by Danny Cooper
Knowing yourself has always been an impossible task, and growing up in the thralls of the Internet makes things Sisyphean. It’s hard to discern who you are with the thoughts and opinions of everyone you know constantly at your fingertips. There’s an endless stream of information and inspiration always available - a seemingly perfect tool for self discovery that becomes overwhelming and paralyzing over time. Addie Warncke, the self-taught musician behind Computerwife, knows this all too well. On her self-titled debut LP, she dives down rabbit holes of her own history, unearthing a deeply personal record with a lo-fi, fuzzed out sound reflective of the foggy headspace induced by an online upbringing. You can feel the essence of Broadcast’s “Corporeal” throughout the album, like something deeply human refracted through a broken computer screen.
The sound fits within a boom of electronic, shoegaze-indebted noise pop, put forth by acts like They Are Gutting A Body Of Water and feeble little horse. Like her peers, Warncke maintains an experimental streak, flickering through a patchwork of sounds in this vein, her own perspective keeping things cohesive. Album opener “Vacation” is supplanted with jangly guitars and a punchy drum beat reminiscent of Beach Fossils; “Happy Girl” sounds likes Loveless’ “Loomer,” but with Warncke’s voice shreking through its cathartic end. Interlude “Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' sounds like you’re drifting through cyberspace - pleasant, DVD-menu synths bubble as screams from the movie bleed into the void. The reverberating guitars and scattering drum beats of Computerwife are a fitting sound for Warncke’s introspections and search for authenticity. The self found on the record isn’t a crystal clear snapshot, but a blurry picture, infinite versions of a self cascading over one another.
Based in NYC, Warncke made the record after “freaking out and running back home” to Atlanta. The record captures this feeling of being caught between somewhere new and the comforts of home, and the lack of clean break between the two for her deeply online generation. It’s hard to dive into a new place and have the courage to reinvent yourself when everyone from your past is still tuning in. The hooky “I Get Better Everyday” addresses an old friend’s disapproval of this growth. The subject thinks Warncke’s in “odd shape,” but she quips “Frankly, I don't give a fuck, babe / 'Cause I get better everyday.” Yet self-doubt persists - Warncke ends the song asking “Should I still hide away?” On the slow-marching lead single “Lexapro” she taunts herself: “You can watch from over there if you’re too scared of it.” There’s a tempting comfort to running back home, but it’s ultimately stifling.
Throughout the record, Warncke’s indelible pop melodies emerge from the noise like glimmers of relief from a persistent foul mood. Depression is shown for what it is via the dark, murky soundscape - on the unrelenting “Eascore,” Warncke’s voice is lowered to a droll, dragging itself through the track as harsh guitars nearly drown her out. Yet there’s an earnestness to the music that doesn’t give into the despair. On “I Get Better Everyday,” Warncke belts the titular lyrics with a startling sincerity. Against it all, she really believes it. The glittering “Starchild” finds Warncke at her brightest, her voice a delicate falsetto. There’s an organized dissonance to the song that shouldn’t work, but does - a bit like Mirah’s “Look Up!”. Midway through the song the guitars tap out as she sings “the automatic functions never really seem to work / watch the vision start to blur / watch the tunnel start to close.” But in the chorus she challenges herself: “Become the Starchild you can be / find the truth and follow me.”
The album culminates with highlight “Oops.” The song is anchored with a drum beat eerily reminiscent of Green Day’s “Holiday,” but sludged up, sounding more like Have A Nice Life’s brand of post-punk. The track grapples with the increasingly cryptic nature of reality, especially online. On the chorus, Warncke sings “from far away it looks like a tower / but it’s not natural like a tree.” The line is a very literal description of an image in Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, an inspiration of Warncke’s during the writing of the record. The novel follows a biologist exploring a territory where the fabric of everything has been permanently altered by an unknown contaminant. As more time is spent in this precarious environment, what’s natural and what’s artifice becomes impossible to decipher. Warncke sees this contamination in our own ambiguous reality. She ultimately accepts it’s up to her to navigate: “This world is full of strange encounters / I have to choose what’s real to me.” There’s a lot of noise in life, and you can’t run away from it all. On Computerwife, Warncke learns to tune out the distractions and follows what’s real to her.