By It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring a pair of debut self-titled releases, a blissfully nostalgic EP from Los Angeles dream pop purveyors After, the other a whirring, dancy rock album from Danish duo 100%WET!
After – S/T
Genre: Indie Pop, Trip-Hop, Dream Pop
Favorite Tracks: “Lichen,” “Obvious”
Our long pop cultural obsession with the ‘80s might finally be ending. These days, the hottest thing you can do is throw back to the ‘90s and Y2K era, from fashion and aesthetics to video games and of course politics. Music seems to be one of the primary avenues of this constant relitigation. (Of course, many more talented writers have written about this.) This idea of a perpetual past intermingling with an amorphous present has led to some interesting trends, and recently one of those trends has been the revival of trip-hop. Groups like crushed, Amiture, and a.s.o. debuted this decade to critical acclaim, Tricky’s enjoyed a bit of a resurgence with the tear he’s been on since 2020, our ascendant popstars are trying trip-hop out, and even rock bands are getting in on it.
The latest entry into the fold is an LA duo called After, comprising Justine Dorsey and Graham Epstein. The pair’s been pumping out tunes since 2022, and they’ve just released their self-titled debut EP, AFTER, almost exactly two years to the day since the release of their first-ever single. On their Bandcamp page, they proudly call themselves “atmospheric y2k trip hop pop,” and in interviews, Dorsey notes that “We take a lot of production inspiration from trip hop. Every time we try to write something vibey and low-key… a little bit of trip hop, a little bit of pop. It’s more like hook-based trip hop, like Dido or Frou Frou.” It’s an apt, simple description, and it gets at what makes AFTER such a delight.
They take the dreamy, warbly beats of trip-hop and meld them with the sunny, optimistic melodicism of early 2000s pop rock to create something that, paradoxically enough, sounds fresh; although all the band’s reference points might be twenty to thirty years old, they never come across like merely the ghosts of more impressive musicians. Their comfort with the sugary hooks of Y2K pop never comes at the expense of the atmosphere of the beats below them; on “Obvious,” the band’s best song, the clicking beat shuffles under sparkling synths in a way that foreshadows the way the song opens during its monstrous chorus. “Don’tcha think it’s kinda obvious?” Dorsey asks, almost teasing, stretching out the syllables of the title.
Closer “Nothingmore” finds After at their darkest, a burbly, squiggly beat washing in and receding like the tide under Dorsey’s crooning; hushed voices flit in and out of earshot during the song’s verses, lending an eerie, claustrophobic feeling. Even still, it manages to be an earworm par excellence. “Lichen” is the band’s spaciest track, a slow burn electropop track that has all the hallmarks of a banger, minus the energy–what it does have, though, is maybe the very catchiest hook on AFTER, a wordless “ahh-ahh-ahh” that feels like a sigh of relief.
Like “Lichen,” “Ever” never hits a climax the way its pre-chorus suggests it may, but its honeyed melody is so infectious it doesn’t even matter. The chorus of that song, like that of the opening “300 Dreams,” calls to mind the most immediate moments of Momma’s recent LP—never a bad comparison. “It’s the memory of the real thing you have known since you were five,” sings Dorsey at the start of “300 Dreams,” and it’s an appropriate introduction. But this time it might be even better than the real thing. Pick it up on Bandcamp and give it a listen while you replay MAJORA’S MASK. [Zac Djamoos]
100%WET – S/T
Genre: Dream Pop, Alternative Dance, Baggy
Favorite Tracks: “Re-Emerging,” “Over Me,” “Carat,” “Warmblooded”
You’ll have noticed the ongoing alternative dance revival if you’ve kept your ears peeled. George Clanton, Caroline Polachek, and Hatchie can be argued as its longtime frontrunners. The swaying four-bar drum patterns and laid-back guitar shoegazing that each infuse in their unique songs are entering the broader pop consciousness. It’s a welcome shift—one that’s more playful and personable than the often indistinct alt-pop genre flooding that musical landscape. Although there’s still much progress to be made with bringing ‘90s sounds further to the fore, more people are digging them, which means more artists are recreating them. 100%WET is an example of this vibrant melange being distilled accessibly.
The Copenhagen-based duo of Jakob Birch and Casper Munns draw upon everything modern alt-dance on their self-titled debut album: the carefree breakbeats, distortive sounds, and sublime female vocals. While their dreamy record fits neatly in this revival scene, Birch and Munns describe it as “hypergaze,” citing the cosmic collages and punchy beats. If the fantastical, serpentine cover is anything to go by, there’s nothing but an ethereal atmosphere on this.
The first few tracks mesh heavily affected acoustic guitar noodling with skittery drum loops, and pack a punch with electric guitar blasts—opener “Lost Myself” especially with its maximalist drops. It truly picks up from “Re-Emerging,” where dream pop is driven by Copenhagen’s Amalie Hannibal Petri’s levitating voice—one of several guest vocalists—that slowly paves the way to an expansive breakbeat crescendo. “Over Me” prolongs the fast pace with an atmospheric drum ‘n’ bass flavour accompanied by echoey, jangly guitars. The intensity ebbs and flows with guitar barrages recalling those in “Lost Myself,” then the track settles down with somber new wave chords.
It’s impressive how much Birch and Munns have nailed the wondrous, swirling neo-shoegaze formula, which also sounds distinctly theirs. The nature of the dense soundscapes and soft-spoken words lends to bittersweet emotions, and the final third is full of that. “Two Packs of Red Apples” enchants with intimate, choppy guitar twangs, while “Carat” and “Warmblooded” lean into monolithic sounds—the former driven by woozy, punchy beats, and the latter unravelling a spiritual acid groove.
100%WET expertly capture the entire dream pop package: euphoria, introspection, and detachment. Any indie rock or electronic fan is going to want a taste. If their eclectic, enveloping textures are this good on what is astonishingly their debut, then give us more hypergaze, please! This should be the sound that’s in. Check out 100%WET’s infectious debut album on Bandcamp. [Dom Lepore]
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