Mamalarky formed in 2016, growing out of the house show scene in Austin, TX that surrounded their cooperative student housing. But their roots as friends run even deeper: Bennett and Hill met in middle school band, and they’ve played in bands with Hunter since high school (single You Know I Know nods to the big music dreams of their Texas upbringing). When the band moved to LA after the release of their first record, they met Khan. Pocket Fantasy follows their 2020 self-titled full-length debut, the 2018 EP Fundamental Thrive Hive, and support tours with Slow Pulp, Jerry Paper, and Ginger Root, among others. When they’re off the road, Mamalarky now jokingly calls itself “tri-coastal,” with Bennett and Hunter back in LA, Hill in Austin, and Khan in Atlanta.
Six months into the pandemic, three-fourths of the band plunged into a new experiment and moved in together. Guitarist-vocalist Livvy Bennett and keyboardist Michael Hunter drove across the country, decamping from Los Angeles to bassist Noor Khan’s hometown, Atlanta. In September 2020, the trio rented a giant old house with vaulted ceilings, a tire swing, and a bare-bones little studio room. There, the band made its largely home-recorded new album.
The resulting album, Pocket Fantasy is a perfect sunny-day record – imaginative and introspective, an enveloping listen of sky-high hooks and keyboards that soar with joyful abandon. Its twelve kaleidoscopic tracks shape-shift aesthetically and thematically, through ideas about death and impermanence; love and gratitude; nature and technology; humour and hope.

Field School is the new solo project of Charles Bert, who made his mark in Math and Physics Club, the Seattle indie pop combo that set the bar for sugar rush melodies and chiming guitar perfection. After three Eps made available on Bandcamp, Field School’s debut LP When Summer Comes will be out on November 18th on Bobo Integral and Small Craft Advisory. When Summer Comes is a self-made tableau of vivid guitars, eclair-rich vocals, and proactive wondering. It is a treasury of reflections on happiness and loss, and how, like seasons, they pass and return.