“Exit Sign” by Foamboy

"Exit Sign" by Foamboy is Northern Transmissions of the Day. The track is now available via N.I.T.A Records and DSPs
Foamboy photo credit: Nathan Schmidlin

foamboy announces their sophomore LP, Eating Me Alive, out on March 8, 2024. Ahead of release, the Portland, Oregon band have shared the album track “Exit Sign,” the track is now available via N.I.T.A. Records and DSPs

Wil Bakula on “Exit Sign”:

“When I made this beat I was just trying to find that happy medium between all the different instruments either playing really straight, or really laid back. If you overemphasize one or the other you usually just end up with a groove where the listener can pick out a single instrument and be like “oh yeah, that one is laid back.” But If you nudge all of them around very carefully, you can get into this weird zone where everything is laid back sometimes, and other times it catches up to the beat, so you get a groove where you can’t pick out any particular instrument that’s laying back. The whole thing just sounds nasty as hell. It’s something that’s really hard to do in a live setting, but in logic I can sit and just nudge the bass line slightly here, or the kick slightly there until it’s perfect. It’s heavily inspired by Kaytranada and Flume, who do this in their own way on a lot of their songs.”

Katy Ohsiek on the track:
“One of the main ideas of this song was the feeling of a groove that’s so behind the beat it almost sounds sloppy, but in a cool way. Another big idea was for the main vocals to sound like they are going through some sort of processor/harmonizer (but they’re not!). There’s lots of interesting contrast in this track. Lyrically, it’s meant to evoke the feeling of being bored at a bar with your friends- you’re supposed to be having fun with them, but you’re just checked out and thinking about other things.”

About the new album, Eating Me Alive:
“I am so happy with how this album turned out. Unlike our last release, which we created over email during the first year of the pandemic, this record is much more informed by our live shows and the incredible instrumentalists we get to work with. It’s still distinctly foamboy, it’s definitely still fun, but a little darker than the last album. Lyrically, this album details the entire rise and fall of a very complicated and crushing relationship. It’s also about reckoning with the aftermath of your public art, discovering your own queer identity, rejecting heteronormative narratives, surviving grad school, and giving up in a good way. I am so grateful to Wil, our recording engineer Justin, our bandmates, and all other musicians involved in this project.” -Katy

“Where My Sober Daydream felt very compact and bite-sized, this one to me feels much more like a ‘full’ album. I think we really allowed ourselves to expand on different ideas, and not just relegate ourselves to short dance-y tracks. There’s a lot of different stuff here, but from the lyrical content, to the musical aesthetic, everything flows together and songs wash into each other. As always, I spent a lot of time sequencing the record, and I’m happy this came out to feel like such a full story with ups and downs, twists and turns. It’s still groovy, but everything, from the instrumentation to the mixing, has a slight tinge of darkness around it. It’s like the moodier older brother of the first album, it’s kinda brooding and has got a lot more to say. We also worked with a full band on a lot of these songs, so everything feels a little closer to a modern take on late 70s disco, rather than an electronic dance album. Shoutout everyone who worked on this thing and was so patient in getting this release together.” -Wil

Pre-order Eating Me Alive by Foamboy HERE

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