supernowhere
Skinless Takes a Flight
TOPSHELF
“Skinless takes a flight” sounds like the beginning of a particularly macabre, roughly translated German folktale—the kind where eerie beginnings become morally muddled dream logic mixed with Freudian horror, equal parts disconcerting and oblique. And yet, what’s more enduring than these stories, which still tumble around in the collective unconscious after hundreds of years? It’s the same with Skinless Takes a Flight, the new record from supernowhere, a band whose primary effect is atmospheric, who—through expressions both timeless and just a little unsettling—worm their way somewhere deeper into the psyche than most artists manage.
I’ll admit it, nearly any time I describe a band as “vibey,” it's a backhanded compliment. I get it, vibes get you on playlists, vibes get you streams, vibes get you a crumb of the ever-shrinking pie. But to me, vibes are background music, wallpaper, affectless, sanitary, and instantly forgettable. Skinless, I’m happy to say, is the delightful exception that proves the rule. Like a math-rock inspired Beach House, the Seattle-based group create a vibe so pervasive it transcends vibes-inherent triviality. Rather than become background music, Skinless draws you in so completely as to make you the background to its elaborate and airy palette.
supernowhere released their first record, Gestalt, back in 2018, but it wasn’t until it was reissued last year by their new label Topshelf Records that they started to get some significant traction. As it turns out, most of these songs date back to that initial album, existing in a state of limbo until the band packed up and moved west from their native Vermont. How much the songs changed over those years is hard to say, but you have to imagine the shelf life had an impact. Though the band largely pulls from the same musical language that informed their debut four years earlier, there are definite advancements in execution. You can practically hear the life these songs—and the band—lived in the interim. “Dirty Tangle” may begin with a familiar, frantically unspooling guitar line, but it’s the way things progress—as bassist and lead vocalist Meredith Davey becomes awash in echo and reverb, their voice a disembodied, spectral reflection rather than the songs’ guiding force—that shows the way the band has evolved.
More often than not this kind of vocal fog is the norm, whether it's Davey or guitarist Kurt Pacing taking the lead, but there are moments where things become clearer. “Basement Window” is the most striking example of this clarity, and that seems especially intentional. With the internal logic of quickly escalating panic attack, Davey weaves together imagery of a green bedroom carpet, tangled cobwebs, and smirking serpents. Though everything is shrouded in mystery, you get the distinct sense of something unraveling, perhaps irrevocably. There’s something to be said that even the clearest of supernowhere’s songs remains difficult to securely grasp, but, again, this might be their most charming quality. Skinless Takes a Flight is often obscure, cryptic, and furtive, but it never dissolves into the background.
