CVC’S UNDERGROUND RUNDOWN 004: Sophie's Body, The OWLiNG, Family Worship Center, Trash Sound Conglomerate
Somewhere between a basement, a practice space, and the backseat of a dying car, somebody's still making music that makes absolutely no sense on paper.
That’s where things get interesting.
While the industry keeps sanding every rough edge into a playlist-friendly single, artists are still building records out of busted amps, fever dreams, cheap effects, strange obsessions, and whatever sonic debris they can drag back from the void. No algorithmic permission slips. Just people following a weird idea until it starts making noise.
This round of CVC’s Underground Rundown travels from Boston bubble-grunge to LA cinematic doom, Portland psych-soul, and Seattle punk chaos. Four corners of the underground bending, mutating, and occasionally catching fire in their own particular ways.
Forget trying to make sense of it. Turn it up and see where it takes you.
Sophie’s Body — Everything Is Temporary Except The Feedback
Boston's Sophie’s Body have figured out how to make uncertainty sound strangely inviting.
Self described as “bubble-grunge,” the quartet's indie debut Zero, is set to pop off October 30th. Yet underneath the fuzzy guitars and melodic vocals is something more restless; the duality of figuring everything out while simultaneously realizing that nobody's going to hand you an instruction manual.
Their latest single, “Long Term Loaner,” apparently began with a broken guitar pedal and a very inconvenient week of touring. That mundane little disaster becomes something bigger in Sophie McMinn's hands; a song about anxiety, change, and the absurdity of trying to maintain control when everything around you is shifting anyway.
There’s something fitting about that story becoming part of the band's mythology. Sophie’s Body occupy that sweet spot where technical musicianship and scrappy DIY energy never cancel each other out. McMinn's classical background adds another layer to the band's grunge foundation, while the group continues to build its identity through touring rather than simply existing online as another promising new band.
FFO: Veruca Salt, Slowdive
The OWLiNG — Jam In The Van (Live Session)
There are plenty of bands interested in aliens...fewer are interested in asking why we keep waiting for them to save us.
Los Angeles cinematic doom duo The OWLiNG bring that question into their three-song Jam In The Van live session, particularly through the previously unreleased “Contact.” The song imagines extraterrestrial beings arriving to rescue humanity, but the fantasy quickly starts resembling a ritual or prayer.
The repeated attempt to reach something greater becomes less about UFO mythology and more about the human desire for some outside force, capable of fixing everything we've broken. Gods, aliens, technology, salvation, it all starts occupying the same strange orbit.
Musically, the session also gives The OWLiNG a different frame. Frontman KaL MichaeL describes the recordings as having more of a rock edge than the band's usual massive, low-end-heavy sound, offering a slightly stripped perspective on their cinematic doom. The project remains a two-person collaboration with drummer Arthor Quanstrom providing the physical weight beneath MichaeL's towering guitar work and vocals.
Tap into the mothership, their Jam In The Van session truly works as another way of unveiling the machinery beneath the spectacle.
FFO: Black Sabbath, Alice In Chains, Faith No More
Family Worship Center — Greetings, We're Only Visiting
Family Worship Center tunes into a strange soundscape like they found a box of forgotten records in the back room of a haunted California radio station and decided to finish the job.
The Portland-based collective's Only Visiting plays with the mythology of a lost recording from 1974–75, complete with archival-style artwork and physical packaging designed to make the fiction feel suspiciously real. But underneath the cult imagery and vintage mythology is something more interesting: genuinely warm, melodic psychedelic soul with the relaxed glow of 1970s FM radio.
Piano, harmonies, strings, horns, laid-back rhythms, and strange intergalactic detours give the album the feeling of a soft-rock hallucination that somehow wandered into a basement show. The joke works because the songs actually hold up without the mythology.
Tracks like “Malibu By Midnight,” “Garden Grow,” and “Total Monet” shine a florescent light on a strain of psychedelic music that's allowed to be lush, soulful, and weird without apologizing for any of it. Only Visiting isn't really pretending to be a lost record.
It's pretending that the lost record was always supposed to find us eventually.
FFO: Tennis, Sunflower Bean
Trash Sound Conglomerate — A Sophomore Slump... Zero Adult Supervision Required
Seattle's Trash Sound Conglomerate apparently decided that picking one flavor of punk would be too easy. Their second full-length, Sophomore Slump, throws hardcore, power-pop, thrash, skate punk, basement punk, noisy rock, and whatever else happens to fit through the door into the same room. The impressive part is that it doesn't collapse under the weight of its own genre-hopping.
The trio of Kat Trash, Bogie, and Gwen Static have each spent time behind the microphone, giving the album a constantly shifting personality. One song can sound like it escaped from an '80s thrash rehearsal while the next drags itself through a basement show full of chanting fanatics.
Even Maximum Rocknroll picked up on that quality, noting the record's wildly shifting styles and the way the alternating vocals keep the 11-track album from settling into a predictable pattern.
That's probably the biggest strength of Sophomore Slump. It doesn't sound like three musicians diving into a whirlwind of different styles. It's a Sound Conglomerate full of three visionaries who simply don't care about the rules. The dinosaur stage prop probably makes more sense now.
FFO: Naked Aggression, Catholic Spit, This Is A Revolver
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We’re always tuned in, listening and searching for new sounds. CVC’s Underground Rundown is built for lovers of DIY culture, so you can discover new artists as they rise above, beyond the surface.
If you’re an artist, label, or someone sitting on a release that deserves attention outside the algorithm, send it our way.
Submit press releases, private streaming links, physical media or rough cuts to be considered for upcoming features, reviews, or Underground Rundown news...
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CVC PRESENTS:
BEYOND THE SURFACE - November 12th - 8PM
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