Mamalarky

In making their third record, Hex Key, Mamalarky spent entire seasons hunched over guitars and obscure synthesizers, their long hair sweeping over strings or covering concentrated eyes. The band recorded takes in between the sounds of passing ice cream trucks and yowling stray cats in their LA home studio, a tight but prolific living room. Hex Key is a document of perseverance, of going for the gold while somehow remaining totally aware of one’s own vulnerabilities. These effervescent, swirling songs chronicle vivid desires crashing against real-life limitations but finding a way to keep burning anyway. That tension between anguish and resilience, between performed aloofness and brutal honesty, drives the music, imbues it with a compelling intensity.

Over the last 8 years, the quartet’s members have lived in Austin, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, and have established a bond that they acknowledge is rare. “We have an unmatched level of trust in each other,” drummer Dylan Hill says. “There is no air of professionalism. It's literally just four friends hanging out and getting to the bottom of something.”

Given their closeness, Mamalarky are able to fight like family, not necessarily with each other, but for the music, to make it the best it can be. Whereas their last album, Pocket Fantasy, was exploratory and free-flowing, the songs on Hex Key are the result of absolute devotion and fine tuning.