ear make Rumspringa sound like choosing life inside the machine

ear’s Rumspringa is one of those records that makes a small genre phrase feel suddenly useful. The New York duo have been placed near the emerging laptop-twee world, which sounds like a joke until you hear how much sense it makes: soft melodic instincts, digital noise, fragile vocals, internet-era texture and a refusal to separate sweetness from unease. Reviewed on 3 June, Rumspringa presents itself as a kind of choose-life record, but not in a naïve way. The album seems aware that choosing life now often means choosing it through screens, samples, corrupted files and half-remembered pop feelings. That tension gives the record its value. ear are not making nostalgia for a cleaner world. They are making delicate music from the broken materials of the current one. For indie listeners interested in where experimental pop and rock might be heading next, Rumspringa deserves attention.

Source: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/ear-rumspringa