Tan Cologne‘s “Topaz Wave” is out now via Labrador Records.

Lauren Green and Marissa Macias are Tan Cologne, a New Mexico-based dream pop outfit with country and Americana roots. Both Green and Macias are multidisciplinary artists who work in sonic and tactile modalities, which goes to explain the sensorial complexity of their music. In 2020, they put out Cave Vaults on the Moon in New Mexico, an eight-song collection that saw them try to make sense of a world turning stranger by the day. Now, Tan Cologne are releasing their (still untitled) second album, out later this year.

The first taster off the new record is “Topaz Wave”, an eerie pop song that draws inspiration from the uncanny sounds of Grouper as much as it does from indie-pop bands like Mazzy Star or Cocteau Twins. It’s a strange yet captivating tune – one that offers a fresh take on guitar-based pop music. A song about phosphorescent algae, “Topaz Wave” drowns Green’s and Macias’s vocals under a sea of krautrock-inspired guitars, conjuring an underwater effect that grants it a psychedelic edge.

Tan Cologne wrote “Topaz Wave” beside an arroyo in New Mexico. Speaking about the song, they explained its inception a lot better than I could: “the sides of the arroyo walls are shaped like curved waves – reflecting the experience of tidal and earth transformation, and how the desert land was once ocean.”

The band has also put out an accompanying video for the song. Directed by Carly Short, it features the arroyo that impulsed Tan Cologne to write “Topaz Wave”.