HOLY WAVE ANNOUNCES
STUDIO 22 SINGLES AND B-SIDES
OUT THIS FRIDAY APRIL 25, 2025
ON SUICIDE SQUEEZE RECORDS
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PRAISE FOR HOLY WAVE
“lush, cascade of shimmery sounds that reminds of what Mercury Rev were doing in the late ’90s.”
– STEREOGUM
“The band have fashioned themselves into mainstays in the world of gauzy psychedelia, infusing dream pop soundscapes with colorful instrumentation, lush melodies, and weighty pathos.”
– UNDER THE RADAR MAGAZINE
“…narcotic neo-psych with synthed-out bedroom-pop undertones.”
– SHINDIG MAGAZINE
“…lush-yet-tempered instrumentation that’s undeniably pleasant, if not downright attractive.”
– FLOOD MAGAZINE
“The sound of Austin’s Holy Wave has been getting progressively dreamier with each successive release, their music lush and immaculately arranged.”
– POST-TRASH
There’s a distinctly Southwestern flair to Holy Wave’s psychedelic rock. Today, the Austin, Texas institution announces its upcoming EP, Studio 22 Singles and B-Sides, out this Friday 4/25 via Suicide Squeeze Records. The record came to life while Holy Wave recorded at the titular Los Angeles studio, recuperating after a tour following the end of Covid lockdowns.
Today, Holy Wave shares the single “Father’s Prayer,” which is a clear relic of time spent in Southern California. The song bears traces of The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and The Zombies at their most whimsical, hopeful electric piano chords underlining a vocal melody that drips like warm honey. “And we’ll keep singing to the moonlight / And we’ll keep practicing our lines / And we’ll keep singing to the moonlight / Until the morning starts to rise,” Kyle Hager croons, ruminating on gratitude for his family and outdoorsy upbringing. It offers a wonderfully laidback glimpse at Holy Wave, who often opt to embrace scuzzy energy.
On the single, Holy Wave member Kyle Hager shares:
“Father’s Prayer’ is really a dedication to my parents as much as it is a song to remind myself of what kind of example I hope to be for my kids.
I grew up going camping, fishing, hiking and swimming with my parents. At the end of our adventures, we would always get together and sing around the fire with a few guitars.
My dad taught me how to fish (both literally and metaphorically) and how to play guitar. My mom taught me how to play piano and showed me the difference between melody and harmony. They both taught me to try and approach everything in life from a place of love, but also, to never be scared of being honest about my feelings.
This planet is not always an easy rock to live on. The way we choose to perceive our lives has a direct impact on the experiences we have and the way we affect others.
This prayer is a reminder to look at life as a journey, a trip, an adventure that I am lucky to be on.”
When the Austin, TX quartet Holy Wave crafted their 2023 album Five of Cups, they had just emerged from the pandemic lockdown, crawling back into a world they hadn’t been sure would still exist when they were mired in the darkest days of 2020. Though the album functions both as a statement on surviving an uncertain era and as a standalone piece of art untethered to a specific timeframe, there was a curious and exhilarating evolutionary step between the band’s awakening from quarantine and the full-length album that spoke to the turbulent opening years of the ‘20s. In early 2022, Holy Wave embarked on their first tour in the wake of the lockdown—a West Coast run that ended in LA. With no shows booked for the way home, the band decided to spend a few extra days in LA recording at Studio 22 with their friend Tomas Dolas. While a few of these recordings would eventually be released as digital singles or part of split 7”s, the session contained a certain magic that warranted presenting the full tracklist as a complete mini-album. So it is with pleasure that Holy Wave presents Studio 22 Singles and B-Sides.
The 7-track EP opens with Holy Wave’s modern classic “Chapparal.” Originally released as a digital single in July ’22, “Chapparal” embodies Holy Wave’s distinctive brand of psychedelia, conjuring both the lazily drifting trails of smoke in late night hangouts and the optimism of early morning sun rays through an open window. Previous digital single “Cowprint” appears here too, bringing its downtempo cosmic-country vibe to vinyl for the first time. Studio 22 Singles and B-Sides also features the kosmische-infused “Time Crisis Too” from the band’s split 7” with Chastity Belt and a previously unreleased version of “Bog Song,” the latter which underscores how Holy Wave’s brand of psych rock owes its pleasantly disorienting aura not to studio trickery or protracted jams, but to their knack for weaving earworm melodies through counterintuitive chord progressions and woozy instrumentation.
But the choicest nuggets on Studio 22 Singles and B-Sides are the new surprises. Lead single “Father’s Prayer” harkens back to lysergic ’60s artists like The Zombies, unfurling a charming pop tune bolstered by electric piano and dizzying mellotron sounds. The instrumental “String Performer” is a gorgeous exploration of cascading piano and e-bowed guitars sure to entrance fans of Brian Eno’s ambient albums and Robert Fripp collaborations.
Taken as a whole, the songs on Studio 22 Singles and B-Sides capture a band basking in the joy of making music together after fearing such pleasures were a thing of the past. Made with no ambitions beyond seizing the opportunity to commit these long-gestating song ideas to tape, it’s a document of triumph and friendship, as well as a heady journey into territories of the strange and sublime.
