Mom Jeans and Shortly
Mom Jeans hails from San Francisco and presents itself as an emo group, but their sophomore full-length dropping this week, Puppy Love, indicates a band with aspirations more akin to contemporary melodic punkers like Modern Baseball and Sorority Noise. Detroit songstress Alexandria Maniak, aka Shortly, has a voice that comes up on you like that creepy little girl in the well from The Ring, both soft and dangerous and haunting as hell. On the strength of her first high profile single “Matthew,” produced by Citizen singer Mat Kerekes, she soon found herself being invited to open for other dark pop whisperers like Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers, the Decemberists, Title Fight, and now Mom Jeans, who’ll bring her to the Irenic on September 8. It’s the second date of a short tour sponsored by her new label, Triple Crown Records, which just dropped her second single “Spare Time,” recorded in Philadelphia with Hop Along guitarist Joe Reinhart, who moonlights as a producer for Modern Baseball, Smidley, and others. The bill includes funk ‘n’ soul group Just Friends, who dropped a new full-length in June, Nothing But Love.