@ (Carpark/pronounced “at”) share “Where’d You Put Me”

In late 2022, @ (pronounced “At”) announced the release of their debut LP Mind Palace Music on Carpark Records. The project of vocalist/guitarist Victoria Rose and multi-instrumentalist Stone Filipczak (who are based in Philadelphia and Baltimore respectively), the band spurred immediate excitement with the release of the album’s first single “Friendship Is Frequency” in December, earning praise from Stereogum (who drew comparisons to Animal Collective and The Dodos), BrooklynVegan, FLOOD, KCRW and appearing on this week’s episode of NPR’s All Songs Considered.

Today, @ are back to share the album’s second single, a track called “Where’d You Put Me”, which features a lead vocal from Rose, and foregrounds the more folk-oriented elements of the bands town in it’s brief 1:12 run time.

LISTEN:
to @ – “Where’d You Put Me” video on
YouTube

“When I wrote ‘Where’d You Put Me’ I’d just recorded guitar for ‘My Garden,’ and all my programs and equipment were still set up,” Rose explains. “I wrote that riff extremely quickly and recorded it, maybe it took an hour or less for all the vocals and guitar to be set. I love Lindsay Buckingham’s melodic sensibility in Fleetwood Mac and I probably drew from that. Stone added some really skilled guitar on top of the 12 string, and flute which filled it all out.

“Sometimes when I’m spending time with someone I really love (am in love with), I feel so beautiful about myself too, and I’m swimming in that special experience. It’s dark though to get lost in another person if it feels drug like. It’s confusing to get high from another human.”

@’s Mind Palace Music is a testament 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. 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.

The folk-pop duo created their debut album almost entirely remotely from, sending each other recordings over iMessage from their respective cities throughout fall/winter 2020. But although its creators were 100 miles away, the 11-track album gleams with a sense of closeness, tied together with @’s penchant for deeply personal and candid lyrics.

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. “We were pretty aware of trying to make something well-crafted that would hold up,” Filipczak says. “I was stoked that I could show some of the tracks to my grandma and she would be able to dig it. It probably doesn’t sound that different from, like, Simon and Garfunkel to her.”

Rose and Filipczak are just as inspired by the thoughtful delicacy of ambient pioneers like Laurie Spiegel as they are by the timeless quality of singer-songwriters like Vashti Bunyan. You can feel the influence of those ‘70s folk greats on songs like “Where’d You Put Me,” a drum-free incantation that culminates with a flute solo from Filipczak. Elsewhere, @ evoke the tender drone and foolproof melodies of Elliott Smith, Alex G, or Sparklehorse, like on the spare acoustic ditty “Friendship is Frequency” or the bittersweet “Cut From Toxic Cloth”: “While I’m waiting for my mind and face to sync/I smile to my heart and I think/I like you just the way you are,” Filipczak murmurs on the latter. A subtle eeriness looms in the background throughout Mind Palace Music, preventing it from feeling too outdated or hackneyed.

@ test their limits further on songs like the chugging closer “My Garden,” where Rose and Filipczak’s striking arrangements build to a triumphant coda as Rose mulls over the frustrations of a relationship’s natural ebbs and flows and the “curse” of desire: “I don’t want intensity, no/Just a way to warmth and amity,” she sings. @ know that some of the most rewarding moments in life don’t come easily, and Mind Palace Music is no exception. But sometimes, even the hard work flows out naturally: “It was truly a something from nothing type of experience,” Filipczak says. “We just shared a bunch of music until we started collaborating, and then once we started, we didn’t want to stop.”

Mind Palace Music will be released on February 17th on Carpark. It can be pre-ordered here.