Album Of The Week: Touch Girl Apple Blossom Graceful

There are three primary cities around the world that come to mind when I think of indie pop’s genesis in the 1980s: Bristol, England; Dunedin, New Zealand; and Olympia, Washington. In Bristol, the short-lived Sarah Records championed lo-fi heroes like Heavenly and the Field Mice through their output of 7” singles and their staunch fans-first business strategy. Meanwhile, bands like the Clean and the Chills and others affiliated with the revered label Flying Nun garnered Oceania unlikely international attention with regards to jangly, ramshackle guitar music. And just before riot grrrl and grunge took over the Pacific Northwest, one Calvin Johnson forged a gentler approach to American punk, running his own K Records out of his kitchen initially to help his buddies release their music on cassettes. The following year, K would become an outlet for Johnson’s own band, the cult icons Beat Happening: “Touch girl, apple blossom/ Just a boy playin' possum,” he drawled on their 1988 classic “Indian Summer.”

Nowadays down in Austin, Texas, there’s the quartet Touch Girl Apple Blossom, one of the more promising indie pop revivalist groups working today. But perhaps “revivalist” isn’t the right word; K, who are appropriately releasing Touch Girl Apple Blossom’s debut album Graceful under the Perennial imprint, is still alive and well under Johnson. (Not the case for their peers across the pond at Sarah, who famously shut down on their own volition in 1995 after reaching 100 releases.) It sounds almost too good to be true, getting signed by the guy whose lyrics became your band name three and a half decades later. To the more cynical, the pipeline might even feel a tad gimmicky. But indie pop was never meant to be glamorous or gimmicky, and Graceful, luckily, never comes off as either. “Obviously I feel like Touch Girl has an element of nostalgia, but we’re also: Be here now,” guitarist/vocalist Olivia Garner recently said of her band’s philosophy. “As much as a purely guitar band can be in the present moment.”

Touch Girl Apple Blossom — Garner, guitarist John Morales, bassist Dustin Pilkington, and drummer Daniel Charles Powell — formed in 2022. The following year, they released a four-song EP of fuzzy, unpolished guitar gems just a notch heavier than most of the stuff that made K famous; after all, Garner once had a stint playing with beloved New York noise-rockers Hotline TNT, while Pilkington formerly shredded in the defunct hardcore band Total Abuse. Graceful leans into this balance with even more deftness, an interpretation of classic twee pop that employs familiar components like alternating female/male vocals, sunshiney melodies, and freewheeling riffs, yet doesn’t get too swamped in the sweetness of it all. 

That’s not to say that heart-on-sleeve pathos isn’t a guiding principle of Graceful, but Touch Girl Apple Blossom ground those gushy feelings in reality. Even the twinkly, doe-eyed album opener “The Springtime Reminds Me Of…” forges an air of melancholic tension: “I want to stay inside/ But I must go/ I can’t say no/ The world keeps turning,” Garner sings, as if willing Morales’ bounding guitar riff to transport her outdoors. 

Those sentiments seem to set the tone for Graceful, an album that often ruminates on small conflicts at the intersection of relationships and livelihoods: “You know I hate it when we fight/ All these meaningless distractions/ We’re working all our lives/ One day soon, though, we’ll start living,” Garner professes on “Tell,” just before a searing guitar-solo outro. “You Made Me Do It” is a playful lament on early-stage romantic turmoil, while the sugary hooks of “Heart-Go” make its writer’s-block confessions go down easy: “Where does the heart go/ When the heart’s not in it?/ The pen got tired of writing all these I’ve got to say to you.”

Those little strifes sprinkled and embraced throughout Graceful — gigs that go over poorly, resentment towards an entire city, days that might as well be over before they’ve even begun — make its more saccharine, blissful moments feel all the more earned: “Love is back and it’s in my arms,” Pilkington exclaims on the album’s standout penultimate track “I’m Lucky I Found You.” “Lucky” is the operative word there, as Graceful doesn’t ever function under the false pretense that good fortune is inevitable. As reminiscent of the past as the album can be, figuring out how to navigate a sometimes messy, often bewildering present is Touch Girl Apple Blossom's main concern.

Graceful is out 5/15 via K/Perennial.

Other albums of note out this week: • Drake's Iceman • Kevin Morby's Little Wide Open • horsegiirL's Nature Is Healing • Dua Saleh's Of Earth & Wires • Porches' MASK Mixtape • Telehealth's Green World Image • Prisonnier Du Temps' Prendre Le Pouvoir Par La Force • Nara's Room's Tearless, thoughtless • Shaggy's Lottery • The All-American Rejects' Sandbox • The Karma Effect's Cruel Intentions • Held.'s Grey • Maisie Peters' Florescence • New Constellations' It Comes In Waves • Khun Narin Electric Phin Band's III • Lawrence Kim's The Hours & The Times • alt.'s Nevermore • Maluma's Loco x Volver • Ben Alleman's Underneath The Orange Tree • Orphan Donor's Ailments • Discovery Zone's Library Copy Do Not Remove • Speedy J's Walkman • 49 Winchester's Change Of Plans • David Bird's Hinterlands • A Box Of Stars' Walnut Street • Haste The Day's Dissenter • MC Serch & Apathy's Millions Of Zeros • Towa Bird's Gentleman • The Bodies Obtained's Bouncing Off The Curb • Mr Bruce's OK • Hott MT's Haunted House • Echo Bloom's Anabasis • Lord Sko & Statik Selektah's Elevator Music • New Idea Society's Fire On The Hill • Yu Su's Foundry • Pro-Pain's Stone Cold Anger • Gun Outfit's Process & Reality • Smug Brothers' Gravity Is Just A Way To Fall • The Elovaters' Shark Belly Motel • Immanuel Wilkins' Immanuel Wilkins Quartet: Live At The Village Vanguard Vol. 3 • Nymphlord's Shedding Velvet • Trousdale's Growing Pains (Deluxe) • S.G. Goodman's (Re) Planting By The Signs • I'm Kingfisher's Give Up Together • Jeff Parker ETA IVtet's Happy Today • Various Artists' Off Campus Original Soundtrack • Steve Louw's Traces Of The Flood • Alan Braufman's Anthem For Peace • EFFIGY's Burnt Offerings • PARTYOF2's AMERIKA’S NEXT TOP PARTY! (EXTENDED CUT) • Rhododendron's Ascent Effort • Suss' Counting Sunsets • Phillip Golub's Partisan Ship • Shakey Graves' Fondness, Etc. • Johnny Dynamite's Johnny Dynamite • Holy Sun Opera House's Holy Sun Opera House • Super Sometimes' Show The World What’s Underneath • Eluvium’s Virga III • Dylan LeBlanc's Cautionary Tale (Deluxe Edition) • Tank And The Bangas' The Last Balloon • Hunter Morris / Mountain Of Youth's Nowhere, NW • Genesis Owusu's REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE • Carl Gari's Carl Gari • Jack Johnson's SURFILMUSIC (Soundtrack & 4-Tracks) • Ryan Bingham's They Call Us The Lucky Ones • Peter Frampton's Carry The Light • Self Deception's One Of Us • IAMEVE's Legacy • Sam Hoyek's demonstration_01: anomalous • William Hooker's Convergence: Live In China • Primitive Ring's Primitive Ring • Kreidler's Schemes • Jobi Riccio's Face The Feeling • Arturo Sandoval's Sangú • Spencer Krug's Same Fangs • Mad Honey's Bridge Over Cumberland • Jethro Tull's Under Wraps: The Unwrapped Edition Box Set • Mrs. Magician's Spiritual Hangover • Russell Jamie Johnson's Russell Jamie Johnson • Active Child's Active Child • U.S.Highball's God Save The Kelvin Wheelies • GIVĒON's Beloved: Act II • Ibrahim Alfa Jnr.'s Infinite Black Inside • Mia Joy's Spirit Tamer (Deluxe Edition) • Trinty Ace's Learning To Be A Cowboy On The Horse That Broke My Arm • Kolb's No One Has To Lose EP • Trinity Ace's Learning To Be A Cowboy On The Horse That Broke My Arm EP • The Field's Now You Exist EP • Eel Men's Glass Hammers EP • Various Artists' Served Hot EP • Mirador's The Gathering At Badon Hill EP • Kid Sistr's American Teenage Prophecy EP • Vines' Covers I EP • Daisy Grenade's So Much To Say EP • Function & Nastia Reigel's Devocion EP • STINGRAY's Enemy EP • Bicurious' Afterthoughts EP • Sofia And The Antoinettes' Leaving The House Is A Performance EP • Smerz's Easy EP