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Photo: Silken Weinberg

Mark your calendars. Emerging indie rock band julie have announced their debut album, my anti-aircraft friend, out September 13, and are celebrating the occasion with the release of their latest single, "clairbourne practice." The single sees the band who first started gaining a buzz after their 2020 cut of "flutter," come out of the gate swinging with a riff that nods toward heavy '90s shoegaze acts like Hum and Deftones and shady and dynamic sonics that never relent.

"clairbourne practice" zooms ahead breathlessly, kicking up clouds of distortion. Alex Brady and Keyan Pourzabnd's vocals come together in eerie harmony, oscillating between sweet, floaty, dark, and enigmatic tones but never quite matching each other. They croon together in the first verse, "What a way to make your day / Oh, I don't know / You just said so / At least just say you do / It'll make me feel like / The things I thought you always knew." This subtle yet beautiful mismatch continues throughout the rest of the track, luring the listener in, waiting for them to be on the same page but never quite reaching that equilibrium.

"It's two voices conflicting and crashing with each other, unable to understand each other," shares the band. "The way the vocals are layered on top of each other in this song is maybe the most androgynous on the album. But it's two people saying the same thing and still not hearing each other. We definitely wanted the loud and quiet parts to be polar opposites. Sweet, then destructive, and coming back and repeating the cycle."

The music video, directed by Lizzie Klien, is a lo-fi visual that captures the band's antics with nostalgic and grainy camcorder footage. The song's moody and restless energy is captured perfectly, spotlighting each member briefly with florescent-lit vignettes before cutting to black as warped vocals float in the ether as we cut to one final scene of the band trying to light a fire.

The new track follows the success of their previous release, "catalogue," a hooky, pleasantly tangled piece of music that cracks open the complexities of human emotion and the numbness one can feel amid chronic disillusionment. Both tracks will be featured on their highly anticipated debut album, which will surely see the band continue to explore the bounds of their talent and combine elements of grunge, pop, and shoegaze.

Watch the "clairbourne practice" video below: