Neu Water From Your Eyes: “It does feel weird that people are taking notice now”

Nate Amos and Rachel Brown - the two members of Water From Your Eyes - are in California, having just played their tenth show in as many days. Friendly and engaging as they might be, the duo are visibly tired and the back of Rachel’s head is rested against a wall. “Just to be clear,” the vocalist clarifies, “the label aren’t forcing us to do all of these shows. We have the option to say no. We just don’t ‘cause we’re kinda dumb…”

The label in question is indie juggernaut Matador, who’ll be releasing the New York duo’s new album, ‘Everyone’s Crushed’, at the end of this month. Adding their own jaded chapter to the city’s dance-punk mythology, Water From Your Eyes’ debut for the label is a disorientating collage of endearing slacker pop, jarring electronica and kaleidoscopic world-building, seasoned with humour and anxiety in equal parts.

Water From Your Eyes may be a new name as far as the wider world is concerned, but Rachel and Nate have been releasing music together since 2016, regularly putting out tracks and performing in DIY spaces and venues in Brooklyn. Having already dated and broken up, weathered a period of substance abuse problems, and released several lofty concept records (2017’s ‘Feels A Lot Like’ is written from the viewpoint of a dog whose dad has died), it would appear that the duo have already crossed off many of the squares on the rock band bingo card before barely getting started.

“It does feel weird that people are taking notice now. But I think that it would feel weird regardless of whether we had already made ten albums or zero albums,” Rachel says of their recent recognition. “I don’t think we would’ve been able to do it any earlier, we were really immature.” Nate agrees: “If I was still on the same tip that I was a couple of years ago [in the midst of those substance issues], then I don’t think all of this touring would be on the cards.”