Shmoo Wants to be Seen Through the Distortion
The Loyola lo-fi artist brings a new face to coming-of-age with his second album slow release
Shmoo’s music sounds like a confession. He chronicles the emotions that tug on you. His slow core reverb makes you ruminate, haunting each track like an ambivalent ghost stuck between two worlds. With a fresh perspective on the growing pains of your twenties, you can only hope that Shmoo is strong enough to weather the storm, and yet vulnerable enough to not let the world harden him. Slow Release gives us the idea that it could go either way.
Shmoo is the lo-fi project of Teddy Tietze, a Loyola music industry graduate hailing from San Francisco’s Bay Area. Tietze moved to New Orleans on a trumpet scholarship when he was seventeen and did everything a 17-year-old with freedom and dorm keys would do. He partied a lot, fell in love, and questioned his identity. The freshman year staples of discovery were cut short when COVID hit, and when the world was forced to turn inward, so was Tietze.
The word “sober" entered the chat. His long-term relationship fractured. He came to the realization that he is trans. As the formative years of exiting teenagedom and entering adulthood became silent and isolated, Tietze realized that he has something to say about the gut-wrenching shift. Shmoo was born in the lush guitar layers and doubled vocals of someone wanting to be seen, even if he’s buried in distortion.
At first glance, Shmoo might seem unserious. When asked what the track “TOTFP” stands for, he responds, “Lol. It stands for Titties On The Flip Phone.” In the song, there is no mention of titties or flip phones. All his music videos are b-roll style visuals that feel like they could have been filmed on a toaster. The artist name itself is hard to say without smiling. Shmoo.
Like many lo-fi artists, Shmoo counts on being unassuming, which raises a certain challenge. If you don’t care, how are you supposed to create something that’s built to last? The idea of not trying hard, and yet having something to say underneath it all is hard to achieve. You recorded the songs and put them out, you obviously care a little.
What separates Shmoo from the other twentysomethings with Logic Pro and guitar effects is his ability to pinpoint the emotions we can’t describe, compiling the memories we might forget and the moments that seem insignificant into a soft machine that razors into your heart. Tietze might seem too cool to care, but Shmoo is the long walk home from a party where you think about all the things you should have said.
The songs off of Slow Release make you feel less numb to the world and to yourself, while still managing to rock. You don’t have to put on your emotional hiking boots to enjoy it. With every song, there’s almost a double meaning: the euphoria of a moment happening, and the bitter taste of it becoming a memory, a thing you can only return to in your mind. The latter is found in the angst of muddy guitar riffs, nostalgia-soaked arpeggiated melodies, and short lyrical lines that make you lean in a little closer.
“Walking slow, dodging hurricane piles / We link arms and just skip for a while,” Tietze sings in the opener “i skip when i’m sad” before a monster truck of guitar distortion hits. The electric guitar rips into an almost indistinguishable wall of sound, signaling the passage of time and creating a bridge you can no longer cross.
As the smash of the electric guitar layer decays, Shmoo drones, “Leave your house and I walk down your street / Is this it, the last time that we’ll meet? / Try and have a good time while it lasts / They don’t know that I skip when I’m sad.” The lyrics are lined up like dominos. Without catching the last line, the entire meaning of the song is lost. It’s reminiscent of songwriters like Faye Webster, who turn conversational words and expressions on their head in order to get a semi-profound meaning across.
One could say that Shmoo does the same thing with lo-fi itself. In a genre dominated by white cis-gender men (Mac DeMarco, Car Seat Headrest, etc.) who don’t often extend themselves past the story arch of a romantic relationship, Shmoo chronicles body dysmorphia, transitioning, and what it means to be a Queer person in this country. In this landscape, the complexities of relationships play out. “Passing through my bones / I’ll always be alone / I’m inside my room / Tears are falling on my childhood floor,” Tietze sings in the chorus of “TOTFP,” pushing his voice to the point of fraying. A small Auto-Tune voice wails in the background, adding to the disorientation. Coming out of the chorus, the catchy guitar-hook leads an almost sing-a-long feel into the verses, where the words, “You said you viewed me differently / when I told you about me,” float over and slide, like the feeling you get when your stomach drops.
With Slow Release, Shmoo is at his best when he is trying to get through to you. While some moments promised more than what they delivered (great song titles such as “don’t cut your chest” really raise the stakes), Slow Release proves that Shmoo reaches a vulnerable part of ourselves that is worth examining. It cements that Tietze is an artist who synthesizes complex experiences in a way that can help us.
Shmoo will perform at The Goat Sunday, May 7 with Laveda and Cashier at 8 p.m.
