Moments after Falcon Bitch opens Zoom on her telephone for our interview, she rescues a cat.

Whereas she was concurrently dialing in on time and heading outdoors to seek for an outlet earlier than her telephone “diddly-died,” a cat ran out of the home. The large one.

“They weren’t speculated to get out,” Falcon Bitch tells me. She locations the telephone down, display going through up, leaving the view of the blue, cloud-spotted sky of Richmond, Virginia, in view. Moments later, I hear “I acquired the cat! I acquired the cat!” and see her skip throughout the static body with the feline in her arms. Mission completed. The cat is again inside, as Shmoofy, her companion within the whimsical alt/surf/psych rock band, Being Useless, joins her outdoors for a cigarette.

Each of the band’s album titles reference animals – When Horses Would Run (2023) and EELS (2024) – so there was clearly no means they had been going to threat the cat’s security.

“I work in wildlife outdoors of music,” Falcon Bitch tells me. “We love animals. We love critters. We love creatures. We’re fascinated by nature, and truthfully, eels. We love eels.”

Had Falcon Bitch not sprung into motion so quick to rescue the large cat, there was no means I may ensure in the event that they certainly do love animals – regardless of naming their sophomore album after the ray-finned fishes which might be usually electrical.

Falcon Bitch and Shmoofy have devised a story thicket across the band. Apparently they’re animal lovers, however not a lot else is thought. For instance, nobody really is aware of how the band began.

After I ask, they inform me they met as a result of they each labored at a touring circus. Shmoofy was the carousel mechanic and Falcon Bitch was doing back-breaking labor organising the carousel. She was additionally British on the time, however not anymore.

“I kinda took her in and taught her the principles. The American guidelines, and thru that the band fashioned,” Shmoofy says.

In one other interview, they mentioned they met at Yale. In one more they mentioned they met as Cinnabon employees. And in one more, they mentioned each had been true since you want a level from Yale to work at Cinnabon.

It’s an attention-grabbing relationship with obscurity. They don’t disguise their faces behind masks, they usually’re not creating one, long-standing thriller to be solved by leaving a path of clues like breadcrumbs falling off a bit of white bread from Franklin’s Barbecue in Austin, Texas (one recognized truth concerning the band is that’s the town the place they minimize their enamel).

Their capability to plot new myths of their origin on the spot stems from their expertise for storytelling. They use this expertise to make their songs fascinating listens, rejecting any form of normal verse/refrain kind whereas integrating quite a few musical concepts.

The track Van Goes opens with a short-lived second of cacophony then launches into forward-moving strumming of the Danelectro baritone guitar (which they used most all through the album).

Falcon Bitch and Shmoofy commerce vocal moments like volleys from tennis opponents throughout a pleasant match. Then they slowly overlap each other. Their tones unite them in concord, however they are saying totally different phrases, creating this intriguing mixture of consonance and dissonance till they conjoin the phrases as effectively, combining their voices to create a comfortable, heat sound larger than the sum of its elements.

Adjoining to this vocal maneuvering, they insert fast electric-picking breaks between the on-beat strums, and on the finish, there’s a transient and loud jam part earlier than the fade out. A lot occurs within the track, but all of it exists inside an outlined perimeter.

“We don’t wish to make it boring, so possibly we go a bit overboard, but it surely works out,” Shmoofy says.

“We go down each route and say, ‘Let’s do this concept. Let’s do this concept. Let’s do this concept.’ If one in every of them doesn’t work out then we attempt to circle again and say ‘How can we make it work otherwise in a distinct a part of the track, or in a distinct a part of the album?’,” Falcon Bitch continues.

They apply the identical sense of storytelling and experimentation to their albums in a macro means. Every monitor is a hearty jam with its personal starting, center, and finish, however the albums are whole sagas as effectively. The songs transition seamlessly between each other utilizing a plethora of strategies together with the lingering reverb that sustains Huge Bovine into Storybook Bay and arduous cuts in quantity like when Rock ‘n Roll Hurts leads into Love Machine.

“[We] positively need the album to be extra of a bit and fewer like singles,” Shmoofy says.

“Undoubtedly one cohesive, constant physique that feels prefer it’s its personal factor – has its personal themes and world,” Falcon Bitch continues.

When it was time for the songs to be produced, Falcon Bitch and Shmoofy traveled to a brand new world referred to as Los Angeles. They had been there to work with the legendary producer John Congleton. They solely had two weeks for him to lend his magic contact to EELS as he needed to fellow left-of-center artists like St. Vincent, AJJ, and Nilüfer Yanya.

However this brief timeframe was good for Being Useless as a result of they took years to make their first report. Congleton was the precise proper producer to information them as they expedited their course of (he additionally had a pair good acoustics they used to report).

“[John’s] a tycoon within the trade. He knew how you can get from A to B sooner than we did. He was at all times a step forward,” Falcon Bitch says.

“We’d be like ‘We like this demo,’ and he’d be like, ‘I don’t wish to hear concerning the fucking demo anymore,’” Shmoofy continues.

Now that they’ve gone via an intense manufacturing course of and an extremely gradual manufacturing course of, they intend to supply their subsequent report themselves, at their very own tempo.

To gas inspiration for brand new songs, they’ve been listening to the soundtrack for the 2012 movie adaptation of Les Misérables. They wish to write one thing with that basic sense of narrative but in addition experiment with noises and tape machine results.

Given their knack for telling tales, it wouldn’t be shocking if the subsequent Being Useless album is as celebrated as Les Mis. Maybe at some point the names Falcon Bitch and Shmoofy will likely be taught proper after Victor Hugo in artistic writing programs. Of their world, something and all the things is feasible.

Being Useless’s sophomore album EELS is out now.