{"id":1965933,"date":"2026-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1965933"},"modified":"2026-06-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T21:00:00","slug":"wonderland-208","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1965933","title":{"rendered":"Wonderland"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tWonderland<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/a>
\n\t<\/h1>\n
\n

\n\t\t\tLOWERTOWN IS BACK TO BASEMENTS<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n
\n

Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg emerged from the DIY underground as unlikely architects of one of the internet\u2019s last genuinely communal cult bands. Now, with their sprawling new record Ugly Duckling Union<\/em>, the duo return to the strange, homespun experimentation that first defined them. Fresh off the album\u2019s release, they talk about life on the road, surviving codependency, and coming back to the basements that they started in.<\/h3>\n
\n
\"Lowertown
Photography by Reno Silver\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI always found a beautiful sense of community and escapism in a world that is sometimes more beautiful than the one that we\u2019re in,\u201d Olivia Osby says, finishing bandmate Avsha Weinberg\u2019s thoughts on the intention behind their new album under the collective alias, Lowertown. It\u2019s a dance they\u2019re doing constantly: words overlapping, ideas dissolving into inside jokes. The rhythm should be hard to follow, but it\u2019s not. The conversation flows naturally, like they already know what the other will say. \u201cWe are super telepathic,\u201d Osby confesses \u2013 it feels more fact than hyperbole.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Huddled together on the floor of Weinberg\u2019s New York apartment, Osby and Weinberg crowd in front of the fuzzy laptop camera as they tell me about their fourth record Ugly Duckling Union <\/em>out May 22 via Summer Shade, which comes with lore, a handbook, plush doll, comicbook, and even an explorable Minecraft world to match. They say the idea of making a conceptual LP, and its many extensions, lit them on fire creatively. \u201cWe wanted to become the kind of band we were obsessed with growing up,\u201d Osby admits. \u201cA band that creates worlds people can really invest themselves in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Written in the wake of a split with their label, and a freeing loss of the industry expectations that came with, the songs find Lowertown returning to their DIY roots with renewed conviction. \u201cThere were a lot of moments with our last record [2022\u2019s I Love To Lie<\/em>] where we wanted to do all these things and we didn\u2019t have the time to do them,\u201d Osby admits. \u201cI think our early stuff was just spontaneous. Now we have the time to experiment and fail again. We needed that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Influenced by the immersive worldbuilding of Gorillaz and the shapeshifting weirdness of freak folk, a noisy subgenre of the indie scene, their new songs stretch and wander before mutating into bursts of noise, tenderness, and wit. With the duo\u2019s unique approach to songwriting, it\u2019s an exploratory sound that marks their entire discography. \u201cThe way that I love to write is to be sitting in a place for hours playing guitar and watching TV at the same time. There\u2019s a couple of comfort shows that I\u2019ll always be writing stuff over, like New Girl<\/em> and 30 Rock<\/em>,\u201d Weinberg admits. \u201cA lot of the new songs are all The Sopranos<\/em> ones. You can hear a lot of Italian Americans screaming underneath the demos. It colors them in a really nice way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharpened by their brush with independence, Lowertown is more self-assured in their willingness to trade the norm for these stranger tactics. Instead of clocking into a 9-to-5, the band now immerses themselves in the music-making process, and finally does the thing that so often gets pushed off until the end: follow what feels right to them. For Ugly Duckling Union<\/em>, it was all about experimenting with new ways to write songs. \u201cThat child-like sense of writing and doing it just for the exploration of writing is easy to lose when you\u2019re on a label. There\u2019s a lot of pressure to produce, like it\u2019s a product. I feel like we made this in a completely artistic way,\u201d Osby says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. Like we wrote \u2018Big Thumb\u2019 using newspaper clippings,\u201d Weinberg reveals. Inspired by the blank walls of her new apartment, Osby decided to follow the lead of bands she admires, like Throbbing Gristle and Coil, and try creating her lyrics this way. \u201cI think it\u2019s easy to get in a loop of what\u2019s comfortable for you, lyrically, and taking words from the environment and adding your own meaning is the coolest thing in creating your own story,\u201d Osby remarks. \u201cIt breaks you out of your comfort zone completely, and I really didn\u2019t want these lyrics to be a repeat of anything we\u2019ve already written.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting track is a satisfying haze of harmonica and 12-string guitar. This process became one of the many creative rituals that shaped Ugly Duckling Union. <\/em>Almost two years in the making, life and label politics kept the record on the shelf, as it often does, but the two say the work still feels ripe. \u201cI still feel so attached to the songs,\u201d Weinberg reveals, triumphantly. \u201c\u200aIt\u2019s got such a strong sense of the next phase of us, so it doesn\u2019t really feel like a distant memory of us.\u201d Osby nods beside him. \u201c\u200aA lot of music I make and then I can\u2019t listen to it for years. It\u2019s like I cringe at myself or something. But I\u2019ll run this shit up daily,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI think it\u2019s because we reconnected with how we first started writing together.\u201d<\/p>\n

For all the blissful experimentation, Osby and Weinberg say Ugly Duckling Union<\/em> ultimately feels enlivened by something simple: the making of the album reignited a friendship on the brink. Ugly Duckling Union<\/em> was intended to bring people together, and that intention began with the very two people who wrote it. \u201cThe whole process rebuilt our friendship,\u201d Weinberg reveals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Lowertown, originally from Atlanta, Georgia, first formed after a formative trip to Canada when the pair were still in high school, a time that left them drunk on the idea of freedom. Since then, they\u2019ve spent nearly a decade growing up in public: signing to Dirty Hit before graduating high school, touring with Wet Leg and Wednesday, and becoming unlikely connective tissue between scenes spanning shoegaze, noise, and internet rap. Fans and collaborators orbit everywhere from King Krule and Frost Children to Julie, They Are Gutting a Body of Water, and Sword II. Success arrived quickly, before either of them fully understood who they were outside the band.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had so many opportunities very young,\u201d Weinberg says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really have enough time to develop our creative direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr our sense of self,\u201d Osby adds.<\/p>\n

Those opportunities were often a whirlwind of DIY shows, which required long stints on the road. Osby says it left little time to foster budding interests. \u201cI can become very one dimensional on the road. A lot of the things that are very important to me can fall away, like the people in my life and my hobbies. The things that make me feel like my full self,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt\u2019s very monk-like in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highs though, they say, are euphoric, and are what kept the pair travelling. \u201cPeople will come up to us at the [merch] table and be like, \u2018We\u2019re all friends. We met through the Lowertown Discord,\u2019\u201d Weinberg says. \u201c\u200aIt\u2019s amazing. When you have nobody who watches your movies and your TV shows and you play your games on your own, meeting that one person can change your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osby nods. \u201cIt feels like you\u2019re on a mission and you\u2019re connecting people and creating a space for people to release energy. That\u2019s such a beautiful, sacred thing that needs to exist forever,\u201d Osby says. \u201cAlso, so much of this stuff can feel so abstract. When you\u2019re doing music, it\u2019s such a stretched out timeline. You\u2019ll make an album and then it\u2019ll come out sometimes almost two years later. It\u2019s nice to put in a ton of effort and know that people are seeing this, people are engaging with this, and I\u2019m connecting with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That reward, they insist, is worth it. Still, by the time the pair moved to New York in 2021, living this way had finally caught up to them. For the first time in years, they had the space to look at themselves outside the blur of open roads and realize: Somewhere along the way, the kids who\u2019d started this band had become strangers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been best friends since we were 15. We\u2019ve been through so many crazy things together. I feel like we didn\u2019t even have the time to sit and process who we were because shit was just so quick,\u201d Osby confesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just pushed it off to the side so that we could keep doing the job,\u201d Weinberg continues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\"Lowertown<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Attached at the hip for over a decade, they felt like one conglomeration of two people, or, as Osby puts it, they were \u201ccodependent as fuck.\u201d The former friends were becoming something more akin to the angry Cerberus. \u201cThere was a period of time where we were working together, living together, and doing everything together in New York,\u201d Weinberg says. \u201cBut it was almost like a marriage. We would come into the apartment and the dishes wouldn\u2019t be done and it would just blow up into something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aAnd I was like, peak undiagnosed ADHD vibes. So I was annoying as fuck,\u201d Osby chimes in.<\/p>\n

Small domestic frustrations turned into larger fights. They realized they wouldn\u2019t be able to survive unless something changed. \u201cWe went to this coffee shop, and I could tell she knew what I was gonna say. I was like, \u2018I think we need to live in separate places,\u2019\u201d Weinberg says. Osby laughs. \u201c\u200aAnd I was like, \u2018No, you\u2019re my best friend. Why would you wanna move out? We need to be together because of the band and we\u2019re each other\u2019s rocks here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aYeah. But in the months leading up to that, it was like we were-\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways arguing,\u201d Oliva finishes.<\/p>\n

Weinberg nods. \u201cWe weren\u2019t even really friends. We were like, the band will not last like this. We need to try and detach a little bit and figure out who we are individually. So we moved out to separate houses. We started to go out into the city on our own. I hesitate to say not texting each other every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aNot texting each other every single thought we had,\u201d Osby clarifies.<\/p>\n

Despite the little continuities, the move felt strange and heartbreaking. Still, just like any type of tough love, Weinberg says it ended up being the very thing they needed. \u201cWe had a couple of months of that and then we were like, \u2018Okay, let\u2019s try and rebuild this relationship by writing together.\u2019 We ended up making \u201cMice protection\u201d.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Written in the Atlanta basement where the band first started writing songs, the track felt like a full-circle moment. After all the burnout, constant touring, and rebuilding from scratch, they\u2019ve found themselves back there again. Only now, they finally knew who they were. \u201cAnd then we just transitioned from that basement to my basement in New York,\u201d Weinberg says with a smile.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cMice Protection\u201d, named after the humble creatures who live in the walls of Weinberg\u2019s apartment (\u201cThere is one mouse. It\u2019s mostly like 200,000 rats,\u201d he admits), became the jumping-off point for the entire album and set the emotional tone for everything that followed. \u201cWith that first song, we were rebuilding and figuring out what this next phase of us being best friends again would be like,\u201d Osby explains. \u201cIt was us coming back together in such a pure way, just like how we first started.\u201d As the duo repaired their friendship, the songs became stranger, looser, and more abstract. \u201cYou can hear our relationship evolving through it,\u201d Weinberg says. \u201cThe second half gets way freakier. We call it the witch half.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my favorite part,\u201d Osby says. \u201cIt\u2019s really interesting \u2019cause I\u2019ve never made music like that. It feels fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sense of spontaneity runs throughout the record. The duo points to structureless songs like \u201cDip Shit\u201d, \u201cBig Thumb\u201d, and \u201cEcho of Desire\u201d as spiritual successors to fan favorites like \u201cThe Gaping Mouth\u201d. After spending so much time building the album, they\u2019re most excited to finally bring those songs into the real world. \u201c\u200aWe\u2019re about to go on our longest tour ever. It\u2019s two months around the country,\u201d Weinberg reminds me.<\/p>\n

Lowertown knows the hardships of touring well, but Osby feels they\u2019re more than ready to get back on the road. \u201cI\u2019m excited to get into this next phase. It can feel like you\u2019re in the waiting room for a lot of this. Waiting for the album to come out. Waiting for the tour to happen. I don\u2019t wanna be in the waiting room anymore. I want to be on the road doing the thing. That\u2019s what we\u2019re really good at.\u201d<\/p>\n

The confidence feels hard-earned. The pair have spent nearly a decade learning not only how to make music together, but how to grow alongside one another. Looking back on those early days, Osby laughs at how much has changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first started I was insanely shy and had horrible stage fright. Making music was something I did alone in my room. Avsha is a very good tough love person and was like, \u2018We\u2019re not gonna leave this basement until you record these vocals in front of me.\u2019 I was so mad at him at the time, but he was right. We needed to break the ice, and it made me so much stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow she\u2019s so much better at collaborating than I am,\u201d Weinberg adds, smiling. \u201cShe\u2019s such a good collaborator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listening to them, I feel myself looking past the communal spirit and avant-garde bliss of Ugly Duckling Union<\/em> and feeling that its truly greatest achievement is simply this: it helped two best friends find their way back to each other.<\/p>\n

Listen to Ugly Duckling Union\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Words \u2013 Camryn Teder<\/a>
<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\t\t1 June 2026\t\t\t<\/div>\n
\n
\n
Feature Interview<\/a><\/div>\n
Music<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/section>\n

\n\t\t\t\tSo what was actually good about Euphoria?<\/span> <\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wonderland LOWERTOWN IS BACK TO BASEMENTS Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg emerged from the DIY underground as unlikely architects of one of the internet\u2019s last genuinely communal cult bands. Now, with their sprawling new record Ugly Duckling Union, the duo return to the strange, homespun experimentation that first defined them. Fresh off the album\u2019s release, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,257],"class_list":["post-1965933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-wonderlandmagazine-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1965933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1965933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1965933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1965933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}