The Rhode Island trio’s weirdo avant-pop tunes land somewhere between the subversive, no-wave skronk of Bush Tetras and the lo-fi minimalism of Sneaks.
Weeks before quarantine, babybaby_explores were already going feral in the kitchen. In a split-screen YouTube session from February 2020, the avant-pop trio performs “Duck Song” in a house in Rhode Island. As their bandmates scratch out a creepy, cyclical groove on drum machine and guitar, vocalist Lids B-Day stares dead-eyed and delivers frantic vignettes about throwing bread to ducks. During the chorus, Lids performs an arm choreography that resembles a frail vampire attempting the “Macarena.” Then, as the song lurches to climax, they grab some Wonder Bread from a high cabinet, swallow a mouthful, and chuck the rest at the camera.
This clip is a litmus test for whether you’ll find babybaby_explores’ mode of provocation irresistible or intolerable. It also encapsulates the group’s knack for transforming the mundane into a subject of bizarre wonder, much as they manage to turn a drab kitchen into a den of DIY freakiness. Even their new album’s title is a monument to mundanity—“food near me” and “weather tomorrow” are among the most-Googled phrases—while its songs chew up the daily detritus of modern life and spit out garbled humor and absurdist repetition.
Consisting of three high school best friends from a Providence suburb, babybaby_explores began life as a “pseudo research concept project.” As they’ve bloomed into a proper band, you can glean a lot about their aesthetic from the company they keep: They recently toured with Lightning Bolt and signed to an imprint launched by Liars’ Angus Andrew. Their music sits somewhere between the subversive, no-wave skronk of Bush Tetras and the talky, lo-fi minimalism of Sneaks. Songs like “New Band” and “Anthem” are playful and repetitive, forging a bastardized strain of synth-pop from beats that emerge from a Boss DR-670 Dr. Rhythm drum machine, which Gabe C-D plays on nearly every track. The third musician, Sam M-H, specializes in swampy guitar tones that resemble a surf-rock record played at the wrong speed.
On their previous release, 2019’s EP-length Baby;Baby: Explores the Reasons Why that Gum is Still on the Sidewalk, the Kraftwerk-on-speed synth lines took the lead, while Lids’ vocals either sank deeper in the mix or distorted beyond comprehension. On Food Near Me, Weather Tomorrow, the group’s first proper album, the singer comes into their own as a vocalist, reveling in a wacky theatricality that’s unnerving and often hilarious. On “Carolyn,” they evoke Mark Mothersbaugh’s pursed-lip repetitions, exclaiming, “Love you/Miss you/Let’s Facetime soon!” over and over until it blurs into meaninglessness. The thrillingly twisted “Twiddle” dramatizes the inner monologue of someone who’s been cornered by a loud talker at a party: “You, you, you, you/Talk, talk, talk, talk/So much!” Lids vents, giving each syllable its own shade of frustration.
Food Near Me, Weather Tomorrow is very funny, very odd, and quite short; it was recorded in just two days. The weaker songs, like “Untitled,” are listless and underdeveloped, never quite landing on a hook or central idea. The best moments pack such bizarre audacity that you can’t help but grin, such as the pitch-shifting “I am a duck!” refrain in “Duck Song.” It sounds like Ween for the hyperpop generation.
In the world of babybaby_explores, the line between radical critique and dadaist nonsense is thin. Past songs, like 2020’s “All Mall,” satirized gender norms and the American dream. On Food Near Me, the jolting, late-capitalist pep talk of “Anthem” or the queer overtones of “Duck Song”—which seemingly plays on the semantic similarity of “ducks” and “dykes”—are equally subversive, but often opaque. Like any longtime friends, these three have some strange inside jokes; we’re on the outside, peering in, waiting to see if they’ll throw us some bread.
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