MAMALARKY
BIO
Six months into the pandemic, three-fourths of art-rock four-piece Mamalarky plunged into a new experiment: they moved in together. Guitarist-vocalist Livvy Bennett and keyboardist Michael Hunter drove across the country, decamping from Los Angeles to bassist Noor Khanās hometown, Atlanta. In September 2020, the trio rented a giant old house with vaulted ceilings, a tire swing, and a bare-bones little studio room. There, the band made its largely home-recorded sophomore full-length, Pocket Fantasy, due September 30 via Fire Talk.
When they needed breaks, the group would take walks to a nearby creek, surrounded by tall trees and a cacophony of birds. On a particularly sublime day of swimming, Bennett and Khan soaked in the sun, watched the light refract the water, and time stood stillāa blissed-out moment captured in the purejoy of āMythical Bonds,ā an ode to friendship told through playful grooves and zigzag riffs. āI really needed to write something to accurately show Noor how much her friendship means to me, and our journey as musicians and friends,ā Bennett reflects.
Pocket Fantasy is an instant-classic sunny-day record, imaginative and introspective, an enveloping listen of skyhigh hooks and keyboards that soar with joyful abandon. Its twelve kaleidoscopic tracks shapeshift aesthetically and thematically, through ideas about death and impermanence; love and gratitude; nature and technology; humor and hope.
āWe were just living in the album for an entire year,ā says Bennett. Physically enmeshed in each otherās lives and processes in new ways, the trio connected more deeply around one anotherās creative languages, honing in on their tight-knit group-logic. āWe would work on it all day, and I would fall asleep with the songs in my head. It was really: eat, sleep, breathe, record music.ā Drummer Dylan Hill remained based in the bandās hometown, Austin, collaborating through voice memos, and making regular trips to Georgia to record. āIt felt like I was stepping into another world,ā Hill says, of those fruitful visits.
Mamalarky formed in 2016, growing out of the house show scene in Austin, TX that surrounded their cooperative student housing. But their roots as friends run even deeper: Bennett and Hill met in middle school band, and theyāve played in bands with Hunter since high school. (Lead single, āYou Know I Know,ā nods to the big music dreams of their Texas upbringing.) When the band moved to LA after the release of their first record, they met Khan. Pocket Fantasy follows their 2020 self-titled full-length debut, the 2018 EP Fundamental Thrive Hive, and support tours with Slow Pulp, Jerry Paper, and Ginger Root, among others. When theyāre off the road, Mamalarky now jokingly calls itself ātri-coastal,ā with Bennett and Hunter back in LA, Hill in Austin, and Khan in Atlanta.
The process of home recording helped crack open their collaborative approach. Constant tracking at home helped take off some of the pressure of the studio; the group could experiment without regard for whether songs would make the album; they could just write and play and collect material without worrying if anyone would ever hear it. āItās more alive,ā Bennett says. āAnd less over-thought. It felt like it was pouring out continually.ā Hunter adds: āWe were very much learning the home-recording process as we went alongā¦ Itās music thatās heavily inspired by the process.ā
MUSIC
Pocket Fantasy, the sophomore album from Mamalarky is an instant-classic sunny-day record, imaginative and introspective, an enveloping listen of skyhigh hooks and keyboards that soar with joyful abandon. Its twelve kaleidoscopic tracks shapeshift aesthetically and thematically, through ideas about death and impermanence; love and gratitude; nature and technology; humor and hope. Heralded by Billboard, Nylon, The Fader and more, the new album expands on the unique sound of their self-titled debut which Pitchfork called ātenderly tangled indie rockā. On Pocket Fantasy some of the bandās purest pop tendencies collide with more warped and weird strains of quirky psych. Itās a treasure trove of playful grooves and zigzag riffs, a phenomenal album from a young group poised to carve their own place in the bins of your favorite record store.
Mamalarky spent two years working on their self-titled debut album (out via Fire Talk on November 20th). Raw and cerebral, the LP looks to a range of influences from their collective musical nerdiness. ''We might have a vocal melody that sounds like the lead steel guitar from Santo & Johnny, played over production that aims to be noisy and weird like Deerhoof or Sheer Mag, all the while steeped in the greats like Stevie Wonder or The Four Seasons,' explains Livvy. The album itself was cobbled together in a mix of DIY ways: home recordings with Livvyās roommate Joey Oaxaca (White Reaper, Mo Dotti), singles with Daniel McNeill (White Denim) and a āfinal wrapping-upā with engineer Jim Vollentine (Spoon, Skating Polly). The result is an album thatās as musically fun and explorative as it is catchy and sweet. Or as Mamalarky puts it āWe want to provide an experience that's exploratory and trippy, but far removed from the problematic and corny psych stereotypes carried out by all those 60s dude bands.ā
1st Pressing
Creamsicle Vinyl - 400 units
Black Vinyl - 300 Units
Bright Red Vinyl - 300 Units (Indie Retail Exclusive)
'Fury was inspired by acknowledging a suppressed crush, and how scary and exciting that can be. Confronting that truth is the most important thing, despite the difficulties, I definitely learned that the hard way. It feels like our most unhinged song yet, I think you can really get that energy from the layers of guitars and doubled bass line.
I wrote the chord progression for Fury during a soundcheck, feeling pretty pent up after a long drive and wanting something entertaining to play. The lyrics also got written in one go right after we recorded the drums, bass, and guitar tracks, so it feels really untampered with to me. Now that I think of it, the synth hook also happened spontaneously while we were recording, with no rehearsed part written. It's nice to have a song tumble out into the world like you're throwing dice, just seeing what you'll get. That's the general life strategy for Mamalarky lately!!!
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Iām bored. we're all bored. we wrote and recorded a song during this boring time. Here is exactly what it sounds like as a waveform. It's about falling in love and not knowing exactly how to say it yet. This concept of shared love-'you say you love me but what does that mean?' It's like...does love mean the same thing to both of us? Can it ever entirely mean the same thing, being different people who experience life so differently? Maybe that's why they invented the 5 love languages, to reconcile with these little differences in how we give and take and feel love? Maybe this expression that you're listening to now is as close to an understanding of love as anything else. Everything on this track is the first take, meaning we only recorded each part once. It was home recorded, right after SXSW was called off by the covid. It was meant to be a demo and then we were like...actually this sounds more genuine than it would if we just sat in a studio and hacked away at different takes, trying to make it perfect. The result is organic and cage free, but may contain soy and tree nuts.
