photo by Jared Silbert
The much beloved San Francisco shoegaze band Young Prisms were birthed in 2009, a year that will forever be implanted in my brain as the beginning of an indie wave that for the next decade created shifts in music. And, to me, Southern and Northern California were the epicenters of that shift. A seismic amount of activity that in many ways felt like the fertile proto punk and new wave breeding grounds from 1978 to the mid 80's. On March 25th, Young Prisms are releasing, "Drifter", their first album in 10 years via Fire Talk.
"Outside Air" floating in a sound as densely melancholy and dreamy as Bay Area fog rolling in has circular guitars and ascending synths pushed by an edgy smashed drum beat. Stefanie Hodapp's vox, clustered in the sonic fray, sounds pensive and elusive. The evocative black and white Official Video as directed by Gio Betteo and starring Hodapp is elegant and stark as Hodapp navigates the rugged California coastline.
About the track, Betteo and Hodapp share, "'Outside Air' is about the struggles and difficulties in modern marriage, monogamy, and parenting at a young age. Resentment within a relationship can sink so deep and feel never ending but the work it takes can pull you out of a depression. At times it may feel like the only way out is to run away, but the payoff can sometimes save you from making irreversible decisions. This song was recorded during the California wildfires where the orange sky embodied these feelings of fear, anger, and disappointment."
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.instagram.com/youngprisms/
https://youngprisms.bandcamp.com/album/drifter
https://open.spotify.com/album/4k1iFrcskXHR110oGQg4yq
"Drifter", the first album in a decade from San Francisco shoegazers Young Prisms is a record that finds steadiness in the embrace of uncertainty. Forming in 2009, with release of a self-titled EP on esteemed indie tastemaker Mexican Summer followed by two full lengths (2011’s Friends For Now and 2012’s In Between) on Kanine Records. Coming of age during a time where the band’s blend of introspective shoegaze and gauze-laden guitar earned them tours with bands like the Radio Dept, Dum Dum Girls, A Place to Bury Strangers and Moon Duo, Young Prisms never quite reached the same heights of commercial success afforded to some of their peers. At its core, Drifter is about the human experience and finding a balance between the thrills and intensity of wanting - another person, a better life - and the quiet rewards of finding peace in domesticity, whatever shape that may take. As the band explains, the central chorus of the lead single “I believe in you, honeydew” changes meaning as you realize that you can’t fix things, but you can figure out how to believe in yourself.” In many ways, Drifter feels like a homecoming - throughout the flux of growing older and not necessarily growing up in the ways you expected, the band has found their footing with the time afforded when you finally take the pressure off. It’s a record that could have only been made with real passage of time, through the world-weary vantage point of a group of friends that can’t stop coming back to each other.
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Young Prisms, Shoegaze, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock, San Francisco, New album, "Drifter", single, "Outside Air", Stefanie Hodapp, guitar rock, epicenter of indie music,
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