I’m a firm believer that live music should be easily accessible and available to the public. In the case of this music festival, it satisfied that requirement. Unlike other music festivals, Fête de la Musique doesn’t channel any sense of exclusivity or elitism, but rather ensures that anyone can walk into the venue without feeling out of place. The target audience is people who share a love for music, as simple as that. In addition to this, the festival also promotes local music and helps local musicians and artists gain more exposure. Within the two years that I’ve attended this festival, I’ve discovered a good handful of bands local to my area.

This year, I went to two of the pocket stages: shoegaze and indie. At these stages, I got to see some of the bands I’ve been frequently listening to recently such as spacedog spacecat, MATOKI, cheeky things, and hazylazy. It was clear that a good portion of the crowd were already familiar with the acts on the lineup since they knew the words to almost every song on each set and moshed energetically to them. What most surprised me though, was how the crowds were a mix of different generations, from people my age, to people who were as old as my parents. However, despite this broad range, everyone could still appreciate all the bands that played, with the same amount of fondness towards them.

This made me realize that music is a universal language. It can translate itself through any demographic and still make an impact. Furthermore, music brings people together. Some of the friends I’ve made are ones I met by going to shows, in which we instantly bonded over our favorite bands and songs. For many people music is a common ground. The feeling of singing to the same lyric or jumping to the same beat is one that goes undefeated. 

Nowadays, music festivals tend to end up being about clout-culture, whether it be one’s ability to brag or boast about going to one, or about what celebrities wore or posted during it. But in my experience of going to Fête de la Musique, I could immediately sense that everyone who went there only cared about the music, and was there to embody the experience of it being performed live in front of them. In many cases, this is something unforgettable.

The post Fête de la Musique Doesn’t Insist on a Single Penny appeared first on KRUI Radio.

As the two attempt to reconnect with the show, aspects of their realities begin to shift, causing them to suspect the “The Pink Opaque” as more than just a show, wherein they soon discover that it is a reflection of their internal realizations about themselves. The two leads in the show, named Isabel and Tara are posed as symbolic representations of Owen and Maddy, being that they are tangible embodiments of what they could be.

The show itself epitomizes the abstract feeling of having something within you that is yet unknown, that you strive to reach for, only to have a figurative weight pull it back down into you to shut it out and bury it. Eventually, it is established in the film that the line that separates their reality from “The Pink Opaque” is more blurred than ever, at which life is expressed as one TV show watched through the lens of one’s own eyes, as a mirrored truth of actuality.

Mr. Melancholy is depicted as the main antagonist in the show, and is an entity that takes away their hearts. Alongside The Big Bad, another entity who accentuates their perception of death, the show explores the sensations of still being physically alive, yet being left with the all-consuming feeling that a part of you has passed away. As a subtext presents itself, closely correlated to the queer identity and being a person of color, the film explicates the suffocating brawl of having to repress and stomp out certain dimensions of the universe that stretches out within you.

Glowing with effervescent fluorescence, the film is packed with surreally existential dialogue and stunningly luminous visuals, which all come together to form this glittering pursuit of finding the self. Alongside this, the piece also addresses youth’s tendency to seek attachment to facets of pop culture, such as fandoms, as a vehicle of comfort in this tumultuous world. Accompanied by Justice Smith and Brigette Lundry-Paine’s poignantly moving acting and Alex G’s bittersweet and saccharine soundtrack, Schoenbrun came up with a film so stirring and lachrymose that I found myself crying at the end of the film, having needed hours to myself to recover from what I had just seen.

In the final scene of the film, we see Owen undergo a moment of catharsis which leaves him splitting himself open, to unearth the parts of him that have always remained hidden. But then, the film comes to a sudden closure, as Owen frantically tells everyone around him, “Sorry about that from before.” It extends the systemically induced feeling of obligation to apologize for our complex natures as multi-layered individuals. Ultimately, Schoenbrun with this movie has summarized the horrors of what it is like being alive, in the gifted medium of a film, to which now, I do not need to explain.

‘I Saw the TV Glow’ is currently playing at FilmScene in Iowa City, as of June 4th, 2024.

The 500 Club seeks to provide concise film reviews and criticism at around a cool 500 words for your viewing pleasure.

The post The 500 Club: Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow” appeared first on KRUI Radio.

I first came across her album entitled No Home Record, which she released in 2019, when I was in high school. The first song from it that I listened to was “Paprika Pony”, which instantly amazed me by how different it sounded from any Sonic Youth track I’ve ever listened to. It took me time to put together the pieces, in order for it to register that this is the same vocalist who was responsible for the likes of Goo and Daydream Nation. These are albums which I think made an immense cultural impact at the time in underground hardcore punk, alongside the emergence of avant-garde and experimentalism. Now, it only makes sense. I put two and two together, with Gordon’s present affinity for electronica, in an ambient and drone like fashion.

When looking at her newly released album The Collective, it shows that Gordon is a trailblazer in artistic advances within the contemporary world. When it comes to music, she is always looking forward, doing things that have never been done before, with a consistent desire to provoke a certain sensibility toward shock value for how out there it is. In tracks within the new album like “BYE BYE”, “Psychedelic Orgasm”, and “Dream Dollar”, she confronts lyrics and instrumentals that are so daring, bold, and spirited with gutsy spunk that it begins to feel as if an outlandish alien is singing to us from an otherworldly pandemonium.

Brazen with static, edgy vocals, piercing synth lines, crunchy glitches, along with various clinking and clanking, what Gordon tells you through this new album is that she does not give a fuck. It’s a sentiment generally hard to impose on the self within the realms of the music industry’s current disposition. As a handful of musicians now feel more of saturated need to cater to the mainstream, Gordon sets up a path of her own that doesn’t comply or conform to these boundaries and limitations. It only becomes more impressive when we learn that she is age 71. It proves that someone can be 71 and still fiercely and vigorously cool. A few favorites of mine from The Collection consist of “I’m A Man”, “It’s Dark Inside”, “Shelf Warmer”, and “Tree House” which are all tracks that I will be listening to until I’m 71.

The post Kim Gordon Shows that You Can Still be Cool at 71 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Goodman was organically acoustic and crisp in rhythmic melody. The audience watched and listened intently to her endearingly heartfelt set, ripe with tenderness and genuine sincerity. In her performance, what a person is able to recognize is the power of using one’s own voice to amplify others, by telling stories that can be applied to many who share the same narrative. Within her set, one acknowledges this strength of collective catharsis, as the crowd conjointly participates in releasing bottled-up emotions and feelings.

While the discography of Goodman is reposed and serene, there is a potent intensity that drives the effects of the music into something more passionate. In the flecks of her embers, golden and tinsel, we come across a horizon, abundant with fields of ambition to beckon toward the other side, where things are much more sanguine. In this, we breach the secrets that may lead to the answers of questions asked about this messy, frenzied world. We ask the question, “Why are things this way?” Goodman answers with, “Because of the possibility of changing how things are, for the better of our self expression.”

As Goodman’s compassionate voice echoed through The Englert atrium, glimmers of meaningful introspection came as a queer woman recounted her experiences from a rural area that initially had not been the most welcoming of arms. To the messages that linger within her lyrics, as listeners, we find that we picked up a few things from her songs that we could connect and share a rapport with. At least once in our lives, we have experienced the feeling of being left out or being out of place in an area we lived in. Within the extent of Goodman’s discography the audience is grasped by a sense of belonging and acceptance that might not have been found in the places that had once refused us for who we are. What she creates is a safe space for one to settle within their own body, being done honestly and truthfully.

During the set, Goodman occasionally looked out to the audience, as well as the light that beamed upon her. While performing, she reflects on how far she has gone, finally being one with herself. By the end of the set, the crowd exited the venue with a newly born appreciation for themselves. Goodman’s set was able to whisk everyone into a dimension at which all are free to be who they are with no apparent hesitancy to embrace the candid self.

The post Mission Creek: S.G. Goodman Tells Us What Awaits on the Other Side of the Rainbow appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Here we all shared this common appreciation for De Souza and her music, which best summarizes and encapsulates this feeling of growing up. In other songs of hers like “You Can be Mean” and “How I Get Myself Killed” she sings about the complexities and complications of the processes of moving through phases in life, when one is not yet exactly sure who they are or what they want. Further tracks along the setlist like “Take Off Ur Pants” and “Younger & Dumber” are tracks that embody sensations of what it means to look back on past encounters. These experiences along the seams of things that turned out as they were either inevitably or unexpectedly, become memories that follow you for the rest of your life.

Within this hemisphere of wistful and dewy-eyed tonalities, the music’s live ambiance left the onlookers maudlin with acceptance to whatever may come our way within this venture of maturity. What De Souza tells us through this show is that everything will be okay, and that one must only hold on until the very point of when things will eventually get better. The show left the crowd with a sense of reassurance and comfort, beyond what other things may be able to offer. It left many with a newly found sense of hope for what’s to happen in the future, and provides us with a determination to go on with our lives, with a form of insight that is welcoming to refreshing prospects. They are particularly signifiers of one’s openness to learning more about the world and the rest of yourself.

De Souza’s performance was intimate, closely-knitted, and aligned to its listeners, making a musically ascribed language commence between herself and the audience. The performer and listener meet at a common point of understanding for each other that says “I have been there,” and “I get it.” This confides in the listener that they are not alone. This energy is one that shares secrets amongst the crowd, through the unspoken translation of feelings, emotions, and thoughts that is conveyed through Indigo De Souza being homesick for a tomorrow that is waiting, if not itching, to transpire.

The post Mission Creek: Indigo De Souza Provides a Reckoning on What it Means to Grow Up appeared first on KRUI Radio.

These compositions evoke a sense of musicality that is ethereal, delicate, and cosmically spacey. From having toured as a bassist for the likes of Mitski and Lady Lamb, while simultaneously being a part of the pen pin pop duo alongside Emily Moore, Magaña conveys a versatility that is harbored through her fluency in a myriad of various sound techniques. These clearly show in the diverse array of what Teeth has to offer. 

Teeth kicks off with “Garden”, starting with a simple strumming pattern, attributing to an ominous yet mellow rhythm scheme. As the lyrics state “I will plant those seeds tomorrow/Watch my garden grow,” this song makes for a warm welcome. Magaña sings this hymn like tune about developing something out of one’s own creation, much like how she had crafted this album as a pandemic project. Although the track is basic in essence, Magaña’s vocals redeem the piece by how earthy and dainty it sounds melody wise.

The next song “Beside You” immediately begins with a much more vibrant, uplifting harmony that is spearheaded by a tapping piano and guitar with heavy overdrive and distortion. In the foreground of the song, there’s a groovy bassline that despite its subtleness, is a prominent distinction that makes the song more enlivened and light in mood. As Magaña sings “The future’s unknown/And I’m worried about it too/But you’re not alone,” she expounds on ruminations toward uncertainty and doubt of what’s to come. This is all within the pretense of figuring out how to proceed and go on with one’s life moving forward. 

Following that, the track “Matter” promotes more chordal qualities as it sets out a complex composition that includes pounding drums, guiding the rest of the instruments toward a path of monumental build-up. In this one, Magaña exudes more conflictions in the lyrics as she cites “I swore that I would never be like my mother/With all the weight upon my back/But it won’t matter, does it matter if it’s bad?” It discusses the intricacies of dealing with one’s dynamic with another person. This feeling of being lost within a relationship is compared to drowning. 

The track “Paul” returns to a slower pace that is looming and gentle in flow and tempo. Magaña sings “Paul, where did you go/When it was driving you insane/And I remember where I was when they first told me/You took those pills to kill your pain.” This is while being accompanied by a roomy guitar, airy flute, crystalline piano, and tender humming. It touches on what is essentially a heartbreaking tale of someone who suffers from drug abuse. The line comes from someone who loves passionately, their story of fading away under the seam of marriage embarks on a bittersweet narrative. 

“Break Free” lets out more funky riffs and twisted, warped contortions of sound. Magaña sings about every day feeling similar and monotonous, placing emphasis on what it is like for one to want to escape their daily bubble, as they crave for something more. The adjacent track “I Feel Like Ice”, is more so an instrumental. A dialogue that emulates a robotic, static-ridden voice buzzes out the message of the song’s title highlighting sensations of isolation and loneliness when placed in a position remote from the rest of the world. 

This perfectly bleeds into “To My Love” which sits upon a bed of cozy, homey guitar, and organs seasoned with reverb and resonance. Eventually, the drums make the song more boosted, as trumpet and violin come in to make the musicality of the song more elegant and graceful than it already is. One might believe this to be a love song that alludes to a romance too profound to describe, and even perhaps, too deep to pursue. 

The song dubbed “In My Body” has the bass take the lead, with a piercing synthline entering at odd intervals. While Magaña sings “And I feel somehow less than human/I am in body/not just this body,” she explicates what is the emotion of dissociation and detachment from a person’s own grasp of self, as they navigate something significant that had previously defined them for the longest of times. For the connecting song “Bones”, a more chimeric piano enters the ear, as her vocals here are more layered. She states “I’m nothing but bone/Now I’m alone/I want to go home,” transmitting the inkling of emptiness and vacancy within one’s soul when found at a brink of near unconsciousness. 

“I Cannot Breathe” allows for punchy, buzzing synths rippling into effect, as Magaña says “I’m a savior in my dreams/But I never sleep,” and “I’m not standing in the rain/But I cannot breathe/I cannot see,” exploring the theme of being close to losing contact with reality. Towards its closure, the track includes a short sample that has blurry talking in the surrounding setting, like dissociating in a crowded room, full of foggy, fuzzed-out entities. 

The song “Afraid of Everybody” presents itself with wavy, meandering, and winding waves of timbre, which goes with the zestful, potent stretches of striking drums. The clean, soft piano creates a serene symphony. The song promotes sensibilities toward questions of identity and finding oneself through experimentation and discovery. It generally lays commentary on what it’s like to feel alien, much like an anomaly. 

The subsequent track “Mary Anne” incorporates more hollow and wispy feelings, paired with balmy, peaceful guitar. The track communicates to another person who drags other people into their own struggles, having the pain be endured together. This song is raw and unfiltered, as it permits the gnawing sounds of the recording and of Magaña’s breaths in between lyrics to pervade the audio with no remorse.

“xxo” is an instrumental track of cyber computer sounds that preamble the closing track “Girl in Chains”, which makes for an ever devil-may-care exit with jaunty, breezy synth lines that convey the feeling of being set free and letting loose. As Magaña sings “I am just a girl in chains/Waiting for the spell to break,” one can see that she musters up the courage to confront her demons head-on, with the confession first. This is what most of Teeth is, a testimony to one’s bravery in facing what they have always feared, and trying to find a way to escape from one’s own isolation.

The post Track by Track Review of Magana’s “Teeth”  appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Starting off with “Last Winter”, the EP is turned to a melting pot of dingy, gloomy instrumentals, accompanied with pensive, somber vocals that promote sensations one would find in an abandoned building, teeming with moss and antiquated remorse. The song is uplifted by faded, brassy drumming, alongside the sweeping sounds of a swelled-up guitar. They soon close with the industrialist wails of what could easily be static deriving from a box television set, or undistinguished clanging emanating from a busy construction site.

With the additional support of Maisie MacDonald’s vocals on this track, the song is graceful with a pitted, brawny elegance. With lyrics like “Scent is the strongest form of memory,” and “Moving present thoughts aside, removing the past entirely,” we are subjected to one’s hyper self-awareness of passing time where change is most prominent. What the song’s meaning conveys is an utmost grasp for recollection and reminiscence, when harking back to one’s bygone past, whether forgotten or clearly remembered.

Following this track is “Irreverent”, which begins with marching band like drums, along with instrumentation fueled with suspense. The song then submerges itself into a party of distorted resonance, with occasional bellows, like a blaring pack of wolves making their expenditure toward the moon. Between certain partitions of the song, the instrumental is more minimal and subtle. It formulates a cryptic feeling toward quietude and hushed placidity.

The next track “Neto” starts with more energetic strains of noise, and weeping cries that seem to give the feeling of perpetual eternity. The foreground, which features a stony guitar, defines itself as persistently unnerving, as it perches toward a boosted, elevated grasp of existentialism.

Moving into the track “Slice” we are met with threadbare, keyed up shears of guitar, doused with tension and moth-eaten sorrow. Seasoned with this is deep-cut drumming and bass heavy with snarling contortion and fuzzed-out grit. Vocals imitate a chant of sorts, with singing led by enraged bile and crepuscular brooding that produces a splash of furor and tempestuous darkness.

Finally, as we make it to the final track “Model Kit” the mood undergoes a significant shift. The song presents itself as more balmy and halcyon, undisturbed by their usual din. Instead, it is riddled with ethereal texture that is paired with richly sentimental harmony. A song melodious with nostalgic rhythm. The tonal dynamic focuses more on reverb-inclined blending and roomy, gated springs of chamber delay, the song exits in such a way that makes one think of the momentary figments of time. It solidifies this Cycle 3‘s projected aura, which is a long voyage across a ghastly dire tunnel, with light found at the very end.

Details on the band’s upcoming tour can be found via their Instagram.

The post A Reflection of Careen’s “Cycle 3” appeared first on KRUI Radio.

On February 2nd, 2024, Your Arms are My Cocoon visited Iowa City, to join In Loving Memory’s headlining show at Gabe’s, which was dubbed Screamo Prom. A few days after, KRUI interviewed the band’s lead, Tyler Odom, over a Zoom call. Here, we got to ask questions regarding their music and life.

Interview has been edited for clarity.

Your Arms Are My Cocoon at Gabe’s. Image via Sam Hammond

I noticed that sometimes you play a cover of “Boys Don’t Cry” by The Cure at the end of your set. It sounds so different to the original version. How did you make your own rendition to that song? 

Well, when we were on tour over the summer last year, our sets were only like, 28 or 30 minutes or something like that. We were doing headlining shows every day and you know, we realized that we had room for more songs if we wanted to put them in.

We were just like hanging out one day before a show. I like randomly figured out the chord progression to “Boys Don’t Cry”. We had a keyboard player at the time, and I looked over to my keyboard player and I was like, “Can you play the melody?” She was like, “Yeah, I know the melody to “Boys Don’t Cry.” I looked at my drummer and was like, “Can you play the drum part?” He was like, “Yeah, I already know it.” Everybody already knew it except for me. Then I figured out the chord progression. It’s like one of our favorite songs to play I love playing that song.

The recordings from the self-titled EP have like a very DIY bedroom feel. When you were doing these recordings, did you expect them to gain traction at all, or was it more of a personal project that you were going for? 

It was definitely a personal project. I was like 17 and 18 at the time. I didn’t think anybody would ever listen to them. I started the project kind of out of necessity because where I grew up in high school, was a little suburb outside of Houston. Nobody I knew was into, you know, emo music or the kind of music that I was into. The people that were didn’t play any instruments, so I was like the lone fish in those waters. That’s not a saying.

I was the only person that liked emo music and could play guitar and could play instruments. I realized that the only way I was ever going to be able to make music was if I did it completely by myself. I gave it a shot, and I’m glad that people seemed to like it. It’s been very humbling and surreal to see people reacting in such a way to something I made for fun in high school, you know?

It’s interesting to see people’s reactions to it because many usually have a hard time categorizing your music. People say that it falls into lo-fi, but they also call it screamo pop. So, how would you personally describe your music?

Yeah, I don’t know. When I was making it, I didn’t really have a genre in mind. I was just making something that I had kind of envisioned in my head for a long time. While I was making it, I just considered it like my emo project. I guess that’s all I’ve ever really considered it. It was just like the emo music that I make because I love emo music and I like to make emo music.

Image via Your Arms Are My Cocoon

Are there specific bands that you think influenced or impacted the tonal sound of the self-titled EP?

Oh yeah, absolutely. My favorite band of all time is the Brave Little Abacus, who have this really big maximalist, multi-instrumentalist, huge, big band sound that I really admire. That is definitely my biggest influence. Then on the flip side of that, something a lot more minimal and lo-fi is a band called Bedbug. They’re from Massachusetts. Brave Little Abacus and bedbug are from like the same area, coincidentally. Bedbug were like my favorite band when I was in high school. They’re this like super lo-fi bedroom pop, with muffled synths over quiet, whispered sung vocals. It’s just adorable and so endearing. I like basically modeled the whole EP after that. Obviously, with other bands influences kind of creeping in, but yeah. 

You started out playing solo shows and now you get to perform with a full band how do you think that’s changed the experience of performing live?

Yeah, in 2022, I did a whole Western US tour just by myself in my car. I had backing tracks loaded up on my laptop, and it was really fun. It was a really meditative experience. Compared to how the full band sounds now, just the laptop sounded like like garbage. It sounded like ass. But now like with this full band, the emotions that not only the audience feels, but that I feel on stage, is deepened so much more by the fact that all the music that we’re playing is being played at the same time. It wasn’t pre-recorded or anything like that. Everybody that’s on stage playing those notes are feeling those notes. By degrees, the audience feels those notes as well, and it just feels so much better. It sounds a hell of a lot better. 

In your songs, you introduce so many different instruments, like the violin, the piano, and some MIDI keyboards. How do you come up with the idea of having these various tonalities in your songs? 

Well, I think that for the most part, it goes back to the influences being namely Bedbug and Brave Little Abacus. Bedbug for the lo-fi synths and Brave Little Abacus for the crazy, weird instrumentals and instruments. They’ve got synths, obviously, and they’ve got saxophones and MIDIs and all that cool stuff in their songs. It’s something that I didn’t want to emulate, but I wanted to sort of incorporate into my art.

Also I just, I really like learning new instruments. I’m not very good at learning new instruments, but I like getting them, and trying them, and putting new sounds and new textures into songs. I feel like it’s a lot more fun to feel those different sounds that you don’t normally hear in those kinds of songs, like in screaming songs and in emo songs.

Image via Your Arms Are My Cocoon

I noticed too that in some songs like “Snowy!” there’s drum loops similar to breakbeats. Do contemporary genres like hyper pop or breakcore inspire you in any way? 

Sort of, I mean, there’s an Amen Break on a split song that I did called “Raisin Lungs”. I would say I’m influenced by electronic music a little bit. Also, the song that we usually end with on live shows is an electronic song that I made a couple of years ago where nobody plays any instruments. It’s just like a track that plays over the speakers. It’s like this big four on the floor, party type beat. That’s the song we usually play at the end, but I didn’t have a sampler with me in these last couple of shows. But yeah, that song, “Raisin Lungs”, is modeled after more modern electronic music. I listened to, you know, some Hexa music. If you know Faxx Gang, they are from the Philippines, and Eva Boy from California who are some of my favorite electronic artists. 

Bands like cicadahead, The Civil War in France and calendar year have a similar thing going on to you. How do you feel about being an inspiration for other bands to explore that kind of sound?

I think it’s really cool. I’m glad that I was able to find an avenue where solo artists could be solo artists for people who were in a similar position that I was in high school where they didn’t know anybody that played instruments and didn’t know anybody that liked emo music. I’m so happy that’s an avenue that is readily available now for kids who are my age, who are in the position that I was in. They can make music on their own and have it be listened to by a community of people that adore that kind of music. People that adore that kind of DIY at its most literal, you know?

How would you say you position yourself in the screamo community since the music you make is a little unconventional to what would normally be classified as screamo? 

Yeah, I’ll be honest with you I’ve never felt like I really fit in with the the screamo community, not only like music wise, but just like me personality wise. It’s not out of lack of want, you know, I adore the screamo community. I’m really happy that this kind of revival or whatever you want to call it has come up in the last two or three years, because I do love screamo music, and I have for a long time.

I’m glad to see it have a community in modern music but I’ve always felt like I’ve been doing my own thing on the outskirts of this circle of screamo bands and screamo sounds. Just kind of like hanging out on the outskirts. If people want to look out from the inside and listen to what I’m doing, or people from the outside want to look in on what I’m doing and then discover more screamo artists through me, I’m happy either way. No matter if they’re in any kind of predetermined community or not. 

Looking back on your evolution as a musician with older projects like Caterpillar Witch Coven and Hair, how do you think you’ve changed since then sonically? 

Okay, first of all that was that was a crazy deep cut, oh my god. Well, you know, I’ve definitely changed since all those. I’ve even changed since the self-titled came out, because I’m still young, but I’m not as much of a child anymore, I guess. So, you know, my tastes have shifted a little bit. My perspective definitely has shifted. The way I write has shifted. I feel like that’s natural. Every artist’s art shifts with their life. If water’s in a stream or a river, it’s got to go somewhere. I feel like that’s the way art is. That’s the way that I feel. 

What was the initial meaning behind the title of the band? What inspired that specific title? 

So, if you know about Hair, for that project I made that whole album for a girlfriend that I’m not with anymore. A line in the last track of that song is, “your arms are my cocoon.” I really liked that line, so I took it, stole it for myself and put it aside. I was like, “I really liked that. That could be something I’m gonna save for later.”

When I was making some these weird screamo songs when I was 18, and finishing them up, I still needed a band name. I looked back at like my recent history of what I had been doing, and I remembered “your arms are my cocoon” and I thought it kind of fit the sound that I was creating really well. The kind of like fuzzy lo-fi sound with the lyrics that are yearning and wanting, but not in like a particularly sad way, but more so in like a “I just really love you, and I want to be with you” kind of way, you know? 

In the lyrics, there’s a lot of butterfly motifs and like bug analogies that are referential to themes of growth, transformation, and yearning. So how did you use this analogy to come up with deeper reference points? 

That’s a good question. While I was writing it at the time, I had butterflies on the mind. I had written half a stage play about butterflies, and had kind of used butterflies as an analogy for the transition into death. I kind of scrapped that halfway through, but I still had butterflies on the mind. When I was writing the words for the self-titled, I think that just crept in through my self-conscious and turned it into what it is. When I was writing it, I had the music written out, and I was more so just kind of feeling the words that fit with the music. I was just feeling the words that fit with what I felt at the time and writing them down just off the top of my head. I think those butterfly motifs and metamorphosis crept in through my mind and laid its eggs in the words. 

Image via Your Arms Are My Cocoon

At this point you have a certain uniform you wear during shows with the dress and bunny ears. Does the outfit have any significance to what you want to convey when you perform the songs live?

So, we’ll start with the bunny ears. The bunny ears were made for me by my current partner. I mean it’s fairly superficial, at least on the surface level. It’s because I love bunnies. I used to work at a place that was kind of like a cat cafe, but for bunnies, so you just like pay to come and hang out with bunnies. I worked there and took care of the bunnies, and I love them. My partner made me these bunny ears, and I love her very much, so I wanted to kind of honor her by wearing them at all my shows. Love is also kind of intrinsic to what Your Arms Are My Cocoon is. It was started with the intention of love. I try to continue that tradition of love and working that into the sound and image.

As far as the wedding dress goes, I really only wore that specifically for the tour that we did last year called, “The Let’s Get Married Tour,” and it was themed after getting married. We had, an intro where we played like the wedding march with the flowers in my hands, and I would be wearing the wedding dress. At the end of the set, I would play a song off our new record, which isn’t done yet, but almost. The song was called “Let’s Get Married”, so it was really just for that tour. It’s very cool that people seem to kind of find that dress linked with the Your Arms Are My Cocoon character and universe at this point. 

Last question to wrap up the interview, what’s next for the Your Arms Are My Cocoon project? 

As we’re speaking right now, it is Monday, February 5th. On Friday, February 9th, me and my drummer Lobo are driving out to the suburbs to record drums for the new record. At that point, the record will probably be like 90% done. I just got to finish up some minor mixing and background instrumentation, and it should be pretty much done. It’ll be out I’m hoping by like June or July. Maybe September at the absolute latest. It’s something I’ve been writing, recording and working towards since, I think December of 2020, when I wrote the first song for it, which was would have been like two months after the EP came out. I’ve been working on it for a really long time.

Besides that, you know this is kind of on the low, but I’m doing a a Midwest tour in March. I’m doing the Asia tour in April and then we’re also going to Europe in June. We’re going all over the place. It’s not something a band of Your Arms are My Cocoon’s size typically does. We’re like a pretty small fucking band. But, you know, there are people out there that want to see us, and I want to make that happen. Also this kind of opportunity doesn’t come along very often where you get to see the world, so I’d like to take that chance while I’ve got it, and see places that I never thought I would have seen, especially at the age that I am now. You know, I’m only 22, but I’m going to see Thailand in two months. It’s crazy.

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Two of the head senior editors and active contributors for Pitchfork, Puja Patel and Amy Philips, have been laid off from the company. Subsequent to this, just about half of the publication’s staff was laid off. This signaled that changes were about to come Pitchfork’s way, making many wonder what will become of it. It also brings up questions about the entirety of music journalism in general, as Pitchfork begins to meld with an editorial scene that brings lesser value toward creative and artistically spawned features. 

Pitchfork was initially established in Minneapolis in 1996 by Ryan Schreiber, who began the publication out of his parents’ basement. It came from his desire to write authentic, genuine, and sincere reviews of independent and alternative music. Prior to Pitchfork, Schreiber barely had any experience with writing for print, but was inspired by the rise of the internet age in tune with the music community. Some of Schreiber’s earlier reviews include staple underground bands such as Radiohead, Broken Social Scene, and Modest Mouse. Many of these bands gained traction from these hipster-esque reviews geared toward a readership that preferred passionately written accounts on music.

Pitchfork became acknowledged for how it covered music in a way that felt like it derived directly from music lovers and enthusiasts. These were people who simply wanted to write about music that they enjoyed and had fun listening to. Up until the year of 2006, Pitchfork authors weren’t even getting paid. The publication functioned with only 6 employees and a couple of freelance writers here and there, posting several music reviews each day.

Image via Rolling Stone

Eventually, Pitchfork relocated to Chicago, and soon expanded its reach to other forms of media such as Pitchfork.tv on YouTube, the Pitchfork Review podcast, and later the Pitchfork Music Festival, which occurs on a yearly basis. Later on, Pitchfork extended its range to mainstream pop adjacent music. Here, it also began opening its coverage to other movements across popular culture. In 2015, Condé Nast officially took charge of Pitchfork, relocating its headquarters to the One World Trade Center in New York City.

This signified the start of Pitchfork’s descent into more commercialist approaches and methods. This was around the time Pitchfork had established a paywall on their site, which made it much less accessible and attainable to its readers. With Pitchfork’s previous inclination toward raw, unfiltered writing on music, we begin to see this as a threat to the honest, critical journalism we used to receive, courtesy of this beloved publication. 

I can personally express my own disappointment and devastation over this. I’ve looked up to a good amount of publications like Pitchfork growing up, consistently viewing them as inspirations. I think that every music writer admires the original goals of Pitchfork. It was to develop a platform to have spirited discussions and dialogues surrounding music. It can only be hoped that music journalism still has a bright future ahead of it, one that doesn’t fade into the trenches of capitalism. 

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Both mediums are very complimentary of each other. Music serves as an aid to amplifying visuals, while visuals function to apply music with more expressive, evocative, and poignant character. The two combined create an entirely sensual experience that leaves the viewer with ardently vivid demonstrations of emotion and thought. In my opinion, the perfect scene comprises of a shot with passionate narrative and equally moving and stirring musical themes and elements.

Music is not only a background component of the scene, but it also operates as the instinctive guide that leads the audience in terms of flow and motion within the storyline. The musical feature is essentially what dictates and determines what following events will unravel. In a way, it allows us to be aware and conscious in advance of what is about to unfold. It’s a foreboding kind of warning or prediction that allows the audience to know the direction that the film is about to take, long before it moves that way.

I’d like to think of it as composers centering and revolving the music around plots, where the music is able to convey the story on its own through the sound’s embodied atmosphere and ambience. Why I think film scores and soundtracks are so especially important is because we fail to recognize its merit for its role in the translating of sentiment and intensity. Music after all is a universal language. 

The first movie soundtrack that I had really enjoyed, so much so that I had even purchased a copy of it on vinyl, was Nicholas Brittel’s orchestration for the Barry Jenkins film If Beale Street Could Talk (2018). There was one track in the album named “Agape”, which plays during a scene in where Tish (played by Kiki Layne) talks about the momentary instance she realized she loved Fonny (Stephan James). She says, “We were a part of each other. Flesh of each other’s flesh which we so took for granted that we never thought of the flesh. Yet, it was no surprise to me when I finally understood that he was the most beautiful person I had seen all my life.”

Tish recites this dialogue over Britell’s score, as a frame of them appears where they are in a moving subway train, staring deeply at each other’s exterior. I would listen to this specific track a lot. It even become my top song on Spotify for a while. The stunning magnificence of this album amazes and fascinates me for its capacity to be brimming with such profuse lust for life.

Soon after, I found out about Emile Mosseri, who had done the scores for Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari (2020) and Miranda July’s Kajillionaire (2020). As I had watched Minari during my senior year of high school for a class, I was immediately compelled to download its score after hearing the album’s outro track play over the scene of the Yi family’s farm burning down. In this dramatically touching scene, we see the Yi family lose everything they worked so hard for, signifying the collapse of their American dream. As the outro track poses itself to be tenderly delicate, the musical personality of the scene is complex and intricate in its spirit and energy.

Minari ending scene. Image via Midstory

As for the Kajillionaire score, I adore the track, “Infinite Love“. It plays in the film after Old Dolio (played by Evan Rachel Woods) and Melanie (played by Gina Rodriguez) emerge from staying in a pitch-dark room. Here, Old Dolio says in a speech, “I think it happened right away. Right after that first big noise. We died. This is just how it’s gonna be forever. Just us, in blackness. You can’t believe it because you were married to life, hooked on it. I wasn’t hooked so it’s not such a big deal to me.” After this segment, Old Dolio enters a convenience store and starts to see everything mundane and earthly as mesmerizing and captivating. A viewed perception toward reality, shifted.

I also consider myself an avid fan of Jon Brion. He is the composer for the soundtracks of Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017) and Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004). The Lady Bird soundtrack holds a particularly distinctive place in my heart as this was what I had been listening to before boarding the plane for college. It’s similar to Lady Bird when the track “Leaving” plays over the scene where Lady Bird’s mother drops her off at the airport as she leaves to attend UC Davis.

In Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, the track “Theme” plays over Joel (played by Jim Carrey) waking up and going on with his daily life. He says in a voice-over, “Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap. I ditched work today, took a train up to Montauk. I don’t know why. I’m not an impulsive person. I guess I just woke up in a funk this morning. I gotta get my car fixed.” In this monologue, he mourns the existence of Valentine’s Day. With the score still playing, Joel has his first encounter with Clementine, as she walks past him by the beach’s coast, symbolizing what would then be a tumultuous journey of trying to forget each other.

Scores and soundtracks like these persist in reminding me of how impactful and influential cinema and music have been in my life. The aforementioned composers make life all the more colorful and vibrant through the wondrous meshing of visuals and sound. Earlier this year, I delved further into the discography of Hans Zimmer, who I would argue is one of the best when it comes to the mastership of film soundtracks and scores. From this exploration, I came to the conclusion that he was right when he had claimed that “anything can be musical sound.”

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