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Rising from the tragedies of the pandemic, their newest album ‘SPARK’ sees the band’s strongest sonic evolution to this point
Crucial factor to know about Whitney is one thing you possibly can’t absolutely perceive until you’re Julien Ehrlich or Max Kakacek: the power of the band’s bond. Standing between the pair—who’re each taller than you would possibly anticipate—there’s a palpable vitality that comes from 10 years of dwelling and dealing collectively, in what Ehrlich jokingly calls their “life partnership.”
“There’s a variety of nuance, clearly, in dwelling with somebody for a decade, however issues have developed,” Kakacek says. “We commerce off cooking dinner now. We have now a home facet of our life.”
Earlier than recording their upcoming album SPARK, Ehrlich and Kakacek packed up their issues and trekked throughout the nation, from their hometown of Chicago to a Craigslist rental in Portland, Oregon. Ehrlich was rising from an intense breakup, on the lookout for a spot to clear his head, and Kakacek adopted in an try to flee the rest of the brutal Chicago winter. It was 2020, and shortly after they arrived, lockdown was enacted and flights had been grounded. The pair discovered quarantine to be an nearly needed step of their development as a band, because it compelled them to lastly cease touring. “I believe that spiritually, we would have liked to be locked away for a second, to re-evaluate what we needed to make and what was going to make us joyful,” Ehrlich explains.
SPARK, which releases September 16, is a transparent departure from the band’s earlier albums, but the file’s sound stays distinctly ‘Whitney’ with Ehrlich’s signature falsetto and catchy hooks. SPARK takes a extra light-hearted musical method than the duo’s previous work: “There was much more head bobbing and dancing within the studio,” Kakacek says. “We had been getting a bit extra playful.” This isn’t to say that the file doesn’t take itself severely; there’s the heartache in “COUNTY LINES,” with Ehrlich singing, “Heaven is aware of / You and I / Solely tore ourselves aside / Even these / County strains / Couldn’t preserve you in my arms.” “TERMINAL” particulars the collective loss felt en masse throughout the pandemic. “BACK THEN” embodies the hope essential to survive devastating ache and darkness.
The duo obtained their begin taking part in small, DIY gigs; these spots usually weren’t meant for exhibits, so that they’d arrange their tools on the ground and play. “We had a neighborhood of mates who all liked our early demos, and we simply ended up taking part in wherever they labored,” Kakacek says. “That ultimately obtained us exhibits at correct venues in Chicago. It positively felt just like the neighborhood helped prop us up; the band began due to [them].”
At present, when the pair walks down the streets of Chicago, they get no less than one Love the music, boys! from passersby. “It’s actual hometown love,” Ehrlich says. In terms of fan recognition, the one awkwardness stems from individuals mistakenly figuring out Kakacek as Logic. Between Ehrlich’s laughs, Kakacek particulars a date he was on two years in the past, the place somebody approached and requested if he was the rapper. “When individuals come over and like Whitney, I like it, however don’t come to me asking if I’m Logic. That is me placing everybody on blast.”
In SPARK, Whitney is translated to the current second—one thing they struggled with of their sophomore album Ceaselessly Turned Round. In creating that file, the band discovered itself making an attempt to copy the success of its debut psych-folk album, Gentle Upon the Lake. Ceaselessly sounded related, however the boys struggled to know why it didn’t resonate the best way it had earlier than—they’d been making music as variations of themselves they’d outgrown. In SPARK, the duo is unafraid to take a step into who they’re now, and use new instruments to take action; they deliberately averted the acoustic guitar that had beforehand been the spine of many songs, as a substitute leaning into piano and digital devices.
In the course of the course of of manufacturing the album, Whitney went via a number of hardships on prime of the pandemic itself: Each went via breakups and losses, together with the deaths of Kakacek’s grandfather and of their shared mentor, Ladies’s J.R. White. At their darkest level within the pandemic, the duo discovered themselves in a deep melancholy, and misplaced themselves in substances and self-medication. “[‘TERMINAL’] captures the purpose that we had been at—sonically, in tone and temper, lyrically, sentimentally,” Ehrlich says. “I believe lots of people would have taken a break; I’m glad we didn’t.”
Fortunately, their advert hoc studio within the Portland bungalow made for an ideal escape from the brutal realities of the world. “If we had been caught in Chicago, we wouldn’t actually have been capable of make the identical album,” Ehrlich says. “It could have been a distinct sort of miserable. It was good to no less than have a home and, I don’t know, we obtained to stretch out. We obtained to unfold our melancholy out a bit bit extra.”
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