RETROGRADE88 MIGHT JUST ROCK YOUR SOLAR SYSTEM.
“We make space beach fairy music: music to listen to while you’re heading to space in your flip flops.”
That’s guitarist Olivia Monarch describing the band’s elusive genre. It stands at an experimental intersection of dream pop, psychedelic rock, and shoegaze, integrated with fragments of countless other styles.
Vocalist Francesca Londono, bassist Maddie Russell, guitarist Olivia Monarch, drummer Jack Becker, and synthesizer/keys player Gabriel de Solages are Retrograde88. The five Berklee College of Music students have managed to captivate Boston’s underground scene with their original tracks, gaining a loyal local following from live shows alone. Right now, they’re about as underground as it gets, teasing music to be released on streaming platforms in the next two to three months. March 2022 performances at the Lilypad can be found on the band’s Youtube channel.
While Retrograde88’s stated genre is “psychedelic dream pop,” Monarch says that’s an umbrella term just broad enough to catch the band’s eclectic sound.
“We’ve played for a bunch of different people who like very different genres,” she says. “My metalhead friends love our music, and then our singer songwriter friends love our music. I think there’s something to say for that unity in the crowd. I look out into people that maybe wouldn’t even be at the same show together on a normal weekend.”
The members’ backgrounds range from opera to EDM. Londono draws from opera and anything dreamy; Russell from psychedelic rock and shoegaze; Monarch from 2000s and ‘90s alternative and rock; Becker from rock and jazz; Solages from EDM and jazz.
Becker says the bandmates’ different backgrounds have blended together to create a sound that will hopefully be universally enjoyable.
“I think it’s because of everyone’s different background,” he says. “Anyone can enjoy it because there’s a little hint of whatever in all of it.”
The band’s influences include Beach House, Tame Impala, Melody’s Echo Chamber, and Cocteau Twins. “The essence of it is dreamy, ethereal—very spacey, airy vocals,” Londono says. “A lot of psychedelic, creative, weird instrumentation and also weird melodies, weird everything.”
Retrograde88’s sound is just as beautifully random as its genesis; the band came together in October of 2021, when Londono posted a call for bandmates on her Instagram story, and the group’s chemistry was immediate.
Before the band’s first rehearsal, Becker thought he would be playing someone else’s music, but he soon realized each member wanted to write. By the end of their first rehearsal, they’d written a completed song. “I think we had something kind of special going,” Becker says. “I think it’s really cool going into a group where every single person is also an artist of their own, in a sense that we all produce and write music on our own time.”
Monarch says the first rehearsal kickstarted a unique momentum—something rare, serendipitous, and new. “It was definitely a magical moment when we got that song finished. We actually wrote something that I had never heard before. I was struggling to even put a genre to it.”
Solages says each band member’s specific musical flair comes through in songs they write together. “There’s a piece of each of us that you can really well identify in our parts in that song.”
As a group, though, the band takes pride in its cohesive appearance. Londono says that white clothing, sparkles and glitter elevate the “immersive experience” of catching a Retrograde88 show. “The three frontwomen have curly, big hair,” she explained. “We like to play with lots of visuals as well.”
She described one show where the band played in front of a projected backdrop of swimming jellyfish. For Retrograde 88, the music goes deeper than the sound; it’s an artistic atmosphere.
“It’s all over you, everywhere, in every kind of aspect of the arts, and I think it’s just something refreshing to really see and to feel,” Londono says.
The band is looking to expand on the visual element of its performances.
“I can really easily see us partnering with—and we’re constantly on the lookout for—visual artists and for fashion designers…in order to get a stronger feeling out of the performances and out of our music and our aesthetic,” Solages says.
Retrograde88 is chasing that “stronger feeling.” Their ethereal sound is transportive, an otherworldly atmosphere bringing metalheads and dream pop fans together under drumbeats and a strong bassline.
Russell says that something as simple as the band’s signature face glitter can spark unity.
“At one of the shows, I had sparkles with me that we normally put on our face, and I went around to like 20 people and put sparkles on them,” she says.
“When you open that door for something exciting like our music or…even little things like glitter, like something that’s fun and childish…you just see people’s faces light up. They are able to…be super open to the music and wanting to be fully a part of it.”
If you’re into astrology, Retrograde88’s magnetism makes sense—the band got its name because it formed the day after Mercury Retrograde.
“Anything that comes after Mercury Retrograde; it’s pretty eye opening and new,” Russell says.
The source of the number 88? The band’s collaborative inspiration playlist was 88 songs long.
The next Mercury Retrograde ends on October 2, by which time there might be some Retrograde88 music out on streaming platforms. When the band gets back to Boston in the fall, they plan to spend some time writing songs.
Look out for more live shows in the fall. If you’re lucky, someone might put glitter on you in a literal sense—or, in a metaphorical one, the band will coat you in the sonic dust that makes their performances so hypnotic.
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