Foamboy is a Portland-based pop duo comprised of producer Wil Bakula and vocalist Katy Ohsiek, who worked together for many years in other projects before creating their debut pop album, My Sober Daydream, in 2020 and releasing it in 2021. My Sober Daydream launched the duo into a new stage of their careers, earning recognition from KCRW, Consequence of Sound, and Week in Pop. Foamboy has graced some of Portland’s favorite stages, including Mississippi Studios, Holocene, and Doug Fir Lounge. Listeners can expect jazz-inspired danceable pop with a hyper-personal lyrical edge.
While the group’s new album, Eating Me Alive, still has foamboy’s signature dreamy and dance-oriented nature, it paints a much darker sonic landscap, as Ohsiek’s lyrics lament the rise and fall of a complicated and crushing relationship. The themes of the album also describe reckoning with the aftermath of your public art, discovering your own queer identity, rejecting heteronormative narratives, surviving grad school, and giving up in a good way. The album contains a diverse offering of songs: the longer disco tracks the group is known for, short dreamy interludes, wavy electronic ballads, and distorted psych-inspired pop tunes. It is very much a reflection of the group working with a full seven-piece band for the last year, and contains a concoction of both electronic and live instruments. While the song aesthetics are varied, Bakula took care in crafting the album as one unit, weaving the songs in and out of each other.
“Progressive without pretension, avant garde with honesty.”-Tuned Up
“This disco-meets-pastel-groove business meanders about topics concerning identity, relationships, gender dynamics, and late-stage capitalism … this duo has arranged the coolest-sounding closing argument on human nature in a mighty long time.” -48hills
FCC Warnings: Track 7, “He Fucking Texts Me,” Track 8, “Song About You,” Track 13, “I Wish You The Worst.” Digital servicing includes clean edits.
Recommended Tracks: Track 15, “Eating Me Alive,” Track 10, “COOL!?!,” Track 12, “Exit Sign,” Track 4, “Not A Go,” Track 17, “Song About You (Clean Edit)”
RIYL: Hiatus Kaiyote, Toro Y Moi, Superorganism, the bird and the bee
Going For Adds 3/12
Label: N.I.T.A.