Total Wife
come.back.down.x.recovery
JULIA’S WAR
Total Wife is a Nashville-based experimental duo that combines a late-’90s blend of shoegaze and nu-metal à la Deftones with more modern genre elements from the era of hyperpop. For their latest EP, Luna Kupper and Ash Richter used recovered song files from their 2025 LP Come Back Down that were lost after a hard drive failure to instigate an interesting foray into collaboration, sending demo versions of the songs to Winter, Full Body 2, They Are Gutting a Body of Water, and loveliescrushing’s Scott Cortez to be rehabbed via each artist’s individual vision. The result is an electronics-infused reimagining of four tracks familiar to Total Wife’s latest chapter, each imbued with a novel layer of interpretation.
Despite four different artists working on these remixes, the EP is cohesive—an unconscious, gestalt-like grouping binds them together in an appealing way, like the colors and shapes of an abstract-expressionist painting. The EP opens with nugazers TAGABOW’s remix of “Peaches,” which sounds like a pitched-down version of the original. Total Wife’s cacophony remains, but is more subdued here. This reduction of energy pairs well with the newly added droning synths, pushing the listening experience toward a more oceanic sensation in contrast with the original’s palpable immediacy. Winter’s remix of “Second Spring” is similarly chopped up, yet the expansiveness of the original version isn’t lost even as the track’s production sounds smoother in a way that once again ties it to the preceding cut.
The final track, Full Body 2’s remix of “Make It Last,” is the only one of the four that’s infused with more energy than the original. This left turn works well, as the contrast creates a cathartic release that’s both a pleasing and engrossing conclusion to the collection. Although short, the EP’s tracking feels deliberate, giving it a clear sense of narrative movement. These reimaginings are distinct enough from the originals while giving them new life in unexpected ways, creating an engaging and melodious listening experience.
