“Just the city being so loud and crazy all the time has come through in the music. Also, the constant internal anxiety brain. It’s so fun, but it’s also overwhelming, this constant, crazy, buzzing energy,” says Laveda frontwoman Ali Genevich, referring to how her and guitarist Jacob Brooks’ 2023 relocation from Albany to Queens has impacted the sounds of the shoegaze/noise rock quartet’s upcoming third LP, Love, Darla, which drops September 12th on Bar/None Records. I’m chatting via phone with both Ali and Jacob, who adds that their new location has also definitely broadened the range of artists that they get to encounter: “Just being able to see so much music, so much more than we were able to in Albany, not that there wasn’t music there, but not just more shows, more different artists, not just the same friends we’ve seen a million times… It’s so influential, overwhelming, and amazing to see so many artists.” Ali even admits that their new home has given her a newfound appreciation for and understanding of one exceptionally NYC band, and even one of their albums in particular.
“I’m sure this doesn’t come as a shocker, especially if you’ve heard the record, but Sonic Youth has been the big influence for me, especially since moving here. I was familiar with some tracks, but I had just finished reading Kim Gordon’s book and I think I felt like I was in the right headspace to do a deep dive, like, ‘This would be a good time!’ I started listening through from the first record, and when I got to Sister, I was totally obsessed. The whole record, front to back, I was in love with, and it really made sense, living here.”
We actually saw Ali and Jacob (along with drummer Joe Taurone and bassist Dan Carr) not too long ago in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection when Laveda opened two shows for our phriends (and fellow NYC rockers) Sunflower Bean, including their May 16th stop at Johnny Brenda’s. They mention also having done a great interview last year with Leah Weinstein for Drexel’s WKDU, in addition to a particularly memorable DIY show at The Mansion, which attracted the attention of PPD, but who Jacob tells me were surprisingly easy to please: “The cops came, but they left! They just asked us to turn it down.” And Laveda are gearing up for a late-July run of dates (with more to come after the album drops) that will have them returning to the 215 to co-headline Ortlieb’s on July 22nd with Kansas City outfit Nightosphere (who Ali and Jacob shared their first-ever bill with as Jacob’s side project Retail Drugs), and Ali tells me that local phans can expect a number of brand-new songs: “We’ll probably be rippin’ a lot of the new record. You’re probably gonna hear a lot of unreleased stuff.”
This May was actually the fifth anniversary of Laveda’s very first full-length, 2020’s What Happens After, which they admit to having mixed feelings about. “It was pretty devastating, actually. That album has a lot of baggage to it and probably a little bit of trauma,” says Jacob, before Ali chimes in, “I don’t know I would say devastating [laughs].” Jacob clarifies that it was more the process of putting the first LP out than the music itself that had baggage: “That record had a long rollout, like more than a year, the first single came out in 2019 and we were playing shows that whole time… It’s a very project-y record.” Of the album’s sounds, Ali explains, “We were combining a lot of electronic elements with classic rock, not like ‘classic rock,’ but like My Bloody Valentine, band-in-a-room,” but admits that, in retrospect, it feels like a successful debut: “It was such a crazy, formative experience for me as a writer. Some of the first things I ever wrote are on that album… I don’t hate it [laughs].”
*Get your tickets here.
