The Many Shades of Fiji Blue: An Interview with Indie Pop’s Bittersweet Optimist 

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Photo by David Williams

Trevor Dering wants you to cry while dancing in the club. The Los Angles-via-Phoenix singer-songwriter who performs under the name Fiji Blue has carved out quite the niche for himself with downtrodden lyrics over up-tempo, buttery-smooth production. Imagine if Bon Iver crooned over songs meant for Harry Styles. The mixture of melancholy and jovial emotions creates a moody-yet-pleasant ambiance. It’s the rare type you can listen to if you’re depressed, where you don’t feel like you’re slipping into an abyss.

This year, pop music has been rejuvenated with newer stars shining quicker and brighter than ever before. In a stream-heavy world, artists can be spun up through advantageous avenues online, specifically TikTok or Instagram, where you can go from obscurity to instantaneous fame in a matter of months. Dering experienced this firsthand when Jungkook of the mega global superpower boy band BTS gave him a co-sign on Instagram for the sunkissed synth-laden single “It Takes Two.” From that point, Fiji Blue was suddenly elevated from a bedroom pop artist to a known quantity worldwide. Dering has since been featured on Spotify’s New Music Friday and on the music publication Ones To Watch, amassing millions of streams without even releasing a debut album.

Now, Dering is ready for his debut this winter with Glide, which will be released on December 13th. The different hues coming from Fiji Blue sonically on Glide are a mixture of swirling pop, house, easy-listening, and R&B. Introductory single, the refreshingly warm “Peppermint,” has a familiar sound that is simultaneously both aromatic and subtly sweet. The track is dedicated to his wife; the two got married earlier this year, and now the song stands as a celebration of their love. This is music with a universal appeal for all occasions, whether that’s a car ride down the Malibu Beach freeway, walking around your local grocery store, or even doing chores around the house. The rich vibey production combined with the earwormy hooks from Dering gives off a feeling that it’s only a matter of time before another mainstream jump. 

I chatted with Dering this summer and photographed his Chicago show. Read our conversation below and check out the gallery of photos of Fiji Blue performing. 

SWIM: Who were some of your favorite musicians growing up? Did you try to emulate any of them?

DERING: I grew up listening to a ton of classic rock on long car rides with my dad, but I quickly fell in love with the blues once I heard a Stevie Ray Vaughn song. Soon after, I discovered John Mayer & fell in love with the art of songwriting. John has been a huge, huge inspiration for me since I first picked up the guitar.

SWIM: Is there a specific moment in your life that you can remember that convinced you to pursue music?

DERING: I remember very specifically, at the age of 15, my mother showed me the song “In Your Atmosphere” by John Mayer, and it changed my life. I felt something I couldn’t quite explain that drove me to want to pursue story-telling and music at that instant.

SWIM: You have a sizable following both online and monthly streaming numbers (over 1.2 million monthly on Spotify) without releasing a full-length album. What is it about your music that you think connects with so many people?

DERING: I’m beyond grateful my music has been able to connect with so many people, close and far. I’m not sure if I can pinpoint an exact reason, but I’d like to believe it’s because people can relate to the stories of love and heartbreak I’m trying to tell. Life and love has its ups and downs. I’ve had my share of both, and I find peace in knowing my music has broken through enough to help anyone going through it in life.

Photo by David Williams

SWIM: You announced your debut album will be called Glide. What do you want listeners to take away from your debut?

DERING: I hope listeners fall in love with the story of “Glide.” It’s filled with some of the happiest moments of my life and some of the lowest. I got married during the creation of this album while also going through moments of heartache in creative relationships. This album was written to give life to that moment of “Glide” where you’re moments from landing & there’s nothing you can do but hope everything is going to work out.

SWIM: You chose the song “Peppermint” as the first single from the album. What was your thought process when selecting this song as the first taste of the album?

DERING: To me, “Peppermint” felt like falling in love. I wanted to come back with a song that gave me the biggest smile, and to me, that was this song. It tells the story of the effortless love I feel for my partner, Natasha. The world also needs more happy songs, which I struggle to write, unfortunately!

SWIM: Congratulations on recently getting married! Your lyrics are mostly described as “melancholy yet optimistic.” Can we expect similar themes on the album, or will you include more topics about love and marriage?

DERING: Thank you so much. Marriage has definitely shifted my perspective on life in a very short time, but I feel like I’ve also been married to Natasha since the first day I met her. I feel like my “sad yet happy” viewpoint will always be a part of my writing style, yet I hope to branch deeper into both places individually as I venture further into life’s highs and lows.

SWIM: Any final words before we sign off?

DERING: I’m just really excited and ready for the world to hear about this project.

David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He's also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Heart to Gold – Free Help | Album Review

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Memory Music

The day after the election, the high in New York was 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That was the forecast regardless of who won. The highs will continue to rise each winter regardless of which party is in power. The hopes you have for the future will stay in your mind, the work you do to improve the world will continue, and the things you love you will continue to do regardless of the temperature and political situation. Why? 

On Heart to Gold’s third LP, Free Help, they grapple with how to confront that march to the inevitable. Throughout the record, Whiteoak ping-pongs between despondence and exuberance. The stunning opener, “Surrounded,” encapsulates both feelings as Whiteoak sings with his back to the corner as enemies and regrets of wasted time and embarrassing memories close in. But the moment you hear the “oohs” on the chorus, you can’t help but grin. “Surrounded” is like the best Menzingers songs, filled with disdain at having to do this all over a-fucking-gain, but you hope for remission as you push your best friend in the pit and scream along.

Listening to Free Help has made me think about de-transitioning. When Whiteoak sings “I have been suffering for too long” on mid-album highlight, “Belonging,” it calls to mind when a kid at work tells me I can’t be a girl because I look like a boy or that my voice is too deep for a girl. When I see my mom still has me listed as my dead name on her phone. I ask myself what this is all for? Why do I suffer these indignities when it would be easier to return to the closet? I’m tired of explaining my existence. What stops me is remembering the spiritual death of the closet. I suffered through that too long to give up the flush of euphoria I feel when I try on the new dress I bought for my birthday, the community I’ve found who love and understand me, and the intimacy I’ve longed desired with female friends over the dejected feeling that comes from others being indecent. I may not belong in others’ expectations of the world, but I belong in the world I’m building. It’s all there in the pre-chorus for “Can’t Feel Me” when Whiteoak sings, “Sometimes the highest highs / at times the lowest lows.” Those are the breaks.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been finding comfort in the transition from “Pandora” to “Blow Up The Spot.” The former track, full of space and meditative lyrics, is an ode to being uncomfortable, existing in the human position of struggle. America conditions us to mimic water and find the path of least resistance from cradle to grave, but the beauty of life is in the uncertainties, in the closet doors opened. When the latter track explodes out of the lingering outro of “Pandora,” I want to throw myself around the room screaming along. I feel such a sense of relief when the bridge of “Blow Up The Spot” comes in after a brief pause. It’s simply the best feeling an indie rock song could give today. 

I was reading an interview with the novelist Sally Rooney in the New York Times, where she was asked explicitly about how to live a meaningful life in the face of historical crises like the genocide in Gaza. Listening to Free Help, I was reminded of this line she said: “I suppose I tell myself that in the midst of all of this, people need not become so incredibly overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems that we’re facing as to feel that life itself is no longer meaningful and that there’s no reason to go on.”

Free Help is the sound of looking at the enormity of the problems and refusing to let them win because you can’t let anything steal your joy, your reasons for being, or your hope and will for a better tomorrow. 

Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her substack, all my selves aligned. You can follow her burner account on Twitter @Lilymweber.

Hey, ily! – Hey, I Loathe You! | Album Review

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Lonely Ghost Records

Spending my formative years under the sheltered, religious eye of Seventh-day Adventism, the music I consumed as a child extended almost exclusively to contemporary Christian music and pre-approved classic rock songs. While growing up with divorced parents resulted in some unapproved secular music slipping through the cracks, the floodgates didn’t entirely open until my brother and I received the first two Guitar Hero games one fateful Christmas in 2006. Those games were vital in sculpting my adolescent music tastes primarily because they exposed me to songs that weren’t strictly religious or classic rock, but also due to the sheer variety of music across their combined 111 song tracklists. Variety was – and continues to be – the crux of my music tastes. Due to insecurities surrounding my sheltered upbringing, I’ve always gravitated towards bands and artists who themselves do not stick to just one specific genre. Yet, despite how vital the Guitar Hero series was in influencing my tastes, their soundtracks weren't the only thing broadening my musical horizons. 

Arguably more important than my exposure to iconic, mid-2000s rhythm games was being in my teen years during the era of Pandora, before Spotify had a chokehold on music streaming. Specifically, it was a custom radio station based on Say Anything – my favorite band at the time – that truly cemented my early tastes. This station reached beyond the scope of alternative, fostering my love for synth-heavy music via artists like Motion City Soundtrack and the Postal Service while acting as a crash course for the pop-punk and emo bands whose merch lined the shelves of my local Hot Topic store. In tandem with these early Pandora days, I was falling deeply and irreversibly in love with the soundtracks of my favorite video games like Kingdom Hearts and Sonic Adventure 2, along with the kickass opening themes of the animated shows I voraciously consumed – notably Full Metal Alchemist and Teen Titans.

I often think about how I relate to myself and the world around me via the media and art I engage with, and since the advent of social media, that has extended to how I relate to the internet as well. In their recently released sophomore album, Hey, I Loathe You!, Montana-based quintet Hey, ily! navigate their relationships with themselves and others primarily through the lens of the internet age. They expertly weave together 11 songs across 35 jam-packed minutes through a beautiful marriage of music heavily inspired by their favorite “traditional” genres, such as jazz and 80s glam, as well as various digital sub-genres and anime intro themes from the last two decades. 

The first track on the album, “The Impending Dissolve of Hey, ily!,” immediately sets the expectations for instrumentation high with its buttery synth melodies and monstrous breakdowns. Tracks like “Wind-Up Toy” and “Dev Hell” similarly pack a mighty digital punch with electronic screams, guttural croaks, and devious keyboard licks straight out of a fight scene in your favorite anime or video game.

Beyond its impressive musicality, Hey, ily! maintain a throughline of human connection across the record, particularly concerning how we relate ourselves to others. Tracks like “Is Worry” and “Wind-Up Toy” touch on how hard it can be to see someone you care about suffer, to realize that having worries for them is to love them, while also understanding that you can’t save everyone, especially from themselves. “Pass The Body Dysmorphia, Please!” hits particularly close to home, navigating the familiar feelings of seeing yourself differently than how the world views you. Similarly, the themes in “(Dis)Connected” touch on how social media is just one giant vacuum of presenting only a deliberately manufactured version of yourself and avoiding the urge to spill your guts to a group of faceless individuals every chance you get. There’s an inherent danger in forging your identity around strangers’ perceptions of you and separating that from how you view yourself. 

The latter portion of the record is particularly impressive in the way it ties together its thesis – how we need to face our problems and fears head-on or risk drifting through the numb nothingness of despair. Over the past several years, there’s been this heavy, almost lethal combination of becoming desensitized by the news and media, a desire to cope via simple pleasures, and a refusal to interact with the growing problems we face. Now more than ever, it’s crucial to make yourself feel everything.  “whenicouldstillfeel” is devoid of lyrics beyond the song’s title, yet the somber atmosphere created by the acoustic guitar and cavernous production drifts gorgeously into “Head Like a Zombie,” which nails home the feeling of disconnection and passiveness through unconcerned guitar chords and lackadaisical drum beats. 

The specific strength of Hey, I Loathe You! lies in its ability to alter and guide emotion equally through its lyrical content as well as the avant-garde musicality and its myriad tonal shifts. While I wouldn't necessarily categorize it as a “concept album,” it has a strong connective tissue that I can’t help but liken to progressive rock acts like Coheed and Cambria, specifically in the way each song flows to the next. There is an inherent sense of where everything is going, and even when the music feels haphazard and off-the-cuff, like the jazz sensibilities in the finale of “Head Like A Zombie,” there is a clear vision for where the band wants to navigate you emotionally in response to the music. It’s ingenious how Hey, ily! has fleshed out the almost nostalgic musicality of this album while the lyrics are literally screaming at you to face your problems – to not merely cope with them or push them deeper.

It's always refreshing to listen to an album that makes me feel connected to my past without feeling cloying or predatory. Like many of my music-adjacent peers these days, I listen to a hefty amount of new music, but it doesn’t always stick. Hey, ily! have delivered a dynamic, impressively-paced collection of songs that make me feel connected to my younger self and the art that has formed my identity yet challenges me with every tonal shift and instrumental excursion. There are plenty of triumphant highs and melancholic, pensive lows to go around – and the layout of those specific emotions could not be more deftly structured and plotted out. With each successive listen, I’m increasingly confident that this album – and Hey, ily! as a band – will not be lost in the stampede of constant music releases. Hey, I Loathe You! exudes the qualities needed to stake its place in the great alternative releases of the 2020s, and I could not be more anticipatory of what’s next for (the optimistically-not-dissolving) Hey, ily!

Ciara Rhiannon (she/her) is a pathological music lover writing out of a nebulous location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest within close proximity of her two cats. She consistently appears on most socials as @rhiannon_comma, and you can read more of her musical musings over at rhiannoncomma.substack.com.

Peel Dream Magazine – Rose Main Reading Room | Album Review

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Topshelf Records

NYC’s Peel Dream Magazine dives into a personal exploration of their mind and surroundings with their fourth studio album, Rose Main Reading Room. This record invites listeners into a world where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, effortlessly merging themes of wistful reminiscence with an exploration of mundane hidden beauty. These themes all collide within the backdrop of various locales in New York City, which evoked specific memories both there and back home where I attempted to find the corresponding LA parallels of these feelings. 

Opening track, “Dawn,” starts off as a hypnotic morning ritual. The lyrics repeat, “Comb your hair, comb your hair, wash your face / Find your keys, find your keys, grab your coat,” but change tempo throughout until it reaches a crescendo that transports you from a cozy indoor space into the woodsy “Central Park West.” This seamless flow from track to track is present throughout the album and helps envelop the listener in the world that the band is building. Many of the melodies used in these tracks felt eerily familiar, almost as if they were taken straight from mid-2000s loading screens or commercial jingles, several of which managed to wriggle their way into my brain even after the first listen. 

The one track that stood out and kept coming back to take up the radio waves in my brain was “Oblast,” a track that is self-described as “cheekily prodding at mutually assured destruction.” With a chorus that rings a lover's hope and promise, “You could live for me, I could live for you, we could live for we,” is practically guaranteed to remain stuck in your head hours after you first hear it. That track bounces from a deep, bassy punch to a melodic chorus that makes the words sound angelic in the middle of it all. On a similar note, the track “I Wasn’t Made for War” feels like a direct follow-up to “Oblast,” tackling ideas of everyone around wanting more glory, whether it be wealth or power, all the while the protagonist of this song just feels lucky to have their partner. Despite how doom-and-gloom that may sound, the track feels bright and cheery, giving me a vibe similar to the more upbeat songs on Postal Service’s Give Up. 

In the realm of comparisons, I also felt a lot of inspiration on certain tracks, such as those where vocalist Olivia Babuka Black sounds similar to other artists like Slow Pulp, Pearl & The Oysters, and Healing Gems, to name a few. This rings especially true on “Wish You Well,” which felt like it could have been plucked from a Slow Pulp record just listening to the vocals alone. Using the same soft and contemplative voice, Babuka Black also excels in the track “Lie In the Gutter,” which I found to be my favorite of the album. With a mix of sprechgesang and an accompaniment of cosmic loungey drone sound, the track tackles the theme of a relationship where – though things may be difficult in their respective lives – inside the walls of their shared space, they feel as safe as can be. The last line really rings true and captures the simple yet powerful songwriting the group possesses as they sing, “Lie in the Gutter, stare at the stars / Millions of light years, all of them ours / A fountain of wisdom, a kink in the system / Essential to all our belief / Lie in the gutter, and stare up there with me,” and that just captures such a strong feeling of finding hope when all else is hopeless.

The more I listen to this album, the more I find comparisons that I want to keep making and find different moments of inspiration the group may have had while producing this record. Going from a folkish Yo La Tengo vibe in some tracks to a Beach House-esque tone in others, the record is given a chance to shine on all these different fronts at different intervals. The dreaminess was extremely present in their instrumental tracks like “Gems and Minerals” and “Migratory Patterns,” though I sometimes felt like the lullaby-esque qualities of those songs may steer some folks away at first listen. Even the lyrical content keeps jumping out at you, with the album title referencing the room in the New York Public Library, which is extremely fitting to the nature of this album. 

Ultimately, Rose Main Reading Room serves as a compelling snapshot of Peel Dream Magazine’s artistic journey, skillfully capturing the tension between familiarity and innovation. The album’s charm lies in its ability to evoke a sense of familiarity and comfort while also experimenting with a soundscape that mixes a blend of electronic and acoustic elements. From the very first notes of “Dawn,” the album swept me away, creating a captivating realm where time seems to stand still, and reality gently fades into the background to the gentle lullaby of “Counting Sheep” that serves as the perfect way to close the album out. The album itself sets you down and guides you through a walk in the park, a subway ride, to lunch, and everywhere in between. I felt really captivated by the grounding name drops of real locations sprinkled throughout, which gave me a sense of connection to the piece. 

As Peel Dream Magazine navigates their sonic landscape, they provide listeners with a well-crafted, reflective experience that shines particularly well in its more introspective moments. While it might not push the boundaries of the genre, it’s a rewarding listen for those who cherish a thoughtfully constructed and immersive musical experience. Reading into each track a little more, I find that under the lush soundscapes, there’s so much to be pieced together as you uncover where certain concepts lay. There are lofty ideas to be had here from stagnation and questions about life or death to just the trouble of getting out of bed. Despite the bleak and foreboding atmosphere some of these topics carry, the band holds up love as a solution, showing how good it can feel to have someone there to catch you from a spiral and keep you grounded. As the album closes, the words “Don’t worry” end each line, which feels like an apt message to leave the listener with: that everything is and will be okay. 

Based in LA, I’m a full-time music-head immersed in the vibrant world of psychedelic music and anything else that falls into my headphones that week. When I’m not listening to music, you’ll find me watching random movies or talking about baseball or Arsenal Football Club. To see whatever my current music obsession is or hear any of my sports takes, follow me on Twitter or Instagram.

Charlie Kaplan – Eternal Repeater | Album Review

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Glamour Gowns

In the months leading up to my wedding day, on numerous occasions, people would come up and tell me how difficult marriage is. It's one of a handful of clichés that you say to a young person before their wedding day—a “happy wife, happy life” type beat. My wife Morgan and I became friends in middle school, started dating our senior year of high school, dated long-distance through college, and got married quickly after graduating. We had been in each other’s lives long enough to know that we didn't have to heed the old folks’ warnings. Our marriage was going to be easy.

Morgan and I have been getting into the same heated argument for the last eight years. It's the one where I want to buy a project car, and she has not yet found our stage of life to be one that includes a project car. This difference in automotive opinion has been a frequent source of friction in our relationship. Isn't that so dumb? I love it. The project car argument has been a consistent figure in our relationship. A cyclical feature that will subside and then eventually boil up in me, overflowing into friction and repeating endlessly. Our most recent project car argument also happened to be the day I first listened to my advance of Charlie Kaplan’s third album, Eternal Repeater, and now I can't seem to dissociate the two from each other.

Eternal Repeater tells tales of human brokenness with a gentle enough touch that you don't have to be brought down into the muck to see it clearly. It is a nuanced and fun nine-track album that can be sat with and mulled over or just as easily be turned on while you and your buddies play pool in the garage. The minute-long solo guitar instrumental “Sun Come Up” leads the tracklist and spends most of its time ominously hopscotching from side to side, giving me whiffs of the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack. The bridge of the song is full of hope though and acts as an answer to the questions posed by the notes preceding it. This introductory track ends with a sustained note that salves the dissonance created. In just 66 seconds, it acts as a perfect representation of the album that follows and of the human experience that will exist outside of the world Kaplan created. The second song, “Everyone Calling Your Name,” reminds me of a thought that I've had many times when considering how to interact with Morgan as Kaplan sings,

Not much has changed
Everyone’s playing the game
So I’m getting out of my way
We all have a price we have to pay

I have often thought that the best way to love Morgan would be to defer to her, to take the path of least resistance. Through some wonderful therapy sessions, I have learned that this is not correct. I have learned that the most loving way I can consider her in my life is to express my true feelings in all instances and for us to work through differences, thoughtfully and carefully, together. 

The album’s lead single, “Cloudburst,” is a pandemic-written song of contradiction and simple beauty. It starts with a twinkling piano that gave me immediate chills and made me wish I was watching Charlie perform it live. The song evokes the repetitive days of being at school in Colorado while Morgan was at nursing school back in Texas. During those days, I know I experienced unique interactions with the people I loved in Boulder, but looking back, it is so easy to lump it all together into a period defined by being away from Morgan in contrast to the collective weekends when we would visit each other. Years of complexity summarized through lazy memory into black or white juxtapositions of whether we were in the same room or not. But that time was still special. It was full of wonderful relationships and important experiences that I treasure, yet it is so easy for me to reduce all of that to a time of longing to be where I wasn't. This is what “Cloudburst” is for me. It reduces a period of time into a singular moment, defined by that hard-to-ignore feeling, but I think it is important to try and hold onto the nuance of times that made up that whole section of my life—the good and the bad that happened. 

Past other singles like “Mescarole” and “Edie Got Away,” the last three songs of the album form a collective sonic and thematic peak. The self-talk in “Idiot” was confusing for me at first, but through numerous listens, it became a place of comfort against my failings as a partner and in the ways I have disappointed myself over the years. It reminds us that how we fail can also be proof of our possibility to succeed. “Now That I’m Older” reminds me that I am the one who is in control of my own cyclical downfalls. The project car argument keeps happening because I continue to approach the topic without care. I am pulling the same lever over and over again, expecting a different result. A part of me must not think that her feelings about it are valid enough to stop me from trying.

We are about to have our first child. A daughter. Maybe this next phase of marriage is that difficult part that they were telling us about. Maybe this next part will change our marriage and put some truth to the warnings we were given. The final song on Eternal Repeater, “In a Little Bit of Time,” is much more bombastic than the songs that preceded it, especially from the album opener. It is brash and aggressive, but the lyrics hold the same softness as all the rest. I have no clue what is coming for Morgan and me in these next years, but I know that I'll be able to pull more from this album as I grow older and learn more about myself and the world. 

I believe that people are innately good. We have all witnessed and been party to the brokenness of humanity. Charlie Kaplan thoroughly exposes this brokenness and, in the midst of it, reminds us of the great potential for good that still exists. We are able to learn and improve and break the cycles that break trust and burden our most prized relationships. Our marriage is easy, our problems are real, and although I am an idiot, I will continue to become a better friend as I get older. 

Kirby Kluth grew up in the suburbs of Houston but now lives in Knoxville, TN. He spends his time thinking about motorcycles, tennis, and music. You can follow him on Instagram @kirbykluth.