Blushing the Austin, Texas based dream pop band consisting of the double husband and wife pairs of Christina and Noe Carmona and Michelle and Jacob Soto dropped their new album ‘Sugarcoat’, back on 3rd May via Kanine, just in time for their North American tour which has now finished. Blushing have now announced a seven date UK tour combined with fellow Texan’s Ringo Deathstarr who formed back in 2005, but really came together in 2007 after Elliott Frazier recorded the first EP and recruited Alex. After a couple of tours and losing another drummer, Elliott’s high school friend Daniel joined up. Ringo Deathstarr’s lengthy career has seen support from the likes of The Guardian, The Line Of Best Fit, Drowned In Sound, NME, VICE, Pitchfork, NPR, KEXP, BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio 1 and many more.
The UK tour will be calling in at Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester, London and rounding off here in Brighton on Saturday 7th September at Dust, which is located at 77 East Street. Tickets for this Brighton concert can be purchased HERE and concert tickets for all & UK dates are available HERE.
The lead single from Blushing’s ‘Sugarcoat’ album is ‘Tamagotchi’ and it can be heard HERE. Blushing’s dynamism is on full display on ‘Sugarcoat’, flitting effortlessly from spacey psychedelia to twee pop jangle with finesse and panache. Having enlisted Elliot Frazier (Ringo Deathstarr) and Mark Gardener (Ride) for engineering, mixing, and mastering duties, ‘Sugarcoat’ is a dense, reverb-laden exploration of alt-rock’s 40 year history that conjures up concord from chaos.
Blushing as a band would not exist if not for a dive bar in Austin. Coincidentally, both couples met each other there on different nights. Eventually, the band began in 2015. Michelle had been casually writing songs and had a few rough melodies forged over her rudimentary guitar skills. Soon after reaching out to and jamming with Christina, a classically trained vocalist, they had a batch of ideas and regular practice. While trying to fill out the rest of the band, they were unable to ignore the fact that their husbands happened to be a guitar player (Noe) and a drummer (Jacob). By 2018, Blushing had released two EPs, 2017’s self-released ‘Tether’ and 2018’s ‘Weak’ (Austin Town Hall Records), and were playing shows in Austin fairly regularly. Following a chance encounter with Elliott Frazier (Ringo Deathstarr), who was a fan of Blushing’s prior work, he invited the group to his recording studio, which led to rough demos of what would ultimately be tracks for Blushing’s first full length, self-titled record. Blushing would work with Frazier again on 2022’s ‘Possessions’, which channels the dreamlike qualities of 4AD’s most ethereal bands paired with the guitar-forward approach of early 90s American indie rock.
Immediately after the band wrapped the recording sessions for ‘Possessions’, they began writing songs that would become ‘Sugarcoat’. Noe or Christina would upload a new song idea to a Google Drive almost daily, and within the hour Michelle would have melody and lyrics fully formed. They didn’t want to create an album where each song was made to fit into the same mold. Instead, they decided to run with each idea no matter which direction it was facing, resulting in an album that is somewhat of a sampler of the group’s collective influences. While there are certainly tracks immediately recognizable as “Blushing” songs, this album is where the band get to explore their love for expanding genres, from post-punk, psych-gaze, grunge-pop, indie-pop, slowcore, and beyond. Lyrically the album asks many questions, reaching out for someone to provide answers or for the answers to come from within. There is a lot of uncertainty in the world as well as personally. Getting older, questioning past decisions, and the constant unknown of the future.
Bursting with playfulness, ‘Tamagotchi’ crunches and wails through an energetic, anthemic chorus harkening back to the most feverish nineties alt-rock style. It tells a tale of indecision of the heart and the desire to be a playable character in the game of love and have the big decisions made for you.
Between their recent Japan tour with Softcult, extensive stateside touring, multiple appearances on live-session staples like LEVITATION, SXSW showcases, and sharing stages with Snail Mail, Blonde Redhead, Beabadoobee and countless others, it’s clear that Blushing’s mastery of their craft is hardly mysterious.
