With Isolation Drills, MAGNET has been checking in with Philadelphia-area musicians during the pandemic, while Where We Belong shines a light on our beloved local venues. Now that our city is opening again, MAGNET has launched Philadelphia Freedom to explore what happens next with our music scene, post-quarantine. Photos by Chris Sikich.
Hello! We’re called Tangled Up, and MAGNET caught us tracking at Headroom Studios for our second EP. MAGNET was nice enough to include us in this series about our remerging music scene here in Philly, askeing us to talk about how the pandemic affected our process.
The beginning of quarantine was very difficult for us, as we imagine it was for many of you. We write best when we’re all in the same room. Generally, we start with a single idea for a riff, which we expand on and arrange together. We like to bounce ideas off one another rapidly, and our songs come together quickly and spontaneously. The four of us communicate with each other musically better than we do verbally, which made for a tough early pandemic.
During those first months, we all invested in music recording software, and we worked on music at home, alone, to try and sustain some semblance of sanity. We worked on our songwriting chops individually, and as restrictions began to lift and we could get together for rehearsals again, those skills paid dividends.
Compounded by the reality that shows wouldn’t be on the horizon for a while, we hunkered down in our practice space and were able to refine this batch of songs to an extent we’d never had time for before.
That sort of time and preparation make for a smooth studio experience. We know what we want, and we’ve been able to communicate that effectively to our engineer, Mark Watter. We spent a total of three days tracking the five songs for our new EP, and it’s been a lovely experience. If things go according to plan, you’ll be able to hear these songs late summer/early fall.
As more restrictions lift, we’re really looking forward to playing shows again and seeing our friends and fellow artists in person. We can’t wait to see how much our contemporaries have grown musically over the past year, which will push us even harder to do the same.
Long story short, we found some silver linings during the pandemic, but we’re ready for it to be over. And we can’t wait to freaking see all of you!
