The Los Angeles-by-way-of Austin band Mamalarky are back today with a new track "How to Say". The band features guitarist Livvy Bennett, who's toured with Cherry Glazerr and Faye Webster, keyboard player Michael Hunter who is a member of White Denim, drummer Dylan Hill, and Noor Khan who also plays bass with Winter. Mamalarky have put out a series of singles over the last year, including their first for Fire Talk "Fury" in January, that have garnered attention from the likes of NPR, Paste, The Grey Estates, The Line of Best Fit and Pond Magazine who ran an in depth feature on "The Soft Radicalism of Mamalarky" in April. Today, the band are premiering their second single for Fire Talk "How To Say" via Nylon.
WATCH: Mamalarky's "How To Say" video on Nylon // YouTube
Described by Nylon as "the song's bright guitar licks and Bennet's fuzzy vocals go down like the sweetest little package", the single was recorded in quarantine shortly after the band's cancelled homecoming trip to SXSW and is accompanied by a home recorded music video featuring a solo Bennett. The band's rare chemistry and imaginative musicianship are in no way compromised by the circumstances however, and the production lends the track an intimacy perfectly suiting its subject matter, which Bennett expands on in conversation with Nylon.
"I’m bored. We're all bored. We wrote and recorded a song during this boring time," says Bennett. "Here is exactly what it sounds like as a waveform. It's about falling in love and not knowing exactly how to say it yet. This concept of shared love-'you say you love me but what does that mean?' It's like...does love mean the same thing to both of us? Can it ever entirely mean the same thing, being different people who experience life so differently? Maybe that's why they invented the 5 love languages, to reconcile with these little differences in how we give and take and feel love? Maybe this expression that you're listening to now is as close to an understanding of love as anything else.
"Everything on this track is the first take, meaning we only recorded each part once. It was home recorded, right after SXSW was called off by the covid. It was meant to be a demo and then we were like...actually this sounds more genuine than it would if we just sat in a studio and hacked away at different takes, trying to make it perfect. The result is organic and cage free, but may contain soy and tree nuts."
The band is currently working on their debut full-length to be released summer of 2020 via Fire Talk.