by Giliann Karon (@lethalrejection)
I’m lucky to have been privy to They Are Gutting A Body Of Water’s meteoric ascendance from sticky basements. In just a few years, the genre-defying band has achieved cult status and ushered in a new wave of shoegaze, prompting a new generation of young artists to create from bedrooms and DIY spaces. Their home base of Philadelphia has long served as an indie rock incubator. Artists like Alex G, Hop Along, and Japanese Breakfast all got their start in the city’s storied house venues and intimate bars. TAGABOW is today’s iteration and singer Doug Dulgarian has his ear to the ground on his label, Julia’s War, which has nurtured artists like MJ Lenderman, Wednesday, Feeble Little Horse, and Joyer.
Their newest album, swanlike (loosies 2020-2023), compresses three years of outtakes into a tight 57 minutes. Like their previous work, they continue to fuse the vintage with the absurd, from the song titles to their eerie textures. Opener “solo gay bowser” lurches into twinkly fuzz so thick it makes you double-check if your headphones are actually working properly.
The nonsensically tilted chiptune track “fight at a kegger in the woods and everybody is shining their phone lights into the carnage screaming” conjures a sweaty evening as raucous and carnal as the house shows they cut their teeth in. While some of the 22 tracks stand out, such as noisy industrial “clit eastwood” or ear-blasting “trust fall,” TAGABOW’s albums are best consumed all in one sitting. Most songs are under two minutes, and all utilize the same heavy distortion, sampling, and vintage video game sounds. What begins as just buzz and noise transforms into sinister hooks and grooves.
Everything today is a revival, a renaissance, the “post” of our parents’ generation. It’s always a nod to someone more prolific who initially broke the ground we walk on. It’s rare for someone to completely reinvent the wheel. Not only is TAGABOW creating something unheard of, but they’re lifting up others as they go. They’re not the first shoegaze band to ever exist, but it’s impossible to separate their work from the digital landscape that molds and spreads it. When every band, consciously or not, sounds like someone else, no one is doing it like TAGABOW.