Blushing have returned with Sour Punch, the latest single and video lifted from the band’s upcoming ‘Possessions’ album (due out on Kanine Records on Feb 18th 2022). Sour Punch finds the Austin dreamgazers embracing 90s indiepop and wrapping it in a blanket of the heaving reverberated sounds and hazy vocals that have become the band’s signature. Despite the bright melody and crunchy chord pattern, Sour Punch is a spiky and emotional cut that explores inequality and striving for independence in a relationship. Accompanying the single is a DIY visual that pays loving homage to the fun and strange low budget music videos the group grew up watching in the heyday of MTV. Check out the video clip for the track via YouTube below.
The band also announced April 2022 US tour dates that take the group on a circuit through their home state of Texas, across the great plains, and down the length of the west coast. Confirmed dates and venues are here, with additional information to come shortly. Blushing are joined on all dates by Letting Up Despite Great Faults.
Blushing West Coast tour dates
4-16 Austin TX – Hotel Vegas
4-18 Ft. Worth TX – Main At Southside
4-19 Kansas City, MO – MiniBar
4-20 Denver, CO – TBA
4-21 Salt Lake City, UT – The DLC
4-22 Seattle, WA – Seagaze Festival
4-23 Portland, OR – TBA
4-24 San Francisco, CA – The Knockout
4-25 Los Angeles, CA – TBA
4-26 San Diego, CA – TBA
4-27 Phoenix, AZ – Linger Lounge
4-28 El Paso, TX – Love Buzz
Sour Punch follows the October release of the immersive introductory single Blame, which featured Miki Berenyi of shoegaze legends Lush. Both of these singles see Blushing reunite with fellow Austinite Elliott Frazier, of Ringo Deathstarr, who produced their self-titled debut album (Wallflower Records, 2019) and returns for ‘Possessions’. The final audio sparkle comes courtesy of Ride’s Mark Gardener, who mastered the album at his OX4 Studios in the UK.
Blushing features two husband and wife duos consisting of Michelle Soto (guitar, vocals), Jacob Soto (drums), Christina Carmona (vocals, bass), and Noe Carmona (guitar). The band’s roots start in El Paso, TX, where Jacob and Noe grew up as lifelong friends and musical partners. The pair moved to Austin around 2009, meeting their wives there coincidentally at the same bar (Side Bar) and “naturally all four of us became close friends.” As Michelle was learning guitar, her natural talent to write music started to emerge, creating vocal melodies and guitar parts in her bedroom. Christina, already a classically trained singer, was recruited by Michelle to lend her vocal talents and soon grabbed a bass, taught herself to play and joined in to help solidify the songs. Soon Jacob and Noe began to notice how much potential this material had so they joined in on a practice session to help flesh out guitar, drums and vocals. From there the husbands never left the group, and Blushing was formed. Their natural chemistry and like-minded musical influences helping to solidify their ongoing writing process.
On ‘Possessions’, they present an album of patience and perseverance. This is a record that the band is incredibly proud of and amazed at it’s sheer existence. From the earliest tracking sessions of 2019 through the stop-start of a global pandemic, a production break while Frazier welcomed his second child, and the blackout resulting from the freak Texan winter storm of February 2021, the completion of ‘Possessions’ has been a true journey of making sense of a changing world. When everything was finally complete, what revealed itself was an album that emerged from new depths, heavier in some ways and lighter in others. Embracing the spectrum of life and relationships while understanding the need for escape, whimsy and that dirty word, pop. The album title ‘Possessions’ is an observation of the frenetic time in which it was created. A frenzied world possessed through fear or ideals but also with the objects, or possessions so desperately searched for and collected.
‘Possessions’ track listing
1. Bed
2. Sour Punch
3. Blame (Feat. Miki Berenyi)
4. Ours
5. Surround (With Love)
6. Gel
7. The Fires
8. Possessions
9. Waster
10. Lost Cat
11. Weight
12. How It Ends
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