September 15, 2023 | 0 Comments

SOFT PUNCH – ABOVE WATER is at Top 200 Radio Now!!!

I’m so excited to share this new project by my dear pal Rye Thomas, who longtime Band Mom followers may remember as the former bandleader of Tereu Tereu! That was one of the very first bands I ever worked with when I first started The Band Mom back in 2009, and we also followed that up with an EP campaign in 2011, and then a new album in 2013. Clearly, this artist holds a very special place in my heart. Rye also actually played solo under the Soft Punch moniker at my CMJ 2011 day party! And now, 10 years later, Rye has got this killer new record to share with you! Why did it take so long, you might ask? Well, Rye’s life was upended a few years ago by a mysterious illness that almost fully incapacitated him. He’s had a very wild time living with disability ever since then, but has never been able to let creativity go, even when he wasn’t even able to turn a light on inside of his room. The result, finally, is this record, a hook-laden, triumphant, brand-new statement of purpose. This new album is sometimes lo-fi and raw, sometimes a bit experimental, and sometimes just super accessible indie pop/rock ‘n’ roll. I really love it and can’t wait for you to hear it.

SOFT PUNCH

ABOVE WATER

Bad Friend Records

At its core, Above Water is a pop album. Songs like “My Aim is True” and “Astering” have hooks so infectious they burrow into your ear and rattle around in your skull for days. Meanwhile, “Semaphore” and “Nothing Changes” contain melodies so sweet they conjure big feelings from small moments. And “Here Come the Chorus” is just that — a chorus so huge it feels like a triumphant declaration. And that’s all you could ever really ask for from a good pop album. But Above Water is more expansive than that. It’s pop in the vein of Björk, Kate Bush, or Peter Gabriel— that is, it takes the structure of great pop songs and transcends it by creating a space to live in, rich with sonic detail and vivid imagery.

In stitching together Above Water, Soft Punch pulls from a variety of influences. The jagged chords and snappy chorus on “My Head” feels like something unearthed from a long-lost ’90s indie rock mixtape, comfortably sandwiched between Sleater-Kinney and Pavement. “Still Song,” with its lulling vocal melodies and graceful cello arrangement, draws an immediate comparison to The Beatles at their most gentle and subtle. The layers of arpeggiated synths, programmed percussion, and booming drum fills in “Here/Now” land in an improbable sweet spot that’s equal parts Elliott Smith and Genesis.

But like the best pop records, Above Water isn’t just a collection of songs. It’s a bold statement, born out of improbable circumstances. Written, recorded, and produced at home over a period of several years — often at the whims of a life-altering, debilitating disease that left songwriter Rye Thomas unable to leave his blacked-out bedroom for weeks at a time — Above Water is an album about rolling with the punches, even when the blows are enough to knock you out.

Simply put, Rye Thomas’ life forever changed in 2013, when he acquired a mysterious illness that gradually left him homebound. Rye previously lived a full life as a writer and a musician, touring in bands like Pash and Tereu Tereu, freelancing for publications like Rolling Stone and The Washington Post. But after his health collapsed, he could no longer leave his house, and the simple act of turning on an amplifier triggered debilitating migraines. Despite this, Rye never stopped writing music — sometimes for only 30 minutes a day, in his blacked-out bedroom, with nothing more than a basic keyboard and a cassette recorder.

When his health improved enough to record an album, he’d already amassed a well-crafted catalog of songs. With the help of his longtime boyfriend, Rye outfitted his home studio with old tape and tubes for a classic sound, and he called up old friends to add expert instrumentation. Above Water is the culmination of the last several years of Rye’s life, a carefully layered Soft Punch album that sports a diverse musical palette — pop in the broadest sense. Above Water is a triumphant statement of purpose. But above all, Above Water is an album about learning to live with loss, about looking for beauty and finding it in the most unexpected places.