New Orleans based duo Lawn are a collaboration in the truest sense. Mac Folger and Rui DeMagalhaes write together, bouncing ideas off of each other’s different sensibilities to hit the sweet spot. “Mac gravitates toward pop music,” DeMagalhaes explains. “I’m closer to harsh territory. We’re good foils. Musically, we just know how to complement each other. I seldom think of a time when he comes up with something I don’t like. We’re always finding the missing pieces of the puzzle for each other.”
Writing on their debut Blood on the Tracks, which came out on Forged Artifacts back in 2018, we described the Lawn sound as “difficult to pin down,” citing how the pair’s habit of swapping the role of lead gave the record “an unpredictable and off-kilter feel.” With “the immediacy of raw and spiky post-punk” and “golden 60s melodies,” Lawn are a band in constant motion, bouncing between two opposing poles and always surprising us with just where they end up.
The style relies on trust and intuition between Folger and DeMagalhaes. “There is a coolness to being able to lean into whatever comes out,” the former says. “Not worrying about genres or anything like that. I trust Rui to know what to play, and I trust my own instincts too. Just keeping what we came up with the first time.”
This autumn sees the release of Johnny, a brand new album to be released via Community Records and Muscle Beach Records, that continues this work. The record promises to be as varied and inventive as anything Lawn have produced to date, finding inspiration in upbeat 90s indie rock and heavy art-punk. First single ‘Nighttime Creatures’ provides an alluring glimpse into just what this might mean. With a warm spirit and subtle psych flourishes, the song is relaxed but loaded with something more pressing too, clouds hovering over the restrained style, anxieties creeping into even the most inviting situations.
“[The song] is about wanting to be at the party but also hating it,” Folger says. “My own natural inclination to be extroverted and the overwhelming anxiety of being in a crowd. I wrote the words to this song while watching a group of slightly aged-out frat guys yell at each other from my second-story window.”
Johnny is out on the 4th September via Community Records and Muscle Beach Records and you can pre-order it now.
