Indie 102.3 Presents Speedy Ortiz w/ Spacemoth + Mr. Atomic

“Rabbit rabbit” is a superstitious incantation repeated on the first of each month to bring good fortune—a belief practiced by Sadie Dupuis, the guitarist, singer and songwriter of the Philadelphia rock quartet Speedy Ortiz. As a child with OCD, she followed arbitrary rituals, a coping mechanism commonly triggered by early trauma, and “rabbit rabbit” was one that stuck. When Dupuis began to parse difficult memories for the first time in her songwriting, it felt like kismet to name her band’s resultant fourth record after an expression of luck and repetition: Rabbit Rabbit. Instead of re-treading old routines, the record finds Speedy Ortiz interrogating conventions, grappling with cycles of violence and destructive power dynamics with singular wit and riffs. Rabbit Rabbit finds Speedy Ortiz at its most potent: melodically fierce, sonically mountainous, scorching the earth and beginning anew.

Speedy Ortiz debuted as Dupuis’ home-recording outlet in 2011, but the solo project quickly blew up into a full-fledged band beloved around the world for its pointed lyrics, disarmingly hooky choruses, and musical ingenuity—as well as its activism. The group graced festival stages from Bonnaroo to Primavera, supported heroic artists from Foo Fighters to Liz Phair, and brought acts including Mitski and Soccer Mommy on some of their earliest tours. In 2016, the band relocated from Massachusetts to Philadelphia, with the lineup changing shortly thereafter to include sonically inventive guitarist Andy Molholt (Laser Background, Eric Slick), drivingly melodic bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides (Mal Blum, Little Waist), and heavy-hitting drummer Joey Doubek (Pinkwash, Downtown Boys). Rabbit Rabbit is the first Speedy album to feature the longtime touring members as full contributors, and Dupuis and her bandmates blaze with unpredictability, their intrepid playing thrusting songs in exhilarating new directions.

The gnarled guitars and imagistic lyrics that defined 2013’s Major Arcana, 2015’s Foil Deer and 2018’s Twerp Verse are still present, but Rabbit Rabbit’s recordings feel as vast as a desert landscape. “As I was channeling scenes and sentiments from decades past, I wanted to honor the bands I loved when I first learned guitar, ones that taught me to get lost in the possibilities of this instrument,” Dupuis recalls. Speedy Ortiz delved into its members’ most formative musical favorites—post-hardcore, the Palm Desert scene, alternative metal—pushing the agile complexity of the guitars and forceful rhythmic interplay between the drums and bass to unprecedentedly tricky extremes. “Every voice has a narrative,” offers Doubek of the arrangement process. “There is so much feeling and melody to interpret, and so much room to express it.”

The desert’s guidance extended to their choice of recording locales: Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree (Mark Lanegan, PJ Harvey) and Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas (Sparta, Fiona Apple). They worked with engineer and co-producer Sarah Tudzin (Illuminati Hotties, Pom Pom Squad), who imbued the riff-heavy record with righteous heat. She also helped carve space for the electronic tones of Dupuis’ ornate pre-production, completed using a synesthetic constraint in which she immersed herself in a different color to arrange each song. Former bandmates Darl Ferm and Devin McKnight added overdubs to fill out the record’s already-teeming sound—an homage to Rancho’s sprawling, collaborative Desert Sessions project. David Catching (earthlings?, Eagles of Death Metal), Rancho’s owner, also added mesmerizing lap steel, a favorite moment for the whole band.