On Girlpool‘s 2015 album, Before the World Was Big, Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad sing, “Is it pouring out my body? / My nervous aching? / I like that you can see it.” They’ve evolved on their subsequent releases, but they still honor the venerable indie tradition of diaristic lyrics whose openness borders on exhibitionistic—they’re not growing just as musicians but also as people, figuring out what their needs are, processing their motives and feelings, and learning to take responsibility for themselves. This spring Tucker came out as transmasculine, arguably an even bigger step, but Girlpool haven’t put out any music since then.
Girlpool Sat 7/21, 5:15-6 PM, Blue Stage
Japanese Breakfast Sun 7/22, 4-4:45 PM, Blue Stage
(Sandy) Alex G Sun 7/22, 6:30-7:15 PM, Blue Stage
The music of Japanese Breakfast, aka Michelle Zauner, has developed most obviously in the quality of its production—her two albums under that alias, 2016’s Psychopomp and 2017’s Soft Sounds From Another Planet, have been scrubbed clean of the lo-fi grit that roughed up her previous Bandcamp demos and the even earlier releases by her band Little Big League. “It felt like something I wanted to grow out of,” Zauner says. The layer of professional polish on her recent albums doesn’t interfere with the directness of her lyrics, though. “The songs still feel very real and like a real person is writing them in their bedroom—and then taking it to the next level with nice production.”
