Pop Filter

Australian indie collective Pop Filter includes members of <a href="spotify:artist:2FrbGdBFSc1Jz0FVQ143ft">the Ocean Party</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0soSU9eC31tES3VthvCLtU">Cool Sounds</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:0Ky0HZRpab9SW891Jb9gce">Snowy Band</a>, continuing a years-long stretch of collaboration and taking it to new places with their melodic but versatile songs. When <a href="spotify:artist:2FrbGdBFSc1Jz0FVQ143ft">the Ocean Party</a> ended in 2019 with the unexpected death of member <a href="spotify:artist:2wJV5MfIve8k9z7Ec4n7BU">Zac Denton</a>, the remaining members regrouped as Pop Filter, working on their first two albums in marathon recording sessions, but taking more time to complete their third record, 2023's CONO. For their fourth album, 2024's Ray & Lorraine's, the band brought more synthesizers and '80s synth pop influences into the mix.

Pop Filter is made up of musicians <a href="spotify:artist:1D21JobgrqyczAev85VxBY">Lachlan Denton</a>, Curtis Wakeling, Jordan Thompson, Nick Kearton, and Liam Halliwell. All of them had been in the band <a href="spotify:artist:2FrbGdBFSc1Jz0FVQ143ft">the Ocean Party</a>, while Halliwell had also released music with <a href="spotify:artist:0Ky0HZRpab9SW891Jb9gce">Snowy Band</a>, and Kearton with <a href="spotify:artist:0soSU9eC31tES3VthvCLtU">Cool Sounds</a> and several other various projects. <a href="spotify:artist:2FrbGdBFSc1Jz0FVQ143ft">Ocean Party</a>'s style was decidedly jangly and clearly influenced by classic college rock and wistful indie rock sounds, and with Pop Filter, the group sought to expand their style. Though still working in a melodic pop vein, the songs explored different indie subgenres and could vary from one to the next. Pop Filter's first two albums, Banksia and Donkey Gully Road, were both released in 2020 and both were tracked quickly when the bandmembers could get together for long weekend recording sessions. This played into a new looseness on the first two albums that strayed from the more detailed song construction <a href="spotify:artist:2FrbGdBFSc1Jz0FVQ143ft">the Ocean Party</a> sometimes got into.

Pop Filter pieced together their third album, CONO, over a period of several months in 2022, getting together in piecemeal configurations to track overdubs, work on mixes, and otherwise arrange its guitar-heavy pop tunes. The album was released in December 2023 on the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Bobo+Integral%22">Bobo Integral</a> label, which was also the home of Pop Filter's previous albums. In October of the following year, the band returned with their fourth full-length album, Ray & Lorraine's. The record included more synths, drum machines, and electronic touches in the instrumentation than previous albums did, but it also maintained the group's roots with moments of melancholic orchestral pop and jangly indie rock songs. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi