Flatwaves is a Philadelphia-based 4-piece garagegaze band on Abandon Everything Records, playing an atmospheric swirl of contemporary psychedelia and retro shoegaze. Their sound is haunting and dreamy with reverb-drenched guitars, heavy back beats, and cavernous vocals. Forming back in 2018, they hung together even when the world stopped, and came out of the pandemic with an entire album. Recorded, produced, and mixed by Mark Watter at Headroom Studios in Philly in the Fall of 2021, Numbra is Flatwaves' debut LP, which was released on October 7, 2022.
Drawing on influences like L.A. Witch, A Place Bury Strangers, Mazzy Star, and Nothing, with a nod to David Lynch-ian dreamscapes, they've developed a wall of sound that is equal parts weird Americana and hazy doomgaze, garage and dark psychedelia. This is music that aims for disorientation, just skirting the collective unconscious. Perhaps it was said best by one show-goer:
“Thank God I wasn’t on acid for that set.”
Numbra is out everywhere now!