"I know it looks nice on you / And I don’t want to kill the mood / But isn’t that the same dress you were in when you left..."
One of the great things about "Dress" by Los Angeles and Austin bred dream pop outfit Letting Up Despite Great Faults, besides the cutting blend of airy current indie rock meets 80's jangle pop meets 90's twee and the absolutely magnetic vocal presence full of emotional pulls and tells, is the fact that "Dress" feels like a song from a John Hughes movie, especially the Molly Ringwald ones like Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club. From the onset, the propulsive tubular bass riff / sound against tinny (machine beat type) drum beats (that blossom later) and absolutely beautiful crystalline guitar picking form a perfect wistful framework for Annah Fisette's vocal lilt that drips with sweetness and melancholia in equal parts.
"Do you really want to wear that dress
"Do you really want to wear that dress
Just so you can wear your Sunday best
Just so you can show your sunburnt neck
Even when you’re freezing to death
In my defense I didn’t think you’d come
Do you really want to wear your best to my funeral
Now we’re going around the subject now
Now you’re tearing your dress apart
If you’re tearing it apart, are you tearing me apart"
The sound here has me thinking of the dense illusory feeling of Cocteau Twins (in fact, Dress feels like a ying yang coin flip away from Sea, Swallow Me) and the forever young rush of bands like Tiger Trap and The Field Mice. "Dress" accompanied with a wonderful Official Video is from the band's "Reveries" album dropping on October 11th (2024). If you go to their bandcamp you can pre-order the album or offerings with added bonus tracks and other configurations (like Vinyl and bundles) are available as well. Go here: https://lettingup.bandcamp.com/album/reveries
Songwriter Mike Lee shares this about "Dress":
"I was writing fast song after fast song and finally realized I needed to slow down. This was the last album I wrote for the album, and it felt so good to just pick up a guitar, take my time, and write a song from start to finish. No need for samples or crazy analog envelopes. Thinking about old and former friends and loves, and then thinking about my own funeral, I quickly got stuck on this curiosity of what everyone would wear. You know, the ones who really aren’t in your life anymore, but still feel connected enough to want to attend. Would they care what they wore, what it meant…what if it was the same outfit as the last time we saw each other? Does that person even remember? Or..do they really remember?"
Dream always.
Be well and do good things.
Robb Donker Curtius
https://soundcloud.com/lettingup
https://www.youtube.com/lettingup
https://lettingup.bandcamp.com/album/reveries
https://www.instagram.com/lettingup/
https://www.facebook.com/lettingup
https://x.com/LettingUp
Letting Up Despite Great Faults, Los Angeles, Austin, indie rock, dream pop, collision of twee and jangle pop, 80's / 90's sensibilities, post punk, romance wave, "Dress", new album "Reveries",
Just so you can show your sunburnt neck
Even when you’re freezing to death
In my defense I didn’t think you’d come
Do you really want to wear your best to my funeral
Now we’re going around the subject now
Now you’re tearing your dress apart
If you’re tearing it apart, are you tearing me apart"
The sound here has me thinking of the dense illusory feeling of Cocteau Twins (in fact, Dress feels like a ying yang coin flip away from Sea, Swallow Me) and the forever young rush of bands like Tiger Trap and The Field Mice. "Dress" accompanied with a wonderful Official Video is from the band's "Reveries" album dropping on October 11th (2024). If you go to their bandcamp you can pre-order the album or offerings with added bonus tracks and other configurations (like Vinyl and bundles) are available as well. Go here: https://lettingup.bandcamp.com/album/reveries
Songwriter Mike Lee shares this about "Dress":
"I was writing fast song after fast song and finally realized I needed to slow down. This was the last album I wrote for the album, and it felt so good to just pick up a guitar, take my time, and write a song from start to finish. No need for samples or crazy analog envelopes. Thinking about old and former friends and loves, and then thinking about my own funeral, I quickly got stuck on this curiosity of what everyone would wear. You know, the ones who really aren’t in your life anymore, but still feel connected enough to want to attend. Would they care what they wore, what it meant…what if it was the same outfit as the last time we saw each other? Does that person even remember? Or..do they really remember?"
Dream always.
Be well and do good things.
Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://soundcloud.com/lettingup
https://www.youtube.com/lettingup
https://lettingup.bandcamp.com/album/reveries
https://www.instagram.com/lettingup/
https://www.facebook.com/lettingup
https://x.com/LettingUp
https://lettingupdespitegreatfaults.com/
Letting Up Despite Great Faults is an American indie dreampop band from Los Angeles, CA and Austin, TX. Making their mark with their acclaimed debut album (self-titled 2009) and Untogether (2012), they carved out a little corner of the dreampop world with their take on electronic shoegaze and indiepop jangle. After taking a hiatus which songwriter Mike Lee hails as their time to "become real adults," they came back to their familiar form with IV (2022). Gearing up for their next release, we hear them push forward and further like never before, exploring new sounds and structure with a mature patience and confidence emblematic of "real adults."
Lee grew up in L.A. suburbia as a 2nd gen Asian American kid deeply inspired by 90's music. After graduating UCLA with a B.A. in Economics, he of course decided to start a band, but not like his garage band in high school...it had to include sampling, computer production, and analog synths. Quickly finding Kent Zambrana on bass, they started to shape their vision of bedroom dreampop. Fast forward to adulthood, Lee has attained a mastery at fitting complex layers of drum patterns, guitar riffs, and poppy melodies in a seamless menagerie. Now inspired by vastly different genres from drum 'n' bass to post-punk to K-pop, their version of dreampop has become larger and simultaneously very refined. Meticulously mixed by the amazing Melina Duterte (Jay Som), the new album Reveries yet again shows Lee wearing it all on his sleeve.
Touring U.S. in Spring 2025 and Asia in Summer 2025.
Letting Up Despite Great Faults is an American indie dreampop band from Los Angeles, CA and Austin, TX. Making their mark with their acclaimed debut album (self-titled 2009) and Untogether (2012), they carved out a little corner of the dreampop world with their take on electronic shoegaze and indiepop jangle. After taking a hiatus which songwriter Mike Lee hails as their time to "become real adults," they came back to their familiar form with IV (2022). Gearing up for their next release, we hear them push forward and further like never before, exploring new sounds and structure with a mature patience and confidence emblematic of "real adults."
Lee grew up in L.A. suburbia as a 2nd gen Asian American kid deeply inspired by 90's music. After graduating UCLA with a B.A. in Economics, he of course decided to start a band, but not like his garage band in high school...it had to include sampling, computer production, and analog synths. Quickly finding Kent Zambrana on bass, they started to shape their vision of bedroom dreampop. Fast forward to adulthood, Lee has attained a mastery at fitting complex layers of drum patterns, guitar riffs, and poppy melodies in a seamless menagerie. Now inspired by vastly different genres from drum 'n' bass to post-punk to K-pop, their version of dreampop has become larger and simultaneously very refined. Meticulously mixed by the amazing Melina Duterte (Jay Som), the new album Reveries yet again shows Lee wearing it all on his sleeve.
Touring U.S. in Spring 2025 and Asia in Summer 2025.
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