There’s a stump somewhere in Wisconsin that started all of this. Liam Armstrong saw it as a kid at his grandmother’s house, filled with moss, and something about it stuck. “I think it’s one of those memories that’ll always continue to inspire me,” he says. That image, of smaller worlds nested inside the visible one, has become the through line for she’s green, the Minneapolis five-piece who play Theatre Fairmount tonight in support of Chapterhouse on the legendary shoegaze outfit’s first North American tour in sixteen years.
The band, rounded out by Zofia Smith, Raines Lucas, Kevin Seebeck, and Teddy Nordvold, have taken to calling what they do “moss music,” a phrase that started as a joke and refused to leave. For Armstrong, it does work that shoegaze can’t quite manage. “I think it’s a fun term that expresses how much we care about the way we’re impacting the world around us,” he says. “It paints a picture of something small that makes a big impact, something that’s very resilient too. All we want and can hope for from making music is to help people make stronger connections to themselves and to others. Music is our way of feeling truly human in a world that’s increasingly dehumanizing.”
That sense of resilience is everywhere on Swallowtail, the band’s new EP, out July 10 via Photo Finish Records. Recently they shared “paper thin,” a track built on gauzy guitars and the kind of vocal Smith has become known for, hovering above the mix, melancholic but unafraid. The song is about lust mistaken for love in a relationship that has already drifted past its expiry date, and Smith wrote it with the benefit of time. “It’s been about 7 years since and it’s been a lot easier for me to write about it constructively since being detached from it,” she explains. “After the situation, you can analyze what was happening and understand the patterns within it all, make it something raw and relatable, while it’s less of a personal heartache. That being said, I also wrote many of the songs with those feelings fresh and those did spew out a lot faster, yet less thought out. It’s a way to release those thoughts and emotions as a way to cope for.”
If “paper thin” is the gentler side of Swallowtail, “mettle,” released back in February, is its counterweight, a song born out of frustration with the state of the world. It had been building for a while, Smith says, but a specific moment crystallized it. “We started writing the song in the middle of winter, a little over a year ago. It would’ve been right around the time Trump had become president again and immediately it seemed like we were being flooded with an endless cycle of crazy and grotesque news. Compound all of this with how much has happened in our hometown of Minneapolis over the last few years and it’s hard not to feel bleak about the state of things, and that was before the ICE occupation. However, nothing will get better if we give up hope and roll over in misery, we have to keep pushing through if we want to reach a better future. That’s the overall notion that the song arose from.”
The EP was recorded in part with Henry Stoehr of Slow Pulp, who produced sessions for last year’s Chrysalis and helped shape this follow-up as well. Armstrong describes the experience in the kind of glowing terms bands usually save for years after the fact. “He’s just the best. Whenever we had questions he’d give us good pointers. He also gave us the space to really be ourselves. It made for a really fun and productive couple days. He’s also got a sense of humor similar to ours.”
Smith has talked about thinking of songs as people, asking each one who it wants to be, and on Swallowtail one track refused to settle until the band stopped pushing. “Yeah ’empty house’ took an unexpected turn. We originally wrote it on acoustic and then added lots of effects to it when we were jamming to figure it out. We were feeling pretty good about that version until we played an acoustic candle lit show near the Mississippi river. When it was stripped back it seemed more at home and then in the studio when we were deciding our producer, Sonny Diperri, helped us find the perfect balance.”
The whole double EP idea, of Chrysalis and Swallowtail eventually forming a full-length, came together because the songs felt like they belonged together. “The timing when all these songs were written was a big factor,” Armstrong says. “They all felt like they were from the same era. We wanted to experiment with a way we could transition from recording mostly on our own to recording in an actual studio. Chrysalis was kind of the bridge to swallowtail. So the whole double ep symbolizes that new experience.”
Looking ahead, the band have said they want to go both quieter and louder on whatever comes next. Asked what the quieter end actually sounds like, Smith keeps it simple. “Quieter is definitely more unplugged, acoustic. More of a barebones sound, but still has some dreamy sounds mixed in.”
There was also the matter of China. she’s green made their debut there in January with a fully sold-out headline run, something nobody, least of all the band, had seen coming. “I mean we really thought there’d be next to no one at those shows. I guess we had no idea what to expect, but it absolutely blew us away,” Smith says. “The crowds were so into it and attentive and also so sweet. We did signings after the set and received handmade gifts and shared these real heartfelt moments with people. Someone even wrote our band name in traditional Chinese calligraphy on a scroll. We’ll never forget it. People were singing to mandy, smile again and willow mainly, it was surreal!”
The Chapterhouse tour carries its own weight. Sixteen years is a long time for fans of a band to wait, and she’s green are sharing stages with a group whose records helped lay the groundwork for the sound they now play with. The pressure does not appear to register. “We’re just so stoked to see them play. We’re big fans of their records. There’s never too much pressure. We always want to put on a good show and if the crowd is into it then that’s great.”
That ease, that refusal to perform anything other than what they actually are, is maybe the most striking thing about she’s green at this stage. The band has the press quotes now, the Band to Watch tags from NME and Alternative Press, the KEXP session, the Photo Finish deal, the Reading & Leeds slot waiting for them in August. They could lean into spectacle. They have chosen, repeatedly, to lean into the moss instead. Smaller worlds, made carefully, in the hope that somebody else might find them and want to wander in.
she’s green play Theatre Fairmount tonight, May 20, with Chapterhouse. Swallowtail arrives July 10 via Photo Finish Records.
Photo Credit: Wendy Rosales @y.d.n.e.w
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