Harry the Nightgown Sign to Dangerbird

Last year Harry the Nightgown released their self-titled debut on Topshelf Records, turning heads with their singular brand of art pop and boundless experimentation. The duo formed in the dimly lit rooms of the infamous Tiny Telephone Recording Studio, where they honed their skills as engineers and producers, tinkering into the early hours of the morning and piecing together what would become HTN.

Now, they've relocated to LA and signed to Dangerbird Records. Their first contribution to the labels Microdose Series is "If You Were Wrong", a blistering track about their own tenuous romance, pitting Sami Perez's (Cherry Glazerr, The Shes) soaring voice against Spencer Hartling's playful baritone. Distorted drum samples crack and crunch, synthesizers sparkle and sputter, and the jangle of acoustic guitars echoes in the background. The accompanying visual depicts a glorious medieval drama, Perez eventually murdering a king to become his queen's lover.

Watch the video, and stay tuned for more from the rising group.

Harry the Nightgown is the creative partnership of Sami Perez and Spencer Hartling. Their music combines earworm pop melodies, jagged drum machine rhythms, and the occasional embrace of randomness. With both members originally working as audio engineers in the Bay Area, Harry the Nightgown formed at the legendary Tiny Telephone recording studio where Perez and Hartling would indulge in their studio experimentation curiosities during downtime. These experiments soon became the fully-fledged songs that comprise their debut album, 2020's self-titled Harry the Nightgown LP on Topshelf Records. The duo now resides in Los Angeles, where they engineer and produce out of their own studio, Wiggle World. This year, they are following up their full-length with two singles for Dangerbird's Microdose series.

"If You Were Wrong" sets the tone for the duo's new sound, in which an earnest lovelorn duet somehow blends seamlessly with a technicolor synthscape. Created during the uncertain early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the song's lyrics deal with the duo's tenuous romantic relationship. Hartling discusses the meaning, stating, "There's something funny about tracking your ex partner when they're singing something that they've really been meaning to tell you... I think the song itself sounds kind of romantic but it's pretty brutal lyrically." Perez and Hartling's dueling vocals weave around each other during the infectious refrain "There's guilt in your mind, but there's only you in mine."

Their follow-up single "The Painter" enters stranger territory, leaning into a heavily distorted breakbeat that contrasts pleasingly with a patchwork of delicately fingerpicked guitar arpeggios and ethereal vocal layers. The lyrics of the song tell the story of a love affair between artists that was designed to be forgotten. It comes to a close with a wordless medley of disintegrating vocal loops.

With these two songs Harry the Nightgown further develops the adventurous sonic signature they established on their debut LP, pushing the format of experimental pop into new terrain while we keep singing along.

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