Babehoven, the New York duo composed of Maya Bon and Ryan Albert, have just released their new single, “Lightness Is Loud.” The song is lifted from their upcoming album, Water’s Here In You, which will be released on April 26th.
The song’s release comes alongside a stop motion video created by Olive Couri, and can be found below.
Of the song, Maya Bon says “We exist in a vacuum of sound, trying to hear each other, wishing to open up, seeing the abundance of light surrounding us, approximately 200 billion trillion stars and yet we falter, we harden in our shells. With the ‘coral snake curl[ing] inside you,’ I intend to evoke an image of protection. The ‘soft wool’ is the innate warmth and safety one can find within connection. The ‘rough blue’ is the scratchiness of the wool that can cause us to seek refuge away from one another. And the ‘pearl inside you’ is indicative of the belief that we all contain beauty, worthiness, a special gem within us.”
Written and recorded at 12 Lb Genius, the duo’s home studio, throughout the winter of 2022–2023, Water’s Here In You comes close on the heels of the band’s debut album Light Moving Time, which followed an impressively prolific canon of shorter releases dating back to 2017 when Bon founded the project in college. This latest album continues the thread of the band’s sonic DNA—blending hyper-melodic indie and folk rock with shades of shoegaze and the occasional nod toward country—but what sets it apart is the nature of the collaboration at its core. For the first time, Albert—who has operated as instrumentalist, producer, and engineer on past releases—joins forces with Bon as a songwriter, lending new depths to their musical partnership. It’s a fruitful collaboration that has led the duo to new and surprising chord choices and song structures, resulting in a collection of their biggest-sounding material to date. The songs unfold like fractals—often cyclical and spiraling outward from the center—with Bon’s lyrics and melodies cresting and compounding over Albert’s harmonic bedrock.
Babehoven is hitting the road this spring in support of Water’s Here In You. The tour kicks off on May 5th in Washington DC and wraps in Seattle, WA on June 14th. Highlights include shows in Brooklyn, NY, Chicago, IL and Los Angeles, CA. Tickets are on sale now. All dates below.
5/6: Washington DC – DC9 ❁
5/7: Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right ~
5/8: Boston, MA – Rockwood %
5/10: Montreal, QC – La Sotterenea ^
5/11: Toronto, ON – The Baby G ^
5/13: Milwaukee, WI – Cactus Club ^ ∞
5/14: Minneapolis, MN – 7th St Entry ^
5/15: Chicago, IL – Sleeping Village ^ ∞
5/16: Columbus, OH – Ace of Cups ^
5/17: Pittsburgh, PA – Club Cafe ^
5/18: Philadelphia PA – Johnny Brenda’s ^
6/8: Phoenix, AZ – Linger Longer Lounge *
6/9: Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo *
6/10: San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop *
6/12: Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall *
6/13: Vancouver, BC @ Fox Cabaret *
6/14: Seattle, WA @ Barboza *
❁ w/ Grocer and Aunt Katrina
~ w/ Knifeplay
% w/ Dimitri Giannopoulos (Horse Jumper of Love) and Hello Shark
^ w/ Greg Mendez
∞ w/ Mia Joy
* w/ Stephen Steinbrink