From DIY to Hi-Fi

Frankie Cosmos and others alike stand above this rubble with a sledgehammer, stepping into the hi-fi world. The growth of this New York born band is clearly highlighted in their new emotionally-charged studio album, Close It Quietly. Having started out as frontwoman Greta Kilne’s somewhat solo project, Kline began releasing music under the pseudonym Ingrid Superstar with zero intention of giving away her identity. After several releases under this enigma of a name, Frankie Cosmos was born, soon forming into a fully-fledged DIY band.

They are now firing on all cylinders, building upon previous projects and delivering their most mature work to date. Recorded at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studios close to their home, Close It Quitely is full of the heart and charm that fans have fallen in love with. Kline’s voice and melodies never fail to put a smile on my face and for the last few weeks, I have had refrains stuck in my head indefinitely.

On one of the few days England had been greeted with a splash of vitamin D, I’m warmly welcomed with Kline’s beaming personality over the phone and, despite being over 3,000 miles apart, her energy is contagious. “I’ve just had breakfast with my old school teacher,” Kline, the lead singer bursts out as soon as the call starts. This might sound somewhat odd for anyone who grew up attending an everyday state school, but Lauren Martin (synth) and Luke Pyenson (drums) are quick to spill out the fact that Kline was actually homeschooled. Despite all five of us being separated by distance, calling in from different lines, and intermittent pauses between each attempt of getting the conversation flowing, we settle into a familiar rhythm.

In their early days, Frankie Cosmos was always formulated with a very much lo-fi DIY stance, however, their latest album completely retracts our misconceptions about the band. This is the second album Martin, Pyenson, and Alex Bailey (bassist) have featured on and you can tell that they have all grown confident as a unit. The lyrics and songs, of course, have the same spirit which continues to make their music special, but with the help of Gabe Wax, who engineered and co-produced the album, Close It Quietly underwent its very own sonic facelift. “A lot of the difference has to do with Gabe Wax because he really helped a lot with the specifics of what’s on it” Bailey admits. On first listen you can sense this shift immediately; the drums are crisper, the vocals cleaner and the whole record shining bright with a warm glow.

Having been asked the age-old question of who they looked up to artistically when channeling the album’s ignition, Kline pauses for a second before explaining.“I get inspired emotionally by people but not especially artistically,” she begins, opening up. “I get inspired in terms of performance and the feeling but it’s not necessarily making me want to write a song like theirs. In a sense, it makes me want to write a song like myself.”

“I feel like I’m more inspired by how people use confidence which has inspired me to be a better performer rather than writing a specific keyboard part or forcing it to sound a certain way,” chimes Martin, emphasising her love especially for the band, Ava Luna, and their two frontwomen. “When I see them, it’s like I wish I was like that.”

Having religiously toured last year, 2019 has seen Frankie Cosmos focus on their upcoming releases, with their four-part EP series, Haunted Items, coming out over the course of March and April this year, fronted by Kline’s vocals and acoustics only, and now Close It Quietly.

For drummer Pyenson it’s confidence which restricts him. “I have a lot of trouble putting on energy that’s not there if I’m having a bad day on tour or there’s been a really long drive, but there are some bands out there who seem immune to that, enabled to just channel this unbelievable energy every single night.”

The band are lightyears away from their self-released Bandcamp era and are now signed to Sub Pop, the famous label responsible for helping bring ‘90s icons Nirvana and Soundgarden to the masses. But living in an era today where musicians are known for deleting their previous less polished material and discarding years of hard grafting, I was intrigued why Frankie Cosmos so willingly left their earlier work open to the wandering eye. Kline laughingly admitted, “I just haven’t decided to take it down yet, but no, I kind of like that it’s a map of my brain, and my life in a way.”

Bailey adds: “A lot of people will put stuff up and delete it because they’re embarrassed.” For Frankie Cosmos though, leaving their previous work to be seen and listened to by the world is an integral part of their growth, which is so clearly shown thanks to their humble Bandcamp uploads.

“It’s kind of like finding your old blog or Wordpress from when you’re a teenager,” comments Martin. “I feel it’s cool to be able to listen to the songs that Greta was writing when she was still…” Pyenson mockingly cuts in: “A baby.”

“If you want a lo-fi Frankie Cosmos experience, then there’s 9,000 Bandcamp releases of that already, and I think we were all ready for the change,” admitted Pyenson. “Production is something which I think the four of us had a little bit of phobia of but it also felt like it was time to take the risk and see what this music would sound like in a more polished setting and with more production.”

"If you want a lo-fi Frankie Cosmos experience, then there’s 9,000 Bandcamp releases of that already, and I think we were all ready for the change". - Luke Pyenson

They openly admit Close It Quietly’s production has skyrocketed thanks to the amount of money and time they were able to put in as a band to produce an album they were extremely proud of. “The studio where we recorded had an enormous amount of really nice equipment that we could never own ourselves and being able to work with it was honestly transformative for us,” continues Pyenson, earnestly. “It helped us reach our full potential that we wouldn’t have been able to with our own shitty gear and a studio place that wasn’t so beautiful or inspiring. We weren’t able to access that part of Frankie Cosmos that has been lying within.”

Before preparing for the interview, I trawled back to where it all started: Bandcamp. Back to when Kline was self-releasing EPs under the name Ingrid Superstar in between school obligations. The album covers were ironic and fun, a blend of Microsoft Paint handwritten titles and random photographs stuck together. One such album is called 'amnesia the fifth' and the album cover is a blurry photograph of the Ingrid strand of marijuana with fluorescent blue paint strokes, spelling out superstar. Her early song titles are sometimes shouting in all caps or a few sentences long. The tracks on the early releases often fall under a minute long. The whole experience was oddly compelling, and as you go through the releases, you can hear her signature voice and lyric crafting evolve into the Frankie Cosmos so many have grown to know and love today.

When asked if they still view themselves as a lo-fi band, they all shout back with a resounding ‘No’. For Kline, she openly expresses she never even saw themselves as a lo-fi band. “I saw it more as DIY. Right now, the newest album feels the least. I think we’re getting better at asking people to do more things to help us as opposed to doing it all ourselves.”

Pyenson responds: “I think lo-fi as a label implies we’re not working hard and we’re amateurish in some way. And we work really hard like we’re professional musicians.” Almost defensively he continues. “Sure Greta’s Bandcamp recordings are lo-fi, and they’re exactly what lo-fi means but it’s a little frustrating to present as that label.”

This label is a sound that the band has slowly been breaking away from since releases such as Next Thing and even more so on their previous album, Vessel, released in 2017. The sound has kept evolving and the four have become seasoned performers on the road, resulting in chemistry and confidence to push the boundaries together.

“A friend of mine once came up with the term which he called grow-fi. It’s like a band that’s trying to break out of being lo-fi and they’re not quite hi-fi yet,” Pyenson concurring with this labelling, before passionately yearning. “I think that our last album could almost classify as grow-fi because it bridged a gap between a lower-fi aesthetic and what we have now. This new album there’s no question that it’s essentially hi-fi.” Kline follows with a concluding summarisation, “I think the core of what lo-fi really means is that they’re special.”

From whatever angle you’re looking at, there’s no denying Close It Quietly redefines our conceptions of Frankie Cosmos, combining the familiar with the unfamiliar. Of course, from the moment the album begins we’re greeted with Kline’s trademark voice, and yet the instruments surrounding her hit harder, igniting a side to Frankie Cosmos we’ve yet to explore. There is no hiding behind drenched reverb or distant sounding drums. If the previous records were nostalgic VHS tapes, Close It Quietly is the 4K Blu-ray, crisp, bright and impossible to ignore.

“A friend of mine once came up with the term which he called grow-fi. It’s like a band that’s trying to break out of being lo-fi and they’re not quite hi-fi yet". - Luke Pyenson

Despite the production being out of their usual comfort zone, Bailey readily admits, “the recording process was really painless with the recording studio and the producer, and I feel we could do it again tomorrow.” The band deviated from their usual instruments and explored new techniques, styles, and riffs to push their sound forward. Kline agrees before adding: “Every album feels like growth. I’ve been saying this for a while, but this is all still our early work. But with everything we make, I always think this is the best thing we’ve ever made,” admitting proudly.

Martin chirps in outrightly agreeing: “I feel like every small step we take seems to be an improvement. I feel as a unit, all together, every time we play together we get closer to each other in a way whether that’s us understanding each others styles and we’re just connecting more each time we arrange a new song.” Laughing, Kline adds: “I think we’re just strong communicators musically together. I think other artists get to a certain point and are like ‘oh I’ll never beat that album’ but that would be pointless to me, it’s always going to be different and feel like a growth.”

Close It Quietly opens with the lyrics, “the world is crumbling and I don’t have much to say,” immediately accompanied with Bailey’s ascending baseline and Martin’s wild synths. In a world where chaos and trauma fill headlines every day, and the political system feeling just as chaotic and confusing, this lyric resonates with me and I’m sure other young listeners who feel just as conflicted as they are confused by everything that’s going on in the world. Throughout Close It Quietly, however, there’s a sense of community being evoked through lyrical fragments referring to social ‘bubbles’ and the importance of the friends around you.

“Last Season’s Textures”, in particular, talks about being thankful for these bubbles. Kline sings ‘I’m just fucking glad for my bubble / Despite how often it is penetrated by evil’. Here, she’s describing how young people often appear to cluster together through difficult times.

For me, I really resonated with this dealing with Brexit whilst being stuck inside my bubble of living in such an artistic, liberal city such as Brighton, but Kline admits the lyric is actually dealing with smaller issues than that. “Those lyrics I actually wrote before the 2016 election, probably even years before, so it’s not necessarily a political moment but it’s about small things that break in the bubble you see.”

"I’ve been saying this for a while, but this is all still our early work. But with everything we make, I always think this is the best thing we’ve ever made". Greta Kline

Kline explains she wrote the lyrics before the #metoo movement was a hashtag but feels that seeing first hand how deep rooted and entrenched those issues were within music scene, shattered the bubble she had created and imagined. She continues, sounding slightly defeated: “It’s even about just the smaller bubble breaks too, even if that’s just one person walking into a show and being offensive, and you’re just like ‘damn, that still exists?’ even here. It can be really devastating.”

Martin believes having a bubble of people who share the same principles as you is essential to maintaining sanity, especially in a city like New York. She goes on to add: “I also definitely think it’s important sometimes to interact with people who are in very different bubbles to you for perspective. Even within your own family, there can be several bubbles within a family unit.”

It’s like a bubble Venn diagram, Bailey peters in. Martin agrees, talking about how her brother and herself live with different values, yet there are times when their two worlds and beliefs overlap. “If you can think of it as two coloured circles, mine is blue and his is red, and together it makes purple. But then there are some bubbles that overlap and make a really nasty colour,” she trails off laughing, realising she’s gone off on a tangent.

It’s so easy to surround ourselves with certain types of people who identify with the same beliefs and ideals as your own, we all do it. But it’s also incredibly important to venture into the unknown, even if it’s daunting. Pyenson draws on touring as its own little sanctuary, being surrounded by the same small group of people day in, day out, but believes it’s traveling both internationally and nationally which opens up their tight-knit circle to the world. “We get to travel not just internationally but within our own gigantic country where we often feel more cultural shock for example than we do in parts of the UK.”

He continues: “When we’re out of the New York bubble and on our own on tour, it’s really helpful to our own sense of perspective and especially [our] big touring cycle in 2016 coincided with that election and we got to travel around parts of the country we’ve never been to.” Martin jolts in: “It was weird seeing ‘make America great again’ happen out in the world. Me and Greta are from the upper west side of eastern Manhattan, it’s a really liberal blue area and I had never truly experienced true red republicans like that, and it was a huge shock.”

Kline’s is somewhat different, believing these pockets of safety are available because of privilege. “I have friends in New York who would never want to go to North Carolina and go into the bathroom. Here it’s easy for us because we look white and so it’s easy to go explore other places and their cultures, but it’s not good for everyone.”

"It makes me feel more optimistic about the state of the US when we can go to Alabama and 300 kids show up and have a great time. That’s really important.” - Luke Pyenson

Now emotionally driven, she goes on: “Even me, I look like I may be able to walk down the street in Boise, Idaho and not get harassed but I got made fun of for looking too queer and yet in New York, nobody looks twice at me. I look like one of the most normal people walking around New York but when you go somewhere else, it is not always like that so I think it’s an interesting perspective. It is also an issue of safety and we’re all lucky we don’t feel totally afraid for our lives.”

In this day and age, there should be no fear for safety, and yet we’re faced with it in our everyday lives. Pyenson’s feelings on this are powerful. “Sometimes going to what we call in the US as the ‘fly over’ part of the country, where it’s not the coast, and one of us is actually from, it’s cool to meet people who prove our conceptions of that part of the country wrong,” he says. “Apart from experiencing the red America that’s so frightening and really out there…it’s also really important for us to be exposed to people who like us and to see that there are communities like us who are from all over the country.”

Ignited with passion now, Pyenson sums up his overarching thoughts. “We have people who come to see our music and who our music resonates with in the deep south, in the mid-west, in counties devoted to Trump. For me, that’s really cool and makes me feel more optimistic about the state of the US when we can go to Alabama and 300 kids show up and have a great time. That’s really important.”

No matter how enjoyable and fulfilling touring has become for the group, it must be easy to slip into burnout or become creatively lost. Especially for an act who are known for how prolific they are. When asked about their future plans or if they intend to slow down Pyenson laughs saying there is no plan.

“I really want to take some time and hone in my ambition,” admits Kline. “We tour all of the time and I think it would be really nice to decide what we want to do next.” Kline then says something which doesn’t just surprise me, but the rest of the band. “Something I really want to do is write a musical and I want us to write the music for it… We could end up being the orchestra of a Broadway musical,” bursting out laughing, along with the rest of the band.

The future is daunting for the best of us. Martin adds: “Wherever we end up going is where we were meant to be at that time,” and after all, that’s all that matters.