Editor’s Note: Welcome to Quarantainment, Vanyaland’s new series on what to watch, what to hear, and how to deal as the world engages in social distancing to combat the spread of coronavirus, or COVID-19. We’re all at home, we’re all online, and we’re all in this together. #StayTheFHome
There’s a line in Why Bonnie’s new EP Voice Box that would be gory rager if it wasn’t so perfectly cushioned in the Austin band’s dream rock.
“I don’t wanna yell / Take my voice box out / I can’t control myself, ” singer and guitarist Blair Howerton murmurs on the title track with a collected form of certainty. On paper, the lyrics seem to lend them themselves to a screech, but instead, Howerton delivers her resignation with a calm acceptance of the matter, offering up her creative outlet to the world.
That’s how much of the band’s debut EP (released April 10 by Fat Possum) unfolds, transforming a musical surrender into an ethereal gesture made for drifting off into daydreams. “It encapsulates a disconnect between my inner and outer world,” says Howerton,”and not being able to express myself authentically because of that — but, ultimately knowing I will crash and burn if I don’t.”