Girlpool, A Band Defined By The Unity Of Two, Invite Collaboration

By Gabriel Aikins


In the eight years the Los Angeles musical group Girlpool have been around, the project has taken companions Avery Tucker and Harmony Trividid from their teenage years into adulthood, and via far corners of genre and sound. The spare, folk-inspired tracks on the duo’s 2015 debut album Before the World Was Big merged with dreamy pop melodies and indie-rock riffs as they continued to mature and experiment. Four years later, the introspective writing on the melancholy collection What Chaos Is Imaginary showcased the duo’s sensitive, insightful views of growing up and the world around them.


With the release of their expansive fourth LP, Forgiveness, Girlpool have become more in tune with themselves and each other, a synchronicity that permits them to push their music in any direction they pick. A variety of gritty tracks that color tight songwriting with a satisfying pastiche of grime, the album was reported in January, however its bones were in place long before. “A lot of those songs had been written for years,” Tucker explains, even as soon as the in general concept had not however been settled. In a grin-inducing sign of their deeply close friendship, he and Trividad appear on Zoom wearing the same eye catching yellow Girlpool T-shirt, without having intentionally coordinated their outfits.


case in point, work on the album kicked off shortly right following the release of its 2019 predecessor, a process that started with assessing the material they had already mustered and organizing ideas into intricate lists; they moved into the demo phase later that year. The required for that agency stems from the duo’s unique collaborative practice. As they did on Chaos before it, Tucker and Trividad frequently wrote separately for Forgiveness. Alternatively opposed to waiting up until they can visualize each other to explore a concept, each member starts writing any time inspiration strikes, often whenever they are alone at house. “We both write music from a really emotional place and not like, let's write this bangin' track,” Trividad says. “So I feel like us separately writing typically just comes from the fact that we both are being viscerally moved to be wanting to write.”


Once a song’s generic framework has been composed, Tucker and Trividid convene in the studio, where they start to refine and flesh out each track. It’s a piece of the process makes Tucker feel especially cognizant of how he phrases his lyrics. “Oftentimes, I'll write a song and then listen to it a lot and then feel like this line would be way better or communicate something stronger,” he says. He leaves no room for filler, meticulously crafting every line and metaphor so that it furthers the emotional pull of the song. This can be gleaned from the sinister “Lie Love Lullaby,” which cuttingly explores the loss of innocence, and in the simple and efficient longing described in “Dragging My Life Into a Dream.”  “It’s like last year put a hand on my face / Over my eyes and I drifted away,” Tucker sings.


Forgiveness also marks the initial time Girlpool brought a producer into their intimate way of working at its earliest stages. Yves Rothman, the prolific producer beyond the anthemic sounds of Nasty Cherry and Overcoats, joined the musical group in the studio. “We immediately clicked with Yves in a way that I don't know if we really ever have with a producer, honestly. There was an element of trust and safety immediately,” Trividad says.


Rothman was able to clearly visualize the sweeping vision they had for their sound, and yes it may be heard everywhere from the mechanical undertones of “Nothing Gives Me Pleasure” to the echoing, reverent harmonies and electronics of “Light Up Later.” While working with a producer that closely was new for the pair, knowing that Rothman was on their wavelength allowed the artists to adapt rapidly and comfortably. “I think that that's what was so sacred about this experience for us,” Tucker notes. “We had the space with Yves and each other and timing-wise, being in the pandemic, to really take our time to be really intentional with what environment each song lived in.”


The duo cherished this additional time, even as it came while in the hardship of the coronavirus pandemic. It taught Trividad, who has often felt a self-imposed pressure to prepare at all times, the significance of conserving her energy. She compares the precarity of the last a couple of many years and Girlpool’s own journey. “I felt a lot of uncertainty in my life. For several years, during growing up, I've had many questions and very few answers,” she says. “That's been a thread during our music, attempting to calculate how to walk through rooms that don't necessarily have a floor.”


The slower pace also fostered changes in perspective that coincided with the duo’s growth into adults (Tucker started transitioning before Chaos was finished recording, as well). Tucker places a high value on the precision of his word choice, which permits him to address his thoughts and feelings more directly. On the album opener “Nothing Gives Me Pleasure,” lines like “bite my tongue up until it bleeds” and “push my head down any time Whenever I least explain,” sung by Trividad in the opening minute of the song, even veer into violence. Both artists are in different headspaces right now, however Tucker says his writing process includes several of the same familiar routines. He describes the steadfast feeling of excitement and anticipation, or the “quiet moment before taking the leap,” once a new idea for a song comes to him.


At times, Forgiveness taps the bracing chords of grunge and polished electro-pop, however those additions did not materialize out of thin air. Hours and hours of experimentation were integral to shaping the in general soundscape. “There are so several different versions of each song on the record that are just, like, on a hard drive,” Tucker explains. “We really tried on so several outfits.” He points to “See Me Now,” one of the album’s mellowest tracks about insecurity and the fear of not living up to someone else’s expectations. While the finished product almost exclusively contains acoustic guitar and soft vocals, there’s a version of the track that’s built like a ‘80s club banger with heavy synths plus a dance-like production.


There are multiple directions Girlpool could have taken Forgiveness, and the method of exploring several paths was key to its developments. The only thing stopping them from delving deeper, Trividad says with a laugh, was the deadline to get the album finished. Even so, Tucker reveals they missed the cut-off a number of times before they finally determined the collection was finally complete. “We felt really good. Once we got there we were like, OK, this really feels good,” he recalls.


Through all of their experimentation, there was never a question that Forgiveness would still feel like Girlpool, with all their expressive lyricism and indie-pop charm. “I think that there's habitually a through-line because it's me and Harmony,” Tucker says. Working through all their collective ideas never changed the foundations of their beginning writings; rather, it's simply how the musical group discovers the sounds that best convey their feelings. The artists desire to continue to grow more freely in their art-making while continuing to reestablish the firm bond they share. “It was a joy to have the space to creatively explore,” Trividad says. “I hope that that becomes more of a normal thing any time I'm moving forward.”