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Music

Baltimore Feminist Noise Duo Odwalla88 Shares Two Tracks Off Their New Album

The duo create sample-based tracks that try to reinforce and convolute messages at the same time.
Still from Odwalla88's music video for "What the"

Midway through a great interview with i-D, Baltimore duo Odwalla88 are asked the following question: "You use a lot of electronic loops, but you also sing or speak in loops. Most of your songs also center around girlhood. How do you think repetition and girlhood relate or intersect?" Chloe Maratta and Flannery Silva's response is really interesting, and it serves as a great entry point for the two new songs they've dropped to SoundCloud:

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"Flannery: Sampling our own voices and repeating the word or mantra helps to reinforce the message, but also helps to convolute it. It's hypnotic. Maybe by repeating that, 'I'm the Mary,' you'll start to believe that I'm the Mary. Or by repeating that, 'I Care,' you'll think I don't care anymore. Girls have to spend a lot of time repeating themselves.

Chloe: I think the repetition thing is grounded in pop song structure, like the chorus. To quote an old Sissa line, 'I say it over and over till it means something.'"

There is a very interesting mix of reinforcement and convolutedness on "Cool Beat" and "Choker." With lines like, "I can't stop me /I have been perfecting this for a very long time, if you don't like the way-," and "Great / Blessed / Happy / Knowing / Kind / Friend / Excellent / Knowing / Muscle," it feels like they're being completely straightforward and intentionally indirect at the same time. It creates a very thought-provoking, unsettled mood when they sing/speak over their rapidfire, punk-styled samples; check out the tracks below, and buy the record here.

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