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From<\/strong> Hudson valley, New York, and London Jonah Paz and Yaelle Avtan recorded their first ever track as Ear on an iPhone in the Bard College library. That song, Nerves, pits their murmuring voices against weightless strings and barely perceptible drums. Just as it seems poised to float away altogether, the track is suddenly overtaken by a blaring bass synth that cleaves the first act\u2019s aching plea into an emotionally fraught, black-lit banger.<\/p>\n The Hudson valley\/London duo are sometimes lumped in under the loose banner of \u201claptop twee\u201d<\/a> alongside a host of younger artists who also balance whimsy with warped electronics. Like Bassvictim, Worldpeace DMT and the Femcels, Ear pad out the emotional immediacy of lo-fi rock with found audio chaos and wide-ranging genre collage. Nostalgia is a major ingredient but the band\u2019s appeal is by no means reducible to it.<\/p>\n After drawing from the DNA of 00s pop with their first album, last year\u2019s The Most Dear and the Future, Paz and Avtan push deconstruction harder on their second album, Rumspringa. The duo have been long inspired by IDM, and like the better songwriters of that genre, their greatest strength lies in how they manipulate the audio field. On lead single Ne Plus Ultra<\/a>, their half-whispered, trade-off vocals are secondary to epic, primary-coloured synths, which provide a faint thread of melody as voice notes, dance beats and chintzy sounds stud the song with cryptic jokes and funny pockets of uplift. The effect is like freefalling through off-kilter consciousness and acclimatising to its weird logic: the thrill of watching a band taking shape in real time. Harry Tafoya<\/em><\/p>\n
Recommended if you like<\/strong> the Books, Leila, Worldpeace DMT
Up next<\/strong> Rumspringa released 29 May<\/p>\nThis week\u2019s best new tracks<\/h2>\n