Bio : slenderbodies

slenderbodies 'Komorebi' bio:

Komorebi is without equivalent in the English language, an untranslatable term that the Japanese use to describe sunlight filtering through the trees and the particular feeling it evokes. When California duo slenderbodies came across the word, they knew there could be no other title for their spectacular full-length debut.

“With everything we make, we’re trying to create a sonic space that has its own distinct atmosphere,” says guitarist/singer Max Vehuni. “We wanted this album to feel airy and weightless, like you’re sitting in the forest just listening to the music float through the trees.”

In fact, that’s precisely the way slenderbodies wrote the album. For ten days, Vehuni and his musical partner, guitarist Benji Cormack, relocated to an isolated cabin outside Mendocino, carrying their guitars into the woods each and every morning in search of fresh melodies and chord progressions that could capture the ephemeral beauty of the natural world around them. While this might sound like the backstory to some rustic indie folk record, ‘komorebi’ couldn’t be any further from it. The songs here are slick and modern, with spacious alt-pop arrangements full of effervescent electric guitars and breathy falsetto vocals. Programmed beats and found-sound percussion underpin each track, blurring the lines between the organic and the digital at every step and hinting at the wide range of influences the duo draws on, from hip-hop and R&B to electronic and dance music. The result is an intoxicating blend of textures and genres, one that’s fueled the band’s remarkable rise from a self-released bedroom project to a touring and streaming powerhouse.

slenderbodies first emerged in 2016 with ‘sotto voce,’ a mesmerizing, eight-track EP that took its name from an Italian phrase meaning to speak softly but with emphasis. Recorded remotely with Cormack living in Santa Cruz and Vehuni residing in Los Angeles (the two had met attending college a few years earlier), the collection quickly caught fire on Spotify, where it racked up millions of streams without any label or radio support. The next year, the pair returned with a second EP, ‘fabulist,’ which launched their following into the stratosphere as lead single “anemone” garnered more than 30 million plays across platforms. Though the duo had never planned on performing live, they soon found themselves onstage in front of massive crowds around the world, sharing bills with the likes of Mura Masa, Passion Pit, PVRIS, and Milky Chance. In 2018 and 2019, Vehuni and Cormack released two more EPs (‘fabulist: extended’ and ‘soraya,’ respectively) earning ecstatic reviews on both sides of the pond and landing coveted spots at Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza. The Line Of Best Fit proclaimed that slenderbodies “conjure an immersive world” with their “genre-blurring” music, while Complex described their songs as “subtle but infectious,” and Billboard praised their “intimacy” and “daring.”

As the band’s world changed, so, too, did their approach to writing and recording.

“We played this festival in northern California called Solaura, and that was really a turning point for us,” says Vehuni. “We’d always been focused on the studio, but that festival made us want to create more with the live show in mind, to shape our music around the way it could impact people in a concert setting.”

The festival’s bucolic location on the northern California coast also had a lasting impact.

“We had this totally transcendent experience at Solaura,” says Cormack. “On the drive home, we conceptualized the whole ‘komorebi’ record, and two months later, we’d booked ourselves a cabin in the same area and were writing and recording there.”

After transforming the cabin into a makeshift studio, Vehuni and Cormack quickly settled into a creative routine, writing outside in the woods before returning inside to record each day. The isolation of the location enabled them to focus more than ever before (where the already-prolific pair used to take three or four days to write a song, they now found themselves finishing tunes in just three or four hours), and the freedom of working outdoors helped them tap into the open, airy vibe they were chasing. The cabin itself became something of an instrument, too, with its high ceilings lending space to the guitar and vocal tracks and the odds and ends that filled it serving as unexpected percussion.

“A lot the sounds on this record come from things we just picked up around the cabin,” says Vehuni. “We were using keys, matchsticks, candles, whatever we could find to create the kind of organic textures that would breathe life into the songs.”

After finishing in the cabin, the band spent the better part of the next year working through the material they’d recorded, whittling down song selections and honing in on a cohesive atmosphere that could unify the collection and fully transport listeners.

“We had to refine this sonic world that we’d created,” explains Comack. “We had all the core elements, but there was a lot of production work that had to be done to reinforce that feeling of sitting in the forest while the music drifts around you.”

Album opener “Ruminate” sets the scene perfectly, with layers of bubbling guitars chirping and swirling underneath Vehuni’s near-whispered vocals. Like much of the album to come, the song plays with ideas of perception and time, examining what we currently believe to be true and questioning whether we’ll still hold those same beliefs in the future. The addictively poppy “Belong” is a love letter to wanderlust and its ability to help us find our community, while the surreal “Dewdrops” meditates on the importance of having a place to call home, and the sensual “Tangled Up” reflects on the power of physical touch and sexual intimacy.

“The songs on this record always come back to subjective morality and the opinions we hold about what really matters,” reflects Comack. “We thought of the album almost like a time capsule. What if you could write a record to yourself that you would listen back to at 80? Would you agree with the person you were when you made it? How will you have changed?”

The album sequencing toys with those questions, as well, sometimes pairing starkly contrasting songs back-to-back. The hypnotic “Moods” explores the role that emotion plays in our mental health over time, while the eerie “Senses” does the same for our physical bodies. The trippy “Arrival” muses on the life advice you’d share with a newborn if they could understand it, while the hushed “Departure” does just the opposite, imagining what you might say to someone on their deathbed. While the collection recognizes that, in the end, there are no easy answers to the myriad questions it raises, it offers perhaps something even more valuable with dreamy album closer “Hearth,” which arrives like a warm sonic hug, a comforting reassurance that it’s not only okay to grapple with uncertainty, it’s beautiful.

“We always envisioned that song as a peaceful exit from the album,” says Comack. “It’s like the safe cabin you get to after hiking through the woods of this record.”

Ultimately, if the record (and life itself, for that matter) is a hike through the woods, then slenderbodies are here to remind you to take your time with the journey. There’s plenty of magic and beauty to appreciate along the way, even if our language doesn’t quite have the words to fully account for it. ‘komorebi’ is proof of that.

shortened bio:

For ten days, California duo slenderbodies relocated to an isolated cabin outside Mendocino, carrying their guitars into the woods each and every morning in search of fresh melodies and chord progressions that could capture the ephemeral beauty of the natural world around them. While this might sound like the backstory to some rustic indie folk record, the band’s spectacular new album, ‘komorebi’ couldn’t be any further from it. Named for a Japanese term used to describe sunlight filtering through the trees, the record is slick and modern, with spacious alt-pop arrangements full of effervescent electric guitars and breathy falsetto vocals. Programmed beats and found-sound percussion underpin each track, blurring the lines between the organic and the digital at every step and hinting at the wide range of influences the duo draws on here, from hip-hop and R&B to electronic and dance music. The result is an intoxicating blend of textures and genres, one that’s fueled the band’s remarkable rise from a self-released bedroom project to a touring and streaming powerhouse

slenderbodies first emerged in 2016 with ‘sotto voce,’ a mesmerizing, eight-track EP that took its name from an Italian phrase meaning to speak softly but with emphasis. Recorded remotely with guitarist Benji Cormack living in Santa Cruz and singer/guitarist Max Vehuni residing in Los Angeles (the two had met at college a few years earlier), the collection quickly caught fire on Spotify, where it racked up millions of streams without any label or radio support. The next year, the pair returned with a second EP, ‘fabulist,’ which launched their following into the stratosphere as lead single “anemone” garnered more than 30 million plays across platforms. Though the duo had never planned on performing live, they soon found themselves onstage in front of massive crowds around the world, sharing bills with the likes of Mura Masa, Passion Pit, PVRIS, and Milky Chance. In 2018 and 2019, Vehuni and Cormack released two more EPs (‘fabulist: extended’ and ‘soraya,’ respectively) earning ecstatic reviews on both sides of the pond and landing coveted spots at Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza. The Line Of Best Fit proclaimed that slenderbodies “conjure an immersive world” with their “genre-blurring” music, while Complex described their songs as “subtle but infectious,” and Billboard praised their “intimacy” and “daring.”