The point of Water From Your Eyes’ new album, ‘It’s A Beautiful Place’, is that it doesn’t really matter. The songs on the eccentric New York-based indie duo’s sixth album encompass dizzying changes in direction, earworm melodies arising from dense and intricate thickets of sound, and references that range from nu-metal to Americana to dance.
It’s brilliant, and sure to send them further into the indie rock cosmos that they’ve been orbiting for the last few years, signing to Matador Records and touring with the likes of Interpol and Snail Mail. It’s just that what they’re trying to illustrate – an idea tied together by the sci-fi-esque ambient opening and closing tracks, ‘One Small Step’ and ‘For Mankind’, that sound sort of like robotic whale sound – is that this all seems insignificant compared to the actual cosmos.
“Everything that we do within normal expression, in this case being rock music or whatever, can feel like this huge variety of different things,” says Nate Amos, the member of the duo who writes and produces the music, speaking to NME over Zoom alongside vocalist/lyricist Rachel Brown. “Then, you realise that that whole range of expression is still a very small thing in the context of everything. [We were] using that as a way to reflect the contradictory sensations of everything we do not mattering at all on a cosmic scale, and also mattering a whole hell of a lot on a personal scale.”
These are big ideas, but ‘It’s A Beautiful Place’ is by no means heady or high-concept. The music is janky and off-kilter, all recorded, as always, by Amos in his bedroom. By their own admission, The Dispossessed – the Ursula Le Guin novel that lent Brown much of their inspiration – was only half-read and half-recalled. It’s like the musical equivalent of two friends getting stoned, staring at a poster of space, and blowing each other’s minds.
“Nate and I are both pretty existential. I think that was one of the things we bonded over [when we met] – the philosophical nature of existence, and conspiracy theories, and aliens,” Brown says. Amos agrees: “I think we both find a sense of solace in accepting the fact that we as a species don’t understand as much as we like to think we do.”
Water From Your Eyes began in 2016, shortly after Amos and Brown met at a gig and began dating. But it didn’t really come into its own until they broke up. When they got together to work on their fourth album, ‘Structure’, it was the first time they’d spent alone since the end of their four-year relationship, and there was a newfound sense of ease. “I feel like when we met each other, there was a sense of our lives [being] entangled somehow. And the only way that we really knew how to go about pursuing that was dating at first,” Amos says. “Once the band was the focus, it was like, ‘Oh, this is what it was supposed to be’.”
It’s ironic that ‘It’s A Beautiful Place’ is an album with its eyes set on the cosmos, because in fact it’s the duo’s most earthbound and accessible album in a while. Instrumentally, ’Structure’, which was released in 2021, built menacing, industrial synths and quasi-melodic loops into six- or seven-minute-long textural experiments, while 2023’s ‘Everyone’s Crushed’ consisted of chaotic, brash noise collages.
On ‘It’s A Beautiful Place’, however, guitar is at the forefront. Sometimes Amos wrangles it into wacky shapes, like the buoyant groove of ‘Nights in Armor’ or the skitterish, playful ‘Spaceship’, but on other songs it’s surprisingly straightforward, like the hardcore riffing of ‘Life Signs’ or the meandering Americana of ‘Blood on the Dollar’. For the first time, owing to Water From Your Eyes’ now full-time touring schedule, Amos has been consciously trying to improve as a guitarist and actually enjoying the medium.
“One of the things we bonded over [when we met was] the philosophical nature of existence, and conspiracy theories, and aliens” – Rachel Brown
“I feel like [on] our first tour, you were like, ‘I hate pedals, I hate solos, I hate guitar,’” Brown recalls.
“Yeah, I was very anti-guitar for a long time, and then I realised that guitar is actually really funny. Like, nothing’s funnier than a guitar solo,” Amos says. “So I was like, ‘OK, every song’s getting a fucking guitar solo’.”
Amos’ exaltation of funniness is striking. It’s true that Water From Your Eyes’ strange and inscrutable twists and turns often end up feeling like an inside joke, like Amos and Brown’s main intention is to chase the choices that amuse them most. “Making indie-rock is like, a funny thing to do,” Amos agrees. “Nothing makes it more awkward than when you take it more seriously than it needs to be taken. ‘Cause at the end of the day, like, dude, you’re making fucking indie-rock. It can only be so serious. I find that self-seriousness holds a lot of music back.”
“I feel like being silly is inherently creative,” Brown adds. “When you’re silly, you’re making choices that otherwise wouldn’t be made because you would think it’s too silly.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely one working rule that we have: nothing is ever off bounds for being too silly,” Amos says. “Nothing can be sick without being a little silly.”
Given that silliness, the music’s obstinate strangeness, and the pair’s insular dynamic (no other person has ever been involved in the recording of their music), it’s surprising to both of them that Water From Your Eyes is now a big deal in indie’s mainstream. With a new level of resources and clout to hand, some bands would take the opportunity to level up their process, leaving the bedroom and bringing in a producer or collaborators. Not Water From Your Eyes, though.
“I think the identity of this band is inherently linked to the process in which the music is made. The vibe of the vocals and lyrics very much depends on the relationship that we have when no one else is around,” Amos says. “It’s a tricky thing to maintain, because there has been pressure to switch it up. But I don’t think there’s anything that would kill Water From Your Eyes faster than bringing a producer into the room, honestly.”
“Nothing is ever off bounds for being too silly. Nothing can be sick without being a little silly” – Nate Amos
So what has kept the delicate ecosystem created by these two exes and best friends afloat for the best part of a decade now? “One of the things is that I love to talk. I love to chat and be social and use words, and communicate, and connect. And Nate loves to make music that no one else can understand how it’s made,” Brown says.
Amos laughs. “Yeah, I think the balance of our personalities is part of what makes the music tick. It allows me to explore some areas that would be kind of impenetrable if not for Rachel’s presence being so directly relatable. We also have very different tastes in music, which makes it so that the thing that comes out is not what either of us would have done on our own.”
“I feel lucky ‘cause Nate makes music that I couldn’t even dream up, and I get to participate, and it’s so much fun,” Brown affirms. “But the one thing we’re both really good at is hanging out. We have been kicking it for a decade.” Forget cosmic insignificance – for Water From Your Eyes, this is what really matters.
Water From Your Eyes’ ‘It’s A Beautiful Place’ is out on August 22 via Matador Records