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One of the highlights of this new record is their latest single, “Trixie’s Crying.” The track feels like a flangering dream pop classic reimagined for the digital and fragmented world of 2026: hazy, emotional, but threaded with modern and subtle glitches. Written from the perspective of someone trying desperately to help a struggling friend, the song takes an unexpected turn as the narrator seeks advice from an online therapist, pretending the pain isn’t theirs. The chorus was born in a small, very human moment, Carrie strumming her guitar in Brooklyn while her housemate’s calico cat, Trixie, cried nearby.

After the gentle and beautiful acoustic arrangements of “Until Lately” and the shoegaze-adjacent “Thousand“, Carrie and Matt Wagner have taken some inspiration from electronic music to create an ambitious narrative-heavy song that feels very reminiscent of Beach House or early Sweet Trip.

For a song that is only 3 minutes long, “Missing The Party” englobes a very diverse and eclectic set of musical styles. The track kicks off with dreamy spoken-word passages and synthetic keys bouncing off each other to create a steady rhythm, just for it all to crumble under the chaos of chugging guitars and lo-fi drums. As the spoken-word bit ends, multiple synth arpeggios enter the mix creating a chaotic, yet beautiful and dreamlike soundscape, which feels like a digital reinterpretation of the foundations of shoegaze.

As vocalist Carrie explains, “the first third of the track draws from the commute-home drudgery so many people experience while working an unfulfilling 9-5 job. Then, the middle spoken-word section is me describing an actual very surreal dream I had, which was a combination of idyllic childhood imagery and mundane, yet anxiety-inducing work situations I encounter on a day-to-day basis. “When you sleep, your brain is trying to make sense of things, and can help reveal what you really want or don’t want. With that being said, I think the contrasting imagery in that dream speaks for itself.”

The video for “Missing the Party” plays into the vision of a city landscape morphed beyond recognition after being transposed to a digital reality. Watch the enrapturing, psychedelic visuals, support the track via Bandcamp, and check the recent photoshoot we made with the duo before their gig at Pianos.

Carrie and Matt Wagner, aka Brooklyn-based duo Silver Liz, have a penchant for taking listeners by surprise. With each release, the duo explore a different genre, retaining the airy vocals of Carrie and the production of Matt.

With their latest single “Thousand”, the second from their forthcoming sophomore album, Silver Liz grapple with the fear of death in an acoustic indie folk-goes-rock manner. Of the inspiration behind the track, Carrie said:

“For a few songs on the upcoming album, I wrote lyrics based on dreams I’ve had. It’s a nice well to draw from unless that well is full of nightmares…and mine is a lot of the time these days…Fear of death is admittedly not the most original topic in art, but death has been at the forefront of so many people’s minds because we’ve been on high alert to it from covid and environmental catastrophe. I’ve had an intense fear of death since I was a little kid because I was raised Christian and the concept of hell was unfortunately over-emphasized. So, for me, it feels like those intrusive thoughts are exacerbated.”

Sonically, the track reflects Carrie’s inner, unconscious turmoil through the haze of a dream; the unhurried, repetitive acoustic guitar accompanied by the soft drums and her textured vocals create a jarringly light sound; one that is at odds with her fears of death and rather macabre, nightmarish musings. However the outward, chaotic crescendo of “Thousand” serves a more cathartic and uplifting purpose as Carrie defeats her intrusive and harmful thoughts about death.

The accompanying visuals are taken from visionary film director Agnès Varda’s film “Cléo from 5 to 7”, specifically clips relating to the wait that the protagonist undertakes when trying to find out whether she has cancer.

Of the visuals and the decision to take the footage from a pre-existing film, Matt commented: “We actually first watched the film after the song was already written. There are so many scenes that perfectly illustrate the lyrics, so it was easy to create a video that matched the emotional arc of the song. It came together quickly.”

Silver Liz’s sophomore album is due later this year and we look forward to being continuously surprised by the duo.

Last October, Silver Liz, the husband-wife duo of Carrie and Matt Wagner, unleashed their excellent dreamy dance track “There’s No Need,” which also marked a switch in sound from guitar bedroom pop to lo-fi club music. Now working on their second album, they deepen this new sound with “Roman Candle Part II.” Sounding like a mix between Bicep and Grimes, the drenched in reverb track is actually a sequel of a track they made when they were in college. In their own words:

“Back in 2013 when we were in college, before Silver Liz was a thing, Carrie and I once recorded this original track called ‘Roman Candle’. It shared a lot of the same influences as this song, but our productions skills at the time were so bad and it now sounds so silly to us. Calling this a ‘Part II’ seemed fitting since we simultaneously circled back to making electronic music and moved back East, closer to where we grew up, which is what Carrie’s lyrics are about. This track sounds like what we wanted to produce back then, but didn’t know how. We also always wanted to live in New York at some point. With that being said, we are really happy this is the first song we get to share since moving here.”

Silver Liz is the Chicago-based project of husband-wife duo Carrie and Matt Wagner. Following up to their 2017 debut album I Can Feel The Weight, they are slowly teasing their sophomore full-length album, which is due out sometime in 2021. After their bedroom shoegaze cut “Microwave S’mores,” they have now unveiled “There’s No Need,” a single which surprisingly switches their dreamy guitars for club-ready arrangements. Reminiscent of The Field, Ross from Friends and Jamie xx, this lo-fi track opens a new field of possibilities but remains hazy at its core.

“The cliché thing to do for a celebratory dance track like this would be to make it about going out and having fun with your friends. But instead, we thought it would be funny to make it about doing the exact opposite,” they explained. “Now, during quarantine, the lyrics might sound a bit imperative. But for us, the track actually is celebratory. Most days, we love having an excuse to stay in and work on music.”