The Ophelias – Cicada
The Ophelias – Spencer Peppet (vocals/guitar, she/her), Mic Adams (drums, he/him), Andrea Gutmann Fuentes (violin, she/her), and Jo Shaffer (bass, they/she) – release a new single “Cicada,” off of Spring Grove, their new album produced by Julien Baker, out this Friday, April 4th via Get Better Records.
Spring Grove is brimming with imagistic touches and cinematic moments.
Nowhere is this more clear than in “Cicada,” which blooms with violin flourishes, joyful percussion, and Peppet’s captivating vocals. As the song reaches its climax, the strings swell with terror, swirling with Peppet’s voice: “I feel you around me, I know what you want // I can play dumb but you can see through me // Ten thousand cicadas descend on Cincinnati.” The track’s shimmering outro bleeds into a voice memo of thousands of buzzing cicadas.
Peppet elaborates: “A song about how none of my exes or ex-friends use social media. It’s left to me to guess what they’re doing, what they look like, how they pass the time. I think sometimes it’s better not to know!
I name drop both Ludlow Ave and Vine Street in Cincinnati in this one, as well as the infamous seventeen year cicadas. There’s a great Wussy song called ‘Crooked’ that opens with the lines ‘this is the night the insects appear / after seventeen years on this side of town / singing the songs they learned underground.’ Wussy is an amazing Cincy band and that song is one of the best ever. I was definitely inspired by them as well as the actual bugs.
The very end of the song is a voice memo that Andrea took of the cicadas in Ohio. If you listen closely you can hear her laughing when one lands on her.”
The Ophelias Tour Dates
Fri. April 4 – Philadelphia, PA @ MilkBoy
Sat. April 5 – Brooklyn, NY @ The Broadway – record release show
Sun. April 6 – Vienna, VA @ Jammin’ Java
Tue. April 8 – Boston, MA @ The Rockwell
Wed. April 9 – Portsmouth, NH @ Press Room
Sat. May 10 – Lansing, MI @ Stoopfest
Sun. May 11 – Toronto, ON @ The Baby G
Tue. May 13 – Montréal, QC @ Casa Del Popolo
Wed. May 14 – Burlington, VT @ Radio Bean
#theophelias