Lowertown
Ugly Duckling Union
SUMMER SHADE
There’s apparently a whole narrative underbelly to Lowertown’s Ugly Duckling Union. It’s one that involves an outsider duckling called Dale who, together with his companions, sets out on a quest to defeat a tyrannical media corporation. If that sounds rather ridiculous on paper, the NYC-based duo of Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg manage to translate it into something rather heartfelt and wonkily majestic. That being said, if you didn’t know it was about a duck trying to take down an evil corporate entity, it would be hard to discern so from the lyrics. It’s the complementary artwork, comic, handbook, playable Minecraft world, and, purportedly, plush dolls (there seems to be no tangible evidence the latter actually exist) that drive the concept home. Because if you didn’t know any of that existed, Ugly Duckling Union would seem more like a set of oddball songs trying to capture the human experience through surreal metaphors and imagery.
The pair met in high school in Atlanta, forming the band in 2018 and moving to New York soon after. Their debut EP Friends came out in 2019, while the full-length effort I Love to Lie was released three years later on Dirty Hit, the label responsible (take that word however you will) for unleashing The 1975 on the world. Now, for this highly unusual follow-up, Osby and Weinberg have returned to their DIY roots, writing, recording, producing, and mixing these 12 songs entirely themselves. That, perhaps, is why Ugly Duckling Union—both lyrically and musically—veers sharply into left field. It’s an album centered around the pair’s unbridled creativity and the freedom they have to truly indulge in it. For while Lowertown have always been a lo-fi band, they really lean into that history here. The first two songs on the album almost sound like demo rough cuts, á la The Moldy Peaches, with both Osby and Weinberg struggling to stay in tune and in harmony.
There’s a certain charm to that, of course. Especially in this day and age of AI infiltration, to hear some imperfect humanity is actually refreshing—a reminder that the best voices aren’t always the best voices. It’s impossible to not hear the ennui and disaffection in both Osby and Weinberg’s vocals, especially on “Echo of Desire,” the uptempo and restless “(I Like to Play With) Mutts,” and the plaintive and poignant lament of “Found A,” while “Anything Good Takes Blood” is a marvel of youthful disaffection that sounds much, much older than the pair’s 24 years. It doesn’t always hit, though; the pastoral, flute-addled, folky aimlessness of “Cover You” leans toward self-indulgence, while the raucous, angular, and atonal “DIPSH*T” feels more like pastiche than the post-punk it’s emulating.
Still, Ugly Duckling Union is a fascinating portrait of the artist left to their own devices, a curator’s egg of experimentation without restraint, of following the whims of fancies of the muse just because you can. For that alone, Lowertown should be applauded.
