@
Autosmile
4AD
Landing somewhere between the baroque and the absurd, @ intricately coil psychedelic-folk introspection around prog-rock guitar flourishes within the dramatically pivoting track list of their debut for 4AD, Autosmile. Recorded at home with about as much technological flair as an antique shop, programmer-by-trade Stone Filipczak and beekeeper-by-day Victoria Rose exchange the computer-bound production of 2021’s Mind Palace Music for live acoustic instrumentation, which hugs the demonological metaphors within these songs that serve to address life’s slowly encompassing mysteries and losses.
The SEO-defying moniker juxtaposes itself with the duo’s sonic revitalization of folk’s traditionalist roots, with opener “Bird” encapsulating this dynamic contrast. Caught between an eerie, Expressionist trance and cinematic flutes, @’s arrangements flower into a soaring indie-pop chorus that flies too close to the sun before its inevitably tumultuous return to Filipczak’s shadowy verses. As the record plays on, the stark polarity of sound only becomes more palpable, slowly revealing the unique form both Rose and Filipczak take as individual songwriters. Both artists express how they opted to maintain their personal space when writing the album, choosing to continue on as separate entities—despite living in the same city—until the onset of the recording process when they began to fill the gaps they left for each other. Their intransigent independence reveals their desire to foster an organic and lush hi-fi sound without compromising on rooted rejection of slick studio polish in favor of a warm, rough-hewn virtuosity.
Where their first record was forged in long-distance digital isolation, Autosmile captures a band learning to sing in shared air. Plucking around the brooding strings of both hearts and cellos, Rose and Filipczak turn breakup anxieties into dense, haunted metaphors that linger on the walls of your mind like high-art reprints. The effect is a familiar, early-evening comfort that arises after a long day out in the cold. Even though the record is latent with the heat of a nearby fire, its crackle comes from meditative narratives and somber acoustics that recall the early art-folk of Elliott Smith and Animal Collective, requesting politely to be heard beyond the niche audience their band name invites.
