by Stan Standridge (@stan_dridge)
A quick google search will bring up multiple articles about “optimizing your band name for search engines.” You rarely see names like !!! (or the more searchable “Chk Chk Chk”) crop up in the click-driven media landscape of 2023. When a band simply called @ (or the equally unsearchable “At”) appears on the scene, there’s enough mystery and intrigue alone to catch certain listeners. Fortunately, there’s plenty we already know about the offbeat psychedelic folk duo of Stone Filipczak and Victoria Rose. In Philadelphia, Rose has been releasing intimate bedroom folk as Brittle Brian since 2014. Filipczak cut his teeth in the local Baltimore scene, playing in the folky krautrock group Gut Fauna and engineering their album Magicicada. Each of these projects show a strong ear for idiosyncratic melodies and unconventional production choices that weave their way into @’s debut album, Mind Palace Music.
What started as a collection of iMessage demos sent back and forth between the two in 2021 eventually became a full-blown collaborative effort. While easy to describe as “timeless,” there’s a subtle modernity poking through nearly every moment of the ‘70s inspired homespun folk songs on Mind Palace Music. Uniquely digital textures float around every acoustic strum and free-flowing flute flourish. You’re reminded of Vashti Bunyan and Animal Collective in equal measure, and in some ways the album feels like a brighter take on their collaboration Prospect Hummer. Rose and Filipczak split vocal duty across the 30-minute run time. Rose’s voice quavers over album highlight “Star Game,” not shying away from disorienting cadences and unexpected melodic lines. Filipczak acts as a foil to these eccentricities, with more straightforward singalong ready tracks scattered throughout. The best moments on Mind Palace Music are where the duo harmonize, such as the eerie “Camera Phone,” where multiple takes of both vocalists create a choral effect to sing the haunting line, “I cut down your family tree, to build a home I had with leaves.”
Despite the inherent oddness permeating much of Mind Palace Music, the music itself is remarkably accessible. Opener “Parapet” eases you in with comforting piano arpeggios and the dreamiest, hazed out vocals across the project. Given the context of @’s creation, “Letters” opens with the fitting line “How have you been? For now, you’re just in my screen, but I love you all the same.” The pros and cons, and most importantly the inevitability, of digital communication act as running themes through multiple tracks. “You are the gent in my screen, you are the gent in my dreams,” they sing on the infectious loop “First Journal.” @ manage to pack a lot into small packages here, most songs being densely arranged sub-3-minute affairs. Closing track “My Garden” synthesizes all their most stunning ideas into one package, the swirling woodwinds and spritely air ensuring you are sufficiently absorbed into @’s eclectic world (and more accurately, their garden) by the time the album concludes with an uplifting chime.