaint,” Smith recalls. “With this record, we knew we could start messing around with tones and layering tracks throughout.” Another large part of the band’s shift in sound was due to the involvement of engineer Mitch Clem. Having started working with the band on their prior split releases, he was the ideal candidate to continue directing the textures and nuances of the Young Scum sound on Zona. “One of the reasons we were able to sound like a ramped up, loud band on Zona is due to Mitch and his immeasurable talents with recording our songs,” Medcalf states. “A lot of the ideas we had stirring around in our heads would make more sense once we had him around to bounce them off of.”

Zona is a reflection of making observations about the world that surrounds you with childlike wonderment. Each of the five tracks takes the listener on a journey that only a writer like Smith could weave. The songsmith takes every twist and turn of engaged folly, and how they encapsulate our daily diatribes and daydreams. “If You Say That” swirls from the introductory moments as Smith dreams of believing in oneself and taking chances to achieve the personal goals any of us set for ourselves. In another personal ode, the singer finds himself paying proper tribute to a favorite beverage in the track “Zona,” while also waxing poetically about the beauties found in a bag of chips and simple kisses.

One of Smith’s strongest suits is juxtaposing the daily grind with the small joys that make it all bearable. On “Sun Drop,” he coyly mentions that despite an unfortunate landlord, he can look forward to enjoying tacos and Mountain Dews with a significant other in the later recesses of the evening. As Zona comes to a close, “Out Of State” blasts through to proclaim how undying devotion to being with the ones you love is never foolish. If anything, it’s one of the more deserving virtues that any of us can hope to dedicate themselves to.

As the conversations reverts back to intriguing lyrical wordplay, other members of the band are quick to highlight moments they think quickly connects with a certain set of listeners. “I think there is this inherent sweetness on display that really resonates with some people,” Haag says. “Some people might not get it, but the ones that have felt the same way and experienced something similar will immediately latch on to the songs.” Smith considers a few of the inspirations for these approaches. “I have always enjoyed the way that bands like Belle and Sebastian can take that narrative device and have their be a nice blend of sadness and happiness,” he adds. ”Two things that seem like they should be at odds with one another, but they feel kinda at home in the same phrase or song.”

Outside of the lyrical perspective, Zona also reflected the band at their most confident. “We also went into this recording with a certain sense of feeling like we had a better sense of what we were doing,” Medcalf says. “We had been a band for a while at this point and we felt like we could reflect that a bit more on these songs.” Even though Dove wasn’t involved with process of recording Autumn August, he is quick to see the progression in the band from an outside perspective. “I think Autumn August was more like an effort to just start a band and get something out there,” Dove remembers. “By the time, I joined and we started working on Zona; it was more like ‘How can we get the most impact out of this release and how do we make that happen?’”

After they wrapped up recording, it took no time for the release to acquire the interest of local label Citrus City Records. “Manny [Lemus] hit us up with immediate interest in putting out Zona and the entire base of that label seemed like exactly who we would want to work with,” Smith says. The tape release quickly received solid acclaim from a number of blogs, including (just another) Pop Song whose review specifically led to the band being approached by the Spanish label Pretty Olivia Records about a possible vinyl press. As one could imagine, the band were quick to leap at the opportunity.

At the time of the interview, Young Scum had hunkered down in a practice space littered with cans of Arizona Iced Tea to begin working on their proper full-length release, something the group is excited for even if there is a little bit of pressure involved. “Yeah, a full-length record feels like a relationship commitment,” Smith jokes. “Like it’s time to meet the parents and make thing serious.” Helping ease those commitment fears are some familiar faces, like Ali Mislowsky of Big Baby lending her harmonies once again, and some competent direction, like that of engineer Tim Falen who’s no stranger to the group’s cluttered practice space.

With recording underway, the untitled full-length should see a release later this year. “After we finish everything, I imagine we’ll most definitely work with Citrus City again,” Smith says. “As far as releasing it goes, the goal is to see if we can put the release out on as many formats as possible including vinyl.” As live performances have displayed, the new set of music should entice fans of last year’s Zona and raise the band’s profile even further within the community. Their experiences touring behind their subsequent releases have been favorable as well and the band looks forward to pursuing that even more with this new record. “We’ve had really good luck just trying to hit a lot of the same cities on the east coast multiple times and help build a decent rapport with those cities,” Medcalf says.

In the more than three year journey that Young Scum have been on, they continue to find more and more welcome opportunities within the Richmond music scene. “When I first moved back to Richmond in 2013, it felt like the scene was populated by metal and math rock bands,” Medcalf states. “Through Young Scum, I’ve made a lot of friends that also play music in town and the scene just seems to get more diverse with each coming year.”

Helping foster that local fellowship is Richmond’s growing number of musicians matching the band’s melodic, yet minimialist approach. “It seems like a lot of people in town are teetering towards writing songs that kinda reflect a similar pop sensibility and attitude that fits well with what Young Scum does,” Smith says. “It’s nice to have those ties continue to grow stronger and see how that affects things positively in town.”

With a release in the works and excitement brewing within the band, Young Scum are in a perfect place to further solidify their reputation as pop connoisseurs. Inspired by the likes of artists that found homes at places like Sarah Records and K Records, their beautiful array of music, describing the chances we take pursuing the simple pleasures in life, is a welcome testament. In a city with growing musical diversity, Young Scum couldn’t be more at home and 2017 will surely be a champagne year for them.

youngscum.bandcamp.com

Photo credit: Austin Town Hall

New York duo Diet Cig brings their empowering new sound to Gallery5 tonight

Doug Nunnally | April 14, 2017

Topics: Diet Cig, Gallery5, indie, pop

Musicians need reassurance too, even those as dazzling, empowering, and forceful as New York duo Diet Cig. You can have all the buzz in the world and a fanbase that grows by the hour, but the confidence has to be there no matter how you get it.

Sometimes, it comes from just a pep talk.

“I had to kind of remind myself that I’m good at this,” vocalist and guitarist Alex Luciano remarks. “There’s a reason I’m doing this so I just had to reassure myself saying things like ‘I got this. I swear.'”

The duo’s debut full-length, Swear I’m Good At This, takes its name from this state of mind, one that’s much more focused on proving your worth to yourself than anyone else. “Once we realized [the band] was a serious thing, like it’s our job, I just needed to prove to myself I could do it and that I was worth it,” she states.

Success came early for Luciano and her musical partner, drummer Noah Bowman. In the summer of 2014, the duo met in New York at a house show concert where Bowman was performing… only to be interrupted mid-set by Luciano as she searched the venue for a cigarette lighter. The very definition of a musical meet-cute, that chance encounter led to the two forming what would become one of the most celebrated live acts of the last several years. In less than six months after that fateful night, the band would release Over Easy, their first EP containing five breezy, yet thumping pop-punk tracks that were wildly praised and earned them an instant following that became rabid for anything the duo put out, even if they were still finding their sound.

“I think we had done maybe two shows before recording that EP,” Bowman remembers. “We didn’t really know what we wanted from each other or how we wanted the music to sound, but we started to learn quick with all the shows we were doing.”

For the next year and a half, the duo lived on the road with only quick breaks here and there between tours. “We’d come home for a couple of days and try to adjust, but we’d have to go right back out in a few days,” Bowman laughs. The constant cross-country travelling weighed on the band, but they admit it was crucial in helping them find the voice and style that’s made their debut record so acclaimed in the few weeks since its release.

“I was just sitting in the van all day, every day, with all these thoughts and emotions and the road became a good place to unpack these feelings for myself,” Luciano explains. Stuck in a car seat for several hours each day, she took to writing in journals and writing down rough ideas of songs she had floating in her head to pass the time. Though it all came from her life on the road though, Luciano was quick to clarify that this was hardly a record written about the dread of travelling.

“The lyrics I wrote don’t necessarily represent me as a touring person, but I think the environment of touring helped influence the way I unpacked those thoughts and feelings,” she reasons.

Around this time, Luciano also solidified her stance as a feminist, a philosophy that boldly comes through on many of the songs that make up Swear I’m Good At This such as “Link In Bio” and “Tummy Ache.” Finding solidarity and inspiration from like-minded musicians across the country, Luciano was able to realize how intertwined her own thoughts and feelings were with the beliefs of feminism, something only bolstered by current events and her introspective time on the road.

“It comes through in a lot of the songs on the record because they’re very personal songs about my own feelings, but those feelings also happen to be my ideals of feminism and empowerment,” she details.

Though Luciano describes herself as an emotional, heart-on-the-sleeves person, there was a bit of trepidation as she hadn’t quite expressed these feelings in her music before. As she started to write and unload her mind though, she found the release of emotions to be not only cathartic, but comfortable as well.

“It’s really cool to be able to take those uneasy feelings and experiences I had and reclaim them by turning them into this piece of art I can scream at the top of my lungs in a rock song,” she lively states.

To Bowman, the time on the road was equally satisfying, even if he admits it was challenging at times. “At times, it was hard to have enough time to even get a thought out, let alone write a song,” he jokes. But the time on the road helped the duo find the right direction for Diet Cig, one that led to a sound he described as “truly us.”

“Playing so many shows together over that time really helped guide us to the sound we wanted to achieve, something that pushed the boundaries of what we could do and also sounded honestly bigger than just the two of us,” he says.

After a year and a half of messing around at sound checks and finding places to hide away to complete a verse, the duo cleared their schedule in October of 2016 to finish this new batch of songs. “We just wanted to take the whole month and finish writing and get in the studio to make sure it was all done,” Bowman recounts. “We were completely ready for it. We just never had the time or chance to do it because we were playing so much.”

Entering the studio, the band set their sights high by quickly pushing their pop punk into expansive territory. Some additions were subtle, like the synthesizer parts on “Maid Of The Mist,” while others were much clearer like their use of a fuzzed out wall-of-sound on songs like “Leo.” Ideas came from everywhere, but the duo admits the diverse list of bands they toured with definitely had an impact.

“They are just so many things a rock a band can be,” Luciano posits. “Every band we toured with, we took a little bit from each, just being inspired by anything and everything they did.”

Some bands had a tangible effect on Diet Cig – things like a different approach to drumming or concrete touring advice — while others had a much more cerebral impact on the band such as Nashville rock band Bully. “We toured with Bully and it was… just… wow,” Bowman gushes. “Alicia [Bognanno] is just so fuckin’ good.” Luciano was quick to agree. “One of the best rock bands I’ve ever seen in my life! God, I learned so much watching them.”

All of these experiences gave the duo new life in the studio throughout October, a time that never felt rushed according to Luciano as the duo took their time and thoughtfully crafted their record. Released at the beginning of April on Frenchkiss Records, Swear I’m Good At This earned strong reviews from critics and fans, with praise focused on the sonic leap the duo made as well as the stirring lyrics that make each song unforgettable. So beloved, the record even earned rare defense from musicians and publications when a few critics dared to disparage its quality.

Twelve songs make up the record and naturally, the duo has already gravitated towards their own personal favorites. “I love the singles of course, like ‘Tummy Ache,'” Luciano says, “but I also really love ‘Maid Of The Mist.’ It recalls our Over Easy side in a way, but it’s still within our new sound that we’re doing. That song is really so poppy and fun and I was really proud of the vocals and harmonies at the end.”

Bowman also enjoys the singles, specifically “Link In Bio,” but while he loves the wide sound they were able to accomplish, he highlighted the record’s most reserved track as a favorite. “I really love ‘Apricots,'” he laughs. “The rest of the record is big and loud and in your face, and this one’s a nice contrast. It’s just Alex with an acoustic guitar in a kitchen. I love that it’s the most stripped down song on the record. It’s like a little step into Alex’s thoughts for a second.”

Truthfully, the entire record is a step into the thoughts of Alex Luciano, ones wrought with apprehension and indignation. Guiding you through that mind are the scopic sounds she and Bowman have crafted, bold and resourceful harmonies and melodies that fly past the pop-punk moniker they were casually saddled with years ago. Those sounds fluctuate throughout the record of course, but they never waver in their ability to support the album’s authentic intimacy, something that makes the record equal parts endearing and rousing.

All you need is one listen and you’ll know one thing: Luciano needs no further reminder that she and Bowman can truly do this.

Diet Cig play Gallery5 tonight with Daddy Issues and Waiting For Silence joining them on stage. Doors are at 8 PM, music starts at 9 PM, and tickets are $12. For more information on the show, click here.

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