'Wallsocket': One Year Later...
Celebrating the one year anniversary of underscores' electrifying sophomore album!
American singer-songwriter, producer, and fellow San Francisco-Bay Area native underscores has always been a genre chameleon. She started experimenting with music production when she was just six years old and later began posting dubstep tracks on SoundCloud when she was 13. Following two Jazz-EDM EPs — air freshener (2016) and skin purifying treatment (2018) — as well as two indie pop EPs — we never got strawberry cake (2019) and character development! (2020) — underscores would adopt a more hyper pop-esque sound with her debut album, fishmonger (2021), and its follow-up EP, boneyard aka fearmonger (2021), that she’d continue to cultivate with her critically acclaimed sophomore record, Wallsocket.
Released one year ago today, Wallsocket expands the hyper pop, grunge rock, and glitchcore soundscape of fishmonger by adding elements of garage rock, electroclash, electro pop, punk rock, midwest emo, folk rock, and even J-Pop to create an eclectic, frenzied yet cohesive body of work that perfectly embodies who underscores is as an artist. Additionally, she emplores a mix of vocal sampling across the entire record, including the now-iconic “good luck!” producer tag that appears in almost every track, to add an extra layer to the album’s already intricate and expertly-curated production.
Conceptually, Wallsocket tells the story of three young girls living in the fictional town of Wallsocket, Michigan as they try to navigate adulthood despite the chaos happening around them. Their story is presented through a series of vignettes with each song adding a new plot point to the overarching narrative, which underscores uses to explore themes of corporatization, religion, abuse, class resentment, and her experience as a Transgender woman. The album cover is also a reference to the “horseshoe theory” — a political allegory stating that advocates of the far-left and the far-right closely resemble each other, reimagining the political spectrum as being shaped like a horseshoe rather than a linear continuum.
The opening track, “Cops and robbers”, focuses on a man named Joshua M. Domingo, a bank teller who has recently fled Wallsocket after being caught embezzling $425,000 from the accounts of deceased residents in order to finance his addiction to crystal meth. Although not a central character, his crime and the resulting scandal is a major event in the story with several of the characters reacting to or gossiping about the robbery throughout the record.
“Locals (Girls like us)” with American singer-songwriter gabby start introduces our main protagonists — Sonny, Mara, and Samantha — and the succeeding tracks gradually unveil the details of their personal lives. On “Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”, we learn that the heavily religious Sonny struggles with a chronic illness and interprets her condition as a warning from God; on “You don’t even know who i am”, we learn that Mara has been secretly stalking Sonny and romanticizing her life; and on “Seventyseven dog years”, the two girls ultimately confront each other with Mara explaining her motives for stalking her — jealousy over Sonny having a stable family unit, as Mara’s father turns out to be none other than Joshua Domingo — and Sonny urging Mara to seek help.
“Johnny johnny johnny” and “Geez louise” with American singer henhouse! add further context to Sonny’s character. “Johnny johnny johnny” sees Sonny (who is Transgender) recalling that she had been groomed online by an older man named Johnny who was able to manipulate her by validating her identity when no one else in her smalltown would, speaking to the unfortunate reality that many Queer kids often fall victim to the same kind of abuse due to a lack of support in their lives. When no one understands you or people are actively trying to erase you, it’s easy to become attached to people who provide you with much-needed validation, whether or not they have good intentions, and that erasure is touched on further by “Geez louise” — the most erratic song on the album. Shifting from punk rock to metal to country, “Geez louise” depicts a conversation between Sonny (who is also Filipino) and her friend Jordan, who discuss how Spain’s colonization of the Philippines and subsequent introduction of Catholicism led to the erasure of traditional Filipino views on gender, which always included Queer and Trans people, and this revelation leads Sonny to question her relationship with religion. underscores is both Trans and Filipino, making Sonny a likely reflection of her own struggles with identity.
“Shoot to kill, kill your darlings” and “Horror movie soundtrack” center around Samantha, who (unlike Sonny and Mara) comes from a wealthy background. On the former, she wonders why a rich kid who has everything going for them would want to throw it all away by joining the military, and on the latter, she wallows in apathy and even contemplates suicide, dreading the thought of her best friend, Jack (the subject of the previous track), potentially dying in combat, but Jack’s prospective death is not Samantha’s only motivation for suicide, as “Old money bitch” reveals that Mara has been relentlessly bullying her for attempting to hide her wealthy upbringing (dubbing her the “old money bitch”) even though Mara is a literal stalker while Samantha hasn’t done anything to hurt anyone, exposing Mara as a hypocrite.
On “Uncanny long arms” with American singer-songwriter and producer Jane Remover (a prime example of Trans excellence), Mara has an epiphany after a nightmare in which she awakens to find her arms have become elongated and almost dies during a procedure to reduce them, realizing that she’s been putting up a front and projecting her insecurities onto Sonny and Samantha, and on the closing track, “Good luck, final girl”, all three girls make peace with one another before going their separate ways upon realizing that navigating adulthood is an individual responsibility.
But the story of Wallsocket wasn’t over just yet, as the album was expanded this past June with a deluxe reissue entitled Wallsocket (Director’s Cut) that added four bonus tracks or “deleted scenes” to the project. On “My guy (Corporate shuffle)”, Samantha, Jack, and their friend Darlene gossip about the town’s embezzlement scandal; on “Northwest zombie girl”, Samantha reads about a girl whose emotions were nullified through a chemical procedure and wishes she could receive something similar; on “CCTV”, the late daughter of corporate tech mogul Jerry Bowman, Ashley, recounts the last week of her life; and on “Stupid (Can’t run from the urge)”, Sonny, having moved out of Wallsocket for a new life in the big city, decides to return to her hometown because it’s where she feels she truly belongs.
With its sleek, polished production and top-tier storytelling, Wallsocket is underscores’ most accomplished body of work by far and a major evolution from her past projects without losing the edge or cheek that made her music so fresh and charming to begin with. underscores is a brilliant mind and one of the most captivating artists on the underground pop music scene, and Wallsocket (Director’s Cut) is available across all online and streaming platforms!
Watch the music video for “My guy (Corporate shuffle)”: