{"id":439521,"date":"2026-05-22T05:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/439521\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T05:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:28:08","slug":"porches-mask-album-review-pitchfork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/439521\/","title":{"rendered":"Porches: MASK Album Review | Pitchfork"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent column<\/a> for the New Yorker, writer Kyle Chayka details a \u201clo-fi rebellion\u201d against the aesthetics of tech-driven uniformity: \u201cAnything that appears too smooth these days is suspicious,\u201d he says, citing a recent Weezer tour poster featuring the \u201cCool S<\/a>,\u201d the universal sigil of our shared humanity, as a counter-example. Chayka\u2019s subjects primarily operate in the visual worlds of marketing and design, but it\u2019s easy to identify sonic parallels. The kids are selling their turntables and buying guitars<\/a>, saving rock\u2019n\u2019roll<\/a>, and banging their heads until they incur nerve damage<\/a>. In the face of A.I. homogeneity, the human \u2014embodied, subjective, flawed\u2014is in.<\/p>\n

MASK, a new collection of songs from Aaron Maine\u2019s indie pop project Porches<\/a>, is similarly atavistic, down to the scanned, handwritten letter Maine shared on Instagram on the night of its release. Taped on a four-track recorder in his New York City apartment, these nine songs\u2014a mixtape, the accompanying press release is careful to note; not a new album, which might suggest a degree of studio sheen\u2014are necessarily unrefined. They\u2019re artifacts of wrestling with physical limitations: The unpolished yelp on \u201cInnocence,\u201d the drums that take rhythm as more of a suggestion on \u201cHabit,\u201d the gauzy veil over Maine\u2019s guitar on \u201cSpring\u201d are all heightened by their imperfections, indelible thumbprints of the production process. Stripped of digital refinement, the spit-shined melodies on MASK gleam almost in spite of themselves.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

There were hints of this analog shift on Porches\u2019 2024 record Shirt<\/a>: Songs like \u201cVoices in My Head\u201d lacked the heavy vocal processing that, since 2016\u2019s Pool<\/a>, have shifted Maine\u2019s rockist tendencies into more strangely alien shapes. Last year, Maine pressed vinyl reissues of his 2011 releases Summer of Ten<\/a> and Scrap and Love Songs Revisited<\/a>, the latter also recorded on a trusty four-track. These early songs rattled with potential that exceeded their tinny recordings, and provide a useful comparison to the pared-back approach on MASK.<\/p>\n

Though the songs on MASK are part of this lineage, they also feel more mature, aided by additional instrumentation and slower pacing. Perceived shortcomings\u2014tape hiss, voice cracks\u2014sound more intentional, their grit and grime an active choice rather than an economic necessity. \u201cCaroline\u201d is a grunge-inflected love song that layers violins atop an electric guitar and Maine\u2019s crackling croon, which fittingly describes romance via pissing his lover\u2019s name in the snow. \u201cPollen in the Rain\u201d makes a tossed off vocal tic\u2014 \u201cPshah, for sure\u201d\u2014 sound profound, backed by a somber piano and surrounded by imagery of early spring.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an ease and organicism to these melodies that recalls the ramshackle sparkle of Arthur Russell<\/a>\u2019s home recordings, or Daniel Johnston<\/a>\u2019s slanted pop songs. Battling the constraints of his equipment, these songs rest on the strength of Maine\u2019s unexpected rhymes and knack for song structure. It\u2019s perhaps intentional that the album\u2019s title track is a song about removing a shield between him and the world: When he sings \u201cI\u2019m choking in my mask,\u201d jumping up an octave, it\u2019s hard not to see it as a gesture to the ways digital distortion had dampened the immediacy of Porches\u2019 music.<\/p>\n

Long before Ableton or GarageBand, four-track recorders democratized the process of making music\u2014with a little practice, anyone could tape reasonably fleshed-out demos, spawning one-man bands in their basements. The four-track, which offers virtually no ability to edit recordings after the fact, forces musicians to accept the flaws in their work by default. \u201cI feel like a special spirit was captured in these recordings by embracing their imperfections,\u201d Maine said in a press release about MASK. The mixtape\u2019s spirit (or aura<\/a>, if you want to get Frankfurt School about it) is undeniably present, a reflection of the room it was recorded in as much as any other instrument. Stripped of modern tools, MASK is messy, blemished, unfinished\u2014and all the sweeter for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a recent column for the New Yorker, writer Kyle Chayka details a \u201clo-fi rebellion\u201d against the aesthetics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4958,156,157,111,139,69,1251],"class_list":["post-439521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-albums","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}