#31: BIG WORLD
Today is a big release day. I have not yet listened to the biggest release (Lost Weekend by Phoebe Bridgers), but I am looking forward to it. Nor have I listened to the new record from L'Rain, which I'm possibly even more excited about. I will have to get to these at some point today -- for some reason neither one feels right for such a bright, light, late-summer morning.
What does feel right for that kind of morning is my most anticipated record of the day, Big World by Hovvdy. I've been a Hovvdy Head for several years at this point, and their last record, 2024's Hovvdy, is probably one of my favorite albums of the last five years. When it first came around a few months before release, I was going through a particularly sticky transitional time in my life, lots of bittersweet tension just waiting for the next thing to come to pass. In this time of anticipation and anxiety, Hovvdy was just about the only thing that would calm me down. I listened and paced, sock-clad, around my dark bedroom, waiting for spring to come. Parts of the record contained the hints of desperation I felt ("Bubba"), while others pointed toward the joy I was seeking ("Forever"). Sorry to be so oblique; the details are private. Let's just say it meant a lot to me -- at 53 minutes, it was something hefty to anchor me at a time when I seemed to be uncomfortably suspended in mid air.
How to describe Hovvdy, the Austin duo of Charlie Martin and Will Taylor? Well their Bandcamp tags supply us with the term "pillowcore," which certainly feels apt. Where slowcore records find a kind of bite in their steady, stubborn patience, Hovvdy feel soft, comfortable. They achieve this, in part, through a manipulation of their voices, which often appear as a sort of blurry smear across their songs. Through layers of hushed harmonies or gentle electronic augmentation, Martin and Taylor make their voices feel both incredibly intimate and somehow distant, as if they come to you from a dream.
Their aura, though, is not mysterious -- it's natural, friendly. Two friends from another time. They're kinda weird but also kinda normal. They fall in love (hear "True Love," one of the most brilliant, sweet pop songs of the decade). They sketch wistfully mournful images of a bygone youth ("Sudbury").
Sometimes it's hard to parse what they're on about. I do not know what "Cathedral" is about at all, but it's one of the best songs I've ever heard. I spin around my apartment in a weird spectral dance when I hear:
maybe never come back here
we could stay with our friends
maybe never come back here
baby we better hover
Because Hovvdy is such a vibe band, and because of the whole pillow aesthetic, I think it can be easy to take a cursory listen and think there's not much to their sound. This was my initial impression, when Cranberry came out in 2018. It sounded nice, but not all that interesting. It wasn't until Heavy Lifter the next year that I realized they were doing something really interesting here, crumpling the edges just enough, distorting the message, leaning into some of the strange elements of their sound.
I went back to "Brave," from Cranberry, taking notice of the roots of Heavy Lifter's off-kilter underbelly. I latched on to the way the vocals bent in odd directions, higher than expected, but so clean they sounded almost eerie. I felt it in my chest this time, a potential softness of experience that felt deeper, more expansive than I realized on first blush.
The band has plumbed the depths of their softness since then, and my early impression of Big World is that they're still good at finding new dimensions of their sound to explore. I think it's telling that the first two songs on the record, "Life So Wide" and "Way Down," present Taylor and Martin at their least blurry. They come into focus a bit on these songs, rendering more clearly their country/Americana foundation. They don't shy away from that twang on this record.
This directness comes through in other ways, exploring their burgeoning pop sensibility on "Try Try Try" and "You Will Go Far." Both of these are pure fun, the former leaning on a gritty little riff and the latter bursting with an airy earnestness. On early listens I'm especially moved by "Starry," a lush, swaying little number that feels campfire ready. I don't really like fires or go camping but if I did I'd wanna be hearing that song. I was also drawn to the closer "Wannabe (Radio Queen)," which turns into a bright, driving little anthem, a hit from a daydream.
Big World is more direct than most Hovvdy records, but they're still developing their textured pillowcore. A late-album untitled track lends the record its name in an elliptical and distant echo, and a mysterious shimmer defines "Blast." For all the tightening up of their craft on Big World, it still feels distinctly Hovvdy.
I woke up a bit early this morning to listen to Big World before I went to work, sitting on the couch and drinking cold brew from the fridge while the dogs crunched their kibble and tugged on a rope. I leaned back and closed my eyes. The light was soft, mild -- on my earlier walk with the dogs, I noticed that the sky was odd today, bright but somewhat obscured. My partner had gone off to work hours ago already; it was a quiet morning. A light breeze came through as I rode my bike to the office, the album playing a second time on my little speaker. My thoughts, at this early stage, were pretty simple. How great it is to have an album to love.
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Here’s some more songs:
The other big hit on my bike lately has been the latest single from Smidley, "Love in Every Direction," a ebullient pop song that feels very '80s by way of early 2000s, if that makes sense. I'm dancing at my standing desk listening to it right now.
The Deathwish band Snag released their very good new record All the Cages Holding Us Will One Day Turn to Dust a few weeks ago, and although the record leans scramz, they've got one of the best twangy emo songs of the year in "Juneberry."
I'm really into Chat Pile recently. The guy at the record store was like "that's some pretty fucked up shit." They do have a song about hallucinating a demonic Grimace. They also write powerful, gutteral songs about homelessness, greed, masculinity, etc. All of the singles from their upcoming record Who Loves the Sun are SO good, I don't know what to choose -- just go with "Deep Blue," the first one released, aggressive and melodic and kind of disorienting in its dull clanging. It rocks.
DIIV is working with AG Cook which to me is really cool. I love the first song from their new hilariously titled LP ZIRP! It sounds like them but with a little extra electricity. I loved Frog in Boiling Water, but I do think it's the end of the road for the dirgy alt-'90s version of their style, so a little something new is welcome.
New Mountain Goats last week. You know I simply have to stan. Days is about '80s/'90s rock and all the fame and the glory and the drugs and the fun gone by. My pick from listening the past week is "Hidden Majesty of Later Venom Albums," a gorgeous, floating track hidden in the penultimate spot in the tracklist. In all its majestic harmonies and shimmering piano chords, it evokes the emotional heft of the album's concept so gloriously.
One more for the road:
My name is Jordan Walsh, and I’m a writer based in Philadelphia. I Keep a Diary is a newsletter about music, books, and writing.
