Structure

Description

Water From Your Eyes Rachel Brown and Nate Amos are no strangers to contradiction, with Pitchfork making note of their confidence in splicing different genres and feels from acoustic twee to indie-electronica in their review of 2019s Somebody Elses Songs. So, upon first listen, Structure with its tendency to turn on a dime from the buzzsaw synths and string arrangements that sonically bookend tracks like My Loves, to the subtle, almost Squarepush- er-esque rhythms that round out electronic compositions like Quotations may just seem like a further refine- ment of the duos idiosyncratic approach to making music.

However, repeat listens will reveal that, even though the album zigs and zags in a manner consistent with WFYEs prior releases, its line of best fit trends in a very clear di- rection away from the quaint affectations of their prior work and towards something more deliberate and half a shade darker. Even on ostensibly cheery tracks like album opener

When Youre Around, which, with its saccharine melod- icism sounds like it could be a lost song from The Apples in Stereo or one of their Elephant 6-era labelmates, theres an underlying eeriness thats not immediately apparent until the song is listened to in the context of the full album. Amos advice for navigating Structures sonic terrain is to remember that this is weed music, while his counterpart Brown offers that that the album is like solving a puzzle with a ton of different answers. Although these varied descriptions of how to approach listening to Structure may accurately reveal it to be another exercise in contradic- tions, the clear intent with which the pair approached creat- ing the album can only be appreciated with repeat listens, and is likely what makes it, by far, their most compelling entry to date.