@ (at) announce signing to Carpark / premiere “Friendship is Frequency” via FLOOD

@ (pronounced “At”) is the project of vocalist/guitarist Victoria Rose and multi-instrumentalist Stone Filipczak, who owe their musical bond to the power of text messages. Although the pair initially met years ago, it wasn’t until spring 2020 when they began sending each other music between their respective cities — Rose based in Philadelphia and Filipczak in Baltimore. A few exchanges down the line, Rose sent Filipczak an early recording of a song she’d written called “Star Game” asking him to contribute drums. She didn’t anticipate what he returned to her: “I didn’t like it at first. It felt jarring to hear my music so arranged,” she says. “I almost plotted to end the collaboration.” But it wasn’t long before she came around to the potential of what she and Filipczak could create together.

Rose admits that she didn’t think her bandmate would ever want to work with her in a formal capacity, given Filipczak’s niche background sharing bills with artists like Black Pus (Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale) and Guerrilla Toss. But with his keen, inventive ear for musicianship and Rose’s penchant for confessional lyrics and vibrant melodies, @ grew as an amalgam of their unique musical backgrounds and complementary strengths.

Today, the band are announcing their signing to Carpark Records (The Beths, Cloud Nothings) who will release their debut LP, Mind Palace Music, on February 17th, 2023. To mark the announce @ are sharing “Friendship Is Frequency”, which is premiering with FLOOD Magazine.

WATCH
@ – “Friendship is Frequency” video on
YouTube / FLOOD

Over the course of the record, @ fold a wide range of influences into their left-field folk music, evoking the timeless quality of singer-songwriters like Vashti Bunyan, the thoughtful delicacy of ambient pioneers like Laurie Spiegel, and the tender drone and foolproof melodies of Alex G or Sparklehorse. With an affinity for blending digital with analog elements, @ describe Mind Palace Music as “hyperfolk,” though the record never feels self-indulgent — hitting the sweet spot between pleasantly familiar and refreshingly innovative. This is reflected nicely in “Friendship Is Frequency”, a track that carries a subtle eeriness under its spare, guitar and vocal arrangement, providing a number of unexpected twists and turns across its 2 minute run time.

“I had just been on a run with an older friend of mine and was complaining about how hard it is to make friends (it was about 6 months into the pandemic so lots of people were probably feeling that way),” Stone Filipczak explains. “He said something about how friendship is all about frequency, you have to see people often in order for that familiarity and trust to form. I thought that sounded cool and started to conceptualize a double-entendre using the word frequency in its musicological sense. I imagined a visual waveform representing two people’s lives and that’s where the heart of the song comes from.

“I got home from the run and wrote the song in the shower in about 10 minutes. I think I recorded it that same day.”