SONG PREMIERE: YOUNG LOVERS EMBODIES SHREDDING SHOEGAZE IN “MOURNING ROUTINE”

Young Lovers shreds into a shoegaze soundscape with “Mourning Routine,” a reflective song that showcases the slow rise of early morning.

It starts slowly with the gentle strums of a guitar. The echoing whispers of a contemplative voice come in, repeating contemplative strings of “maybe…,” representing looping thoughts about the future. Each line harnesses the angst of a fresh breakup, and the inevitable ups and downs of yearning.

The track builds up through gentle drumming and soft strumming. With hints of stringed instruments, it creates a truly cinematic buildup. The artful symphony of the violin really gives this track a unique edge.

The slowness is then broken, taking off into airy shredding that feels like a nice acid trip. In true shoegaze fashion, it harnesses a heaviness that creates the ultimate atmospheric noise. The guitar solo is an easy highlight, as each ambient note is absolutely hypnotizing. It continues with a subtle bass that pounds inside your chest.

From the little plucks, slow drum fills, and echoing vocals, the song transports you to another universe. “Mourning Routine” genuinely could be described as almost seven minutes of heaven. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, filled with moments of slowness and then intensity, complemented by the pure talent of Young Lovers.

The band’s upcoming LP, The Circle’s End, can be preordered by clicking HERE!

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AN EXCLUSIVE Q&A WITH GET SOME

Young Lovers are described as one of Los Angeles’ best-kept secrets in the DIY scene. What does that local scene mean to you as a band, and how has it shaped you collectively?

It means everything to us! We quite literally grew up in LA’s DIY scene playing music, helping organize shows/events however and wherever we could. Even though LA is famously an art and entertainment city, it is notoriously hard to keep any sort of locally focused scene or community going apart from the broader music and entertainment industry in this city, and it truly takes the effort of the entire community to keep it going in any capacity. Anybody involved in DIY and local show organizing here in LA knows how quickly scenes and venues we sometimes take for granted can disappear suddenly or be cannibalized by corporate monopoly and city politics, and we’ve learned that we must constantly fight for our own right to express ourselves the way we want to.

Because when it comes down to it, those efforts made by those before us and by our peers quite literally gave us the opportunity to become a band, play shows, and express ourselves the way we want to. Those very scenes and community spaces inspired us and gave us a place to form our own artistic philosophy based on unapologetic, vulnerable, and free self-expression and for that we’re eternally grateful, and we’re proud to have been members of that community as not only as artists, but as workers who organize, promote, and provide resources.

You’ve mentioned that “Mourning Routine” started as an attempt at writing a short, classic pop song, but eventually became a seven-minute slow burner. How did that evolution happen?

The song basically came out of a desire to write a shorter, more straightforward song in contrast to what we had. Up until that point we had been writing long, slow instrumental suites (which can be found on our first self-titled LP, Young Lovers) so the song was brought in by our lead vocalist Jonny Higa as an attempt to broaden our musical range.

The song was originally quite a lot quicker while we were demo-ing it, but we were struggling to find a tempo that worked with how melancholy and introspective the lyrics were. At the same time, we were preoccupied with trying to make lyrics work in general, as we were a largely instrumental band at this point. The solution came in slowing the tempo to the slowest pace we could, which gave every instrument and element time to breathe, and gave a lot of emphasis to the vocals and lyrical content. The tempo was loosely inspired by older R&B music and slower oldies, whose vocals and lyrics at slower tempos seemed to be easier to pay attention to, and invited close listening. The technique worked perfectly and also fit the sort of melancholic, almost shockingly introspective theme and mood of the song, but the slow tempo meant the song’s length came in just under seven minutes. Thankfully, it doesn’t feel like a long song at all, and presents itself more as a conventionally written, and incredibly introspective, pop song.

The Circle’s End is your sophomore record and your first release since 2020. How does it feel to bring this project into the world, especially one that explores themes of grief, heartbreak, intergenerational trauma, and self-discovery?

It feels pretty surreal to finally bring this record to life and put it out into the world. Of course, there is a gargantuan amount of effort put into making the music, recording and engineering, mastering, and promotion, but perhaps even bigger than that is the fact that this record is easily the most vulnerable any of us have been through art. The record is really about our experiences with the cyclical nature of the grief that comes through loss and the vicious cycles that it traps us in, the irrationalities and even the hatred and anger that comes with not understanding it. Those things are hard to process on their own, much less make into a coherent piece of art, and making the record made us all collectively and individually have to deal with and look at things we might not have wanted to.

But by making the record and putting it out there, we have come to some amount of healing and understanding in all of our personal lives, and it has become perhaps the strongest source of healing in all of our lives individually. By sharing this record with the world, we hope that through it we can help ease somebody else’s pain, and make that pain into something even more beautiful.