Big Hush

For my final in what I will call "punishing my friends and peers trilogy", I'm writing about DC's Big Hush, who like Smoke Bellow are truly great, inspiring and underrated. The first time I saw Big Hush was at a house how my old band was playing w them in DC, I THINK it was one of their first shows with Emma playing drums, and they killllllled it. It struck me immediately, a weird combo of MBV's bending guitars, with Lows vocal harmonies. It was like mixing folk and shoegaze, I was transfixed. We became fast friends that evening and would play tons more shows together. Over the course of their activity they release 2 cassette tape eps that were collected in one LP on Robotic Empire. These two tapes  are "Wholes" and "Who's Smoking Your Spirt". My humble flex is I'm pretty sure we played the release shows for both tapes and the LP.

"Wholes" was originally releasd by DZ Tapes, and it shows Big Hush in their more somber and folky side. The guitar work is subtle, and the riffs/chord changes feel timeless along with the 3 part vocal harmonies. These songs soothe, and have sooooo many hooks. The lyrics paint so many interesting imagines, and evoke small moments in life. The amont of yearing in these four songs.....it's chilling beauty that I have a hard time expressing correctly. The nooks and crannies musically in these songs are mesmerizing, like the end of  "Wrong House" feel so profound in execution, and still gives me goosebumps. This record is definitely more "chill" compared to their next but its effective in a completely different way. Its emotionally potent and beautiful. 

So, on the LP collection, they added a newer track called "Soft Eyes" that wasnt with the og cassette but it fits perfectly with the 5 songs on their follow up to "Wholes", "Who's Smoking Your Spirit" (which is the repeating coda on Soft Eyes). With WSYS, Big Hush added new drummer, Emma who adds a ton of urgency to the mix, and the become more loud, bendy and punk. Now the focus is alil less on vocals and more on the guitar textures, strange drum patterns but also now have FOUR PART HARMONIES. Like "Wholes" its still all about the subtle details in songwriting, transitions and mixing. Like how in "Soft Eyes" in the intro, low in the mix you hear tambourine pop in and changes up the groove of what you thought the song would be. My personal favourite song on the album is "Cough" and I have an extremely strong memory attached to it : I was on tour, listening to the album for the first time, I was V stoned, and enjoying the ep, and then "Cough" starts with a "Iron Man" guitar bend intro, and the song kicks in, and slow builds up momentum to the end of the chorus with lyrics "are you really, just letting this happen" twice with just vocals and drums, and then silence, everything cuts and then right back into the opening bending guitar and my brain just melted and i laughed so hard. I made everyone stop what we were listening to just to play them this small moment. And to me thats Big Hush, small mindblowing moments inside fantastically written songs, that blow away every single "shoegaze" influenced band. They understood what made MBV good, and it wasnt the pedals it was warping great melodies, great songs and exciting uses for guitar. It was punk but not pretentious, it was in your face but not masculine. Maybe one day we will get more music from these phreaks and they will get their due. Until then, please lend yr ears to this amazing band.

https://bighush.bandcamp.com/music