Grace Ives, 25, is as cool as a cucumber. On an early February morning, at a cafe in Brooklyn, I can see her wide-eyes flash with easy nature when she offers me a small iced coffee. This all just before we pile into a Lyft for a smooth and rainy ride upstate as a six-person-crew.

Born and raised in New York, the Queens-based musician stirs a creative lo-fi pot with mini jumpy records as she “finally got it f-figured out” on—my personal favorite—“Mirror” from Ives’ album 2nd (2019). By the time Ives entered college, she began writing songs to perform in front of her close friends. “That’s kind of how I started taking myself seriously as an artist,” Ives says when reflecting on a nudge that helped make way for all big good things to come.

More: http://theisisnicolemagazine.com/blog/graceives

Model/Actriz - "Suntan"

$1.00

Downloads in .wav format. For more options, please visit Model/Actriz’ Bandcamp page.

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[…] Model/Actriz take from dance music not only the structural and compositional undertones, but also it’s experiential approach to music-making & performance. In that, they challenge the idol-centric vision of rock & pop music. There is an exciting freedom here, and intrinsic to it is a heightened responsibility of the viewer/listener. When taken for their word, Model/Actriz reminds a viewer why performance & audience matter. They represent the oft-forgotten intensity of a community composing a moment, in the moment. Hearing & seeing Model/Actriz is akin to the eruptive joy that follows seeing an imaginary come to fruition; it is desire, materialized. From this stems their music’s potent sexuality, confidence, & rupture; it is music as transgressive as we hope it to be.

After two years of self-imposed hiatus, Model/Actriz are returning with a four-piece lineup: Cole Haden (vocalist of Dagsboro, DE); Jack Wetmore (guitarist of Los Angeles, CA); Ruben Radlauer (drummer, of Los Angeles, CA); and Aaron Shapiro (bassist, of Burlington, VT). They write everything together, and practice a rigorously democratic approach to being a band from their current home base in Brooklyn, NY. Model/Actriz make dance music, and seeing really is believing.

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“[Suntan] is an exact exercise in tension and release, eerily clanging synths leading the way as the song throbs forward, eventually bursting into a distorted chorus with Haden intoning “As the center is collapsing” over and over. It’s gloomy and a little unnerving, but it’s also a visceral and deeply catchy composition.”

-Ryan Leas for Stereogum