three soft-boy indie dream pop duos with a lowercase aesthetic
is this the sound of youths becoming adults?
there’s a specific character of the person caught between millennial and gen z who saw the chaotic rise and fall of emo grunge high fashion in their formative years and now mostly wears tasteful beiges, blacks, and blues (occasionally splurging for a neon orange beanie), perhaps works in a grey, concrete and glass high rise, or is studying something creative but still fundamentally pragmatic like architectural design. this person may have a half-formed understanding of their unique privilege as a resident of a hyper-developed, hyper-intellectual bubble, and with that a pain and guilt they may be unable to put into words, the manifestation of which changes by the day. one day it might be taking solace in the act of spreading a substantive but not gluttonous layer of cream cheese on a warm, toasted bagel. the next day it might be scrubbing at the edges of the ceramic sink in the bathroom and smiling at the smell of the cleaning liquid.
these artists make music for this person.
pink roses
once upon a time two tech bros (nate tepper & dave fontenot) lived in a hacker house together, working on their companies by day and making music together by night. they moved to la. they look exactly like you’d suspect. this is not the story i expected when i discovered pink roses on amazon music but i can’t say i’m surprised either. self-dubbed “chill emotional dream pop”.
they started their public journey in 2019 with single “hollywood” — a sung melody over a strong beat and dream synth instrumentals, as promised — and a personal story in “leave it all behind me, it’s time to live my life, finding my way… home… to hollywood…”
in 2021 pink roses released album = which gives us more of what we crave. it starts with 2020 single “dreamin’”, a half-reflection, half-call to action, “i’m dreamin’ about leavin’ this town, i’m dreamin’ about leavin’ you now… will you come with me? or will you go?” the back beat is overall softer in this album than earlier releases, providing a dreamier quality, more of a musical hug rather a fist bump. in “dtla” (downtown la) that same back beat rears its head in a more springsteen-esque way, comforting, not sharp, “take somebody you love to the city and show them the city you love…”
“another girl” is a standout track, an inflection point into tracks that display a matured musical style. it introduces a complexity to the instrumentals, more chordal dimension, reverbed piano flourish, a melody that leans more 90s over previously 80s in character, but fundamentally staying true to its synth roots, symbolizing growth in your 20s — filtering out the core parts of what is familiar and comfortable to you and fitting those constants to the new and changed world around you.
this is evidenced by “drinkup”, another standout track. pink roses closes out their album with “teddy bear”, which reverts back to that strong back beat of “hollywood” under the new musical stylings they’ve formed over the years.
nightly
nightly (jonathan capeci & joey beretta from nashville, signed to bmg) is well-known for 2020 album night, love you. but i’d like to point your attention to night, love you. (alt ep) released in 2021 featuring four stripped, acoustic, or live versions of tracks on the original.
on standout track “not like you (stripped)”, nightly keeps the same rhythmic spoken melodic quality with less up-dance production (definitionally as it’s stripped). however, notably over other artists that may let a too-sparse stripped instrumental belie their voices, this track puts the two in an effective symbiosis by keeping some but not all of the electronic production.
“so sly (alternate version)” possesses this same, satisfying quality.
“summer (acoustic)” nods to country pop, lyrically, melodically and in acoustic guitar strum backing, and nightly takes their time to get into the flow of this track.
closing this alt ep with “older (live acoustic)” is a solid choice. we hear the vocal and instrumental talent of the band — they’re good live.
the ivy
i’ve mentioned the ivy (wyatt clem & shawn abhari from oklahoma, not signed to a record label) and their 2020 album we move faster at night on substack before, but 2017 album next stop has a delicious, harder characteristic that elevates dream-synth-pop to rock-dream-synth-pop. if the above artists feel like a martinelli’s sparkling cider, the apple sweetness of childhood with some wistful, sharper carbonation, then this album is simply a crisp, cold stella artois. next stop opens with “she”, defined by hard-charging synth chords, electric guitar riffs, and strong vocals “she will always be mine, you know i’ll be back for her”:
the other standout track on next stop is “i don’t wanna”, notable because it doesn’t use the same three-part rhythm of standard backing sets but instead uses light sand sound instruments and marimba stylings (also heard in the next track “breath”) and actually relies on the power behind the vocals “but i don’t wanna be yours” and recurring synth guitar solo to drive the track.
love you. take care.
-valerie