The Bloomington quartet’s self-produced shoegaze foregrounds texture and deliberate recording choices, with a tour that kicks off this week.
Angel Tapes, the Fire Talk imprint that introduced Shower Curtain and Sleeper’s Bell, has added Bloomington’s Just Penelope to its roster. Their debut EP, Great Lake, lands September 18, and first single “After” shows a band that builds crunch and melody around careful microphone placement rather than sheer volume.
Guitarist-vocalist Ella Curiel, percussionist-vocalist Ethan Cantrell, guitarist Theo Erz, and bassist Drew Goforth cite Interpol and Deerhunter as touchstones, but the self-produced tracks lean toward a sound-world where texture matters as much as the riff. “It’s hugely important to us not just how good a part is,” Curiel says, “but how we can use a microphone to record it and get a cool sound out of the instrument. How can we blend everything in a beautiful way?” The video for “After,” directed by Keegan Priest and Isaac Sanchez, keeps the focus on that blend — live-performance footage wrapped in the track’s controlled swirl.
Just Penelope start a run of dates this Friday in Bloomington, hitting Louisville, Nashville, Birmingham, Athens, Asheville, Chapel Hill, Richmond, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, and Chicago through mid-August. Great Lake will be out via Angel Tapes / Fire Talk.
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ROMBO Editorial Staff
The collective voice behind ROMBO Magazine’s news, reviews, features, and cultural coverage.
