It's Harmony's World, We're Just Living In It

August 21, 2023

After spending nine years as one-half of the indie powerhouse Girlpool, Harmony Tividad is starting on her own path. With her debut EP under the solo alias "Harmony" on the horizon, she confidently steps into her pop star era, exploring the theater-loving, camp-obsessed corners of her artistic self and cultivating a sound that's anything but bubbly or artificial.

Harmony’s forthcoming solo EP, Dystopia Girl, set to drop this Friday through her own imprint, Fantasy Corp, is a cheeky exploration of life's inherent absurdity and an acknowledgment that, yes, existential angst is real, but so is trusting in oneself and the magic of the universe. In her personal imprint, Harmony embraces unfiltered expression, presenting music that is unapologetically her own. In an era when self-awareness often fades in the shadow of our digital personas, 'Dystopia Girl' confronts the dissonance between our public facades and our private selves.

Photography by Joaquin Castillo
Interview +production by Sahir Ahmed
Styling by Cassie Jekanoski
Makeup by Frostie Delite
Hair by Luisa Popović
Production assistant: Abby Falzone
Styling assistant: Sophia Scalzo
Photo assistant: Hillary Nana-Adjei

HARMONY wears TOP by POSTER GIRL, SHOES by POSTER GIRL, JEWELRY by ALEXIS BITTAR

With tracks like "Shoplifting From Nike" and "Good Things Take Time," she deftly embraces the infectious lilt of pop sensibility while plumbing the depths of vulnerability hidden beneath the surface. Her music videos, dripping with excess and extravagance, challenge the facade of effortless perfection that often dominates the realm of social media, offering a refreshing glimpse of authenticity. There's a thematic thread that weaves from the tracks on Girlpool's last album, Forgiveness, to songs like "Dystopia Girl" and "Angel Kisses," all exploring the journey of connecting with oneself in new and sincere ways.

From the enigmatic oeuvre of David Lynch, which illuminates the subtleties of the feminine experience, to the unvarnished exploration of self that accompanies shedding negative habits and perceptions, Harmony's influences are as varied as they are profound. Her lyrics, like keys, unlock invisible trap doors along the boulevards of Hollywood; perhaps, if you tilt your head just right, you might be fortunate enough to see the world through her eyes, even if just for a fleeting verse.

It's a moment suffused with relief, a culmination of time and dedication, and the keen realization that this music is meant to be shared.

TOP: HARMONY wears DRESS by ZOE GUSTAVIA ANNA WHALEN, SHOES by ACNE STUDIOS, JEWELRY by ALEXIS BITTAR

BOTTOM: HARMONY wears BODYSUIT by NGUYEN INC., SHOES by PRADA, JEWELRY by ALEXIS BITTAR

What was the definitive moment that led you here, about to release your first EP as “Harmony” not Harmony Tividad or Girlpool?

Well I've been working on solo music for years and some of these songs were recorded close to when we were recording and finishing the last record as Girlpool so they've been kind of cooking in the oven for a while. I had been eager to, but I just didn’t have the infrastructure to create it in a meaningful and intentional way until recently. I feel so relieved because I’ve wanted to put out this music for a long time, and right now feels like the perfect culmination of time and things aligning to allow this to be.

Is it empowering to work under your own imprint for the first time?

It’s so great. I mean, I love making songs and I love when things like the lyrics are outlandish and even some of the lyrics are outlandish so it's really nice being able to put out exactly what I want.

I could imagine. It must be so nice to not have an outside force basically filtering what you create. At what point did you write the opening track “Angel Kisses”? And what followed after?

So that one was written right around September, like between August and October of 2021, then I recorded it with my friend Oscar in December of 2021. I still have some weird, funky demos of it actually. So it was almost fully realized then, which was a long time ago, now. Then the last track “Dystopia Girl” was started around the same time and I finished it in February 2022. “Good Things Take Time” was written in January 2022. I wrote “Shoplifting From Nike” like five months ago, and “I Am So Lucky And Nothing Can Stop Me” in January of this year. I feel like it’s hard putting music out because there are other songs I have in the works that aren’t quite ready yet, but these five feel most realized and good to me right now.

The tracklist is so nicely balanced.

I’m so happy with it. I feel like my personal mantra, and what the EP is about, examines the absurdity of being a person and having to balance the conflicting emotions that come with that. Sometimes I have a great deal of confidence in myself and other times I can feel extremely fragile and vulnerable, like I have no idea what’s going to happen next, and I think that I’m really interested in writing music about the space between those two things and how they coexist. The older I get, the more secure I become, but the amount of time that I spend uncertain is probably almost the same as when I was younger.

That’s such a great point and I feel like it’s more complicated now with social media as there can be such a dissonance between how someone feels online and real life. Someone can be so confident when interacting with people in person, but insecure about what they post, and vice versa.

How have you navigated that while fostering a new identity outside of your role in Girlpool?

Girlpool was so formative for both Avery and I, and like, literally taught us how to have certainty in our work because we started it so young that like, I don't think either of us ever thought, ‘We are serious artists.’ We were just friends having fun and writing and making things and it was what we love to do and still love to do. However, the older I got, the more my trauma became clear to me so what inspired me and made me feel validated, started to shift. I started to realize like, I had all these qualms with Los Angeles, with how I felt about myself growing up, about beauty and femininity and like belonging in that way.

I started to see work that was camp and over the top – I’ve always loved theater – and reached a point where I understood how all my interests intersected. I’m super interested in theatrics and vulnerability through performance and over-performance. There’s a rawness to things being oversaturated that feels honest and is fun to play around with.

Are there any influences that come to mind?

David Lynch's work and how he processes and plays with the feminine experience, which made me realize how there's so many amazing ways to play with femininity and not feel like a victim of it and that’s been really healing with me. “Dystopia Girl” really reckons with this ideal femininity that feels inaccessible, because it just doesn’t exist.

You make me think about "Dragging My Life Into a Dream" on your last project as Girlpool.

Well Avery wrote that one so I wouldn't say that it exactly defines my narrative, but "Faultline", which is also on that record feels connected to “Angel Kisses” in a way. “Faultline” explores themes of wanting to break out of patterns, being unable to and reckoning with that self-awareness and accepting yourself, but it’s also about becoming bigger than the path you’ve created for yourself to follow. And then the overarching element of “Angel Kisses” is wanting love from another, but at its core, it's about the dream of a life where you choose yourself and in that it's natural for someone else to choose you as well.

HARMONY wears BODYSUIT by NGUYEN INC., SHOES by PRADA, JEWELRY by ALEXIS BITTAR

The overarching element of “Angel Kisses” is wanting love from another, but at its core, it's about the dream of a life where you choose yourself and in that it's natural for someone else to choose you as well.

I feel like it’s only recently I realized how influential our self-perception is. Do you feel tuned into a new frequency as you navigate this pop chapter of your sound?

I feel like the pain and struggle that I've experienced and the mental processes and issues that I experienced as a young adult has evolved into an immense feeling of gratitude, empathy and appreciation for myself. It doesn’t mean that those feelings aren’t present anymore, but I’m not as critical of myself for my actions, I’ve come into myself in a way where the things that I’ve experienced are starting to make more sense and that does seem to come through in the music I’m making now. I used to have some really negative habits that I’ve broken out of for the most part. When I was younger I used substances in a way that are ineffective for making your life better and realizing that put me in such a better place.

How does it feel knowing that in ten days the project is finally out?

Oh, I don't know. It's so crazy honestly because I feel like I have been so fixated on the deadlines that I’ve had to meet that I haven’t had a second to actually process that we’re right at the very end, but when you phrase it like that, I just feel so relieved honestly.

The two songs that we led with are the most different from anything else I’ve done, like the three others have a similar energy to other things I’ve put out so I like that the opening to this project has been saturated and over the top because that's a more vulnerable side of myself that I haven't like played with or given light to. Putting out “Shoplifting from Nike” was extremely vulnerable for some reason, because I revealed parts of myself that I hadn’t shed or talked about in songs before.

You mentioned that the “Dystopia Girl” music video drops the same day, are you excited about that too?

So excited! The set design was super cool. Every wall, including the floor and ceiling, were covered in the album cover and other pictures of me – we even made this huge cut out of myself. I wanted to capture the feeling that people get when they see pictures of themselves and feel like they’re distorted or unfathomable in some way.

The funny thing about the song is that the opening line is, ‘I've got nothing but love’ and then you see a room full of pictures of me, like, there’s something so wrong and disturbing about it, but that dissonance is what makes it the right thing I think. Just because there’s this pop sensibility to something doesn’t mean that there’s not an underbelly of self-consciousness and confusion, which was fun to play with.

Totally. I’m so excited to see it. I feel like it’s going to be insane.

I was just reading this book – a self-help book of course because I love those, like I literally read them for fun. But it explored the idea that no one is ever thinking about you the same amount that you're thinking about you, which with the internet and influencer culture and all this different shit, is so funny because we’re almost encouraged to be self-obsessed because it is more beneficial to your well-being. Like if you’re trying to do anything in the arts, your internet shit is extremely consuming and I think it’s silly and important to play with that because the neuroses of the images that we create is so real, and I know a lot of people who are very plagued by these images like I once was.

The images on social media evolve into more of a performance of effortlessness every day, like now what gets the most likes are photos that seem randomly taken as if they aren’t posed but they actually are. It’s so absurd.

That’s so true, it’s so interesting.

I love that there’s this over-performance to the music videos for “Shoplifting From Nike” and “Good Things Take Time” that contradicts that performance of effortlessness people have become so accustomed to. It’s very early 2000s, which is also very nostalgic.

Yeah exactly, it’s so camp. I’m just a theater loving ho who is always thinking about what it means to be alive, but I also just want to have a good time. I think there’s a seriousness and levity to it all, simultaneously. It’s been really nice to work on this and start to think about what’s next on the horizon, like I have a lot of songs that are already recorded so I’m excited to focus on figuring out which ones are going to become the next moment.

HARMONY wears JACKET + SKIRT by HEAVEN by MARC JACOBS, SHOES by POSTER GIRL, and JEWELRY by ALEXIS BITTAR

How long did it take to feel good about these five songs? And were they always in the same order?

I know that order is important, but I’m such a weird ho when it comes to that. It’s not super intuitive to me honestly so the order for this one was just kind of in the works and I had people helping me. I can get down with the details, but I’m more of a big-picture driven person anyway. When something hits for me, that’s what gets me into writing and creating melodies.

That makes sense. What was it like being in New York and being able to shoot things while you were here?

It was so fun to be there for a reason, like I’ve lived in New York before and it can honestly be so overstimulating and hard to find a direction, but because I was there working, and meeting so many good-hearted beautiful people through the projects I did, I had such an amazing time. I left saying that I didn’t want to leave and I was there for only six days. Everyone was so sweet. It was beautiful.

Did the trip feel fated in a way?

Yeah totally. I mean the trip felt so right, like I fully believe in alignments and that if you can take signals from the world around you, you can figure out if you’re positioning yourself in the right place, because sometimes things will work out even when you don’t expect them to and that’s when you know you’re on the right path. I definitely feel like this is 100% where I need to be.

There’s also this self-consciousness that’s coming with it, which feels healthy and like a necessary part of being a creative person that Avery and I didn’t get to experience much as part of Girlpool because we were a part of something outside of ourselves to attach to that didn’t necessarily represent us directly. So doing that has been healing, yes, but it’s also been so scary because it’s something I’ve never done before.

Almost like you didn’t expect the water to be so deep when you jumped in but you’re just kind of coasting now.

Exactly and it’s so cool. I'm glad that there's this emotional and spiritual element for me because I didn't expect to feel those feelings at all and it’s shown me that there’s so much more that comes with sharing these new parts of myself through music and I’m just eager to go deeper and see what will come of it. There’s something about living in your absolute that’s so liberating and terrifying and cool, to move in your power even though you’re afraid. I encourage everyone to try it. There's a very high element of feeling alive in that.

HARMONY wears TOP by NOAH KANTROWITZ, SKIRT by SANDY LIANG, BOOTS by FIDAN NOVRUZOVA, JEWELRY by ALEXIS BITTAR

There’s something about living in your absolute that’s so liberating and terrifying and cool, to move in your power even though you’re afraid. I encourage everyone to try it. There's a very high element of feeling alive in that.

Music

office x Apple Music: SAUSHA

December 17, 2024

Our second mix with Apple music is brought to you by the one and only Sausha de la Ossa. Born in Colombia and raised in Miami before making her way to the Big Apple, Sausha has made an indelible mark on New York’s underground nightlife scene.

From taking office along her recovery from surgery for issue 14 to chatting with fellow DJ Memphy for issue 21, Sausha has a special place in our hearts — and so does her cheekily-titled set “Freak Hoe Seminar.”

Bringing you nearly two hours of Sausha’s signature gritty techno and sexy Latin club influences, “Freak Hoe Seminar” is guaranteed to teach you a thing or two about a thing or two. Stream the mix below, exclusively on Apple Music.

Image courtesy of Sausha de la Ossa
Graphic Design/Art Direction by W-E Studio, Claudine Eriksson and Piera Wolf
Graphic Design by W-E Studio, Hannah Nathans
Digital Production by Brook Aster Studios

Music

Real as Can Be with Cooper B. Handy

December 16, 2024

Since 2009, Cooper B. Handy has been releasing music as LUCY, a project that feels more like an experiment than a static identity. Along the way, he’s formed and collaborated on a multitude of other ventures, deviating wildly from any one genre: Club Casualties, The Taxidermists, and Safe Mind. The most incredible work flows out of him at an amazing rate, and not without a throughline: his ability to instill his spirit into melodies that stick with you, lingering in the quiet moments, like a tune you hum absentmindedly but can’t quite shake.

I caught up with the long-standing DIY enigma and Cape Cod native over the phone the day before his latest record’s release to talk Vol. 9, his many collaborations, discovering melodies in unexpected places, and naturally, digging holes.

Interview Sofia Castillo
Photography Guy Kozak

A lot of words come to mind when I think of his music—boundless, relentless, choppy, alluring, profound—all of them reminiscent of the ocean. It’s an apt comparison for Vol. 9, his latest record, which opens with Strange As Can Be. On it, he sings about a tale as old as time: conflicting desires. He begins with a reference to Adam and Eve, and follows it with the lines: “Try to be wholesome/We all have different ideas/We have different ideas/Of what it means to be wholesome.” That’s the magic of Lucy. He’s totally out there, and as real as can be. He paves his way charming together aphorisms, cautionary tales, and flashes of wry wisdom, all delivered with a disarming ease. They’re the kind of tracks that have me zoomed in on Bandcamp lyrics, or rapping over a Titanic sample he’s tweaked out. It’s liberating, you should try it. There’s a lot of laughter here, but not the ironic kind. It’s the kind born of genuine awe, of being hit over the head with something at once familiar and wholly unexpected. I recommend getting battered.

So, it's been almost a decade since Vol. 1 came out.

Yeah, pretty much.

Very exciting. Congrats on Vol. 9.

The first single you released is called 2nd Wind. Does that have anything to do with the decade mark?

Thank you. I don't know. I hadn't really thought about that. (Laughs) Yeah, I think that can be thought of like that for sure.

You're from Massachusetts, right?

Yeah, I grew up on Cape Cod, so I’m definitely around the ocean a lot.

Can you sail?

I actually could not sail. I went out sailing one time. I had some friends in high school who were instructors for a kid's sailing camp, so we had access to the boats and took one out. But aside from that, I wasn't really in a sailing family.

Do you like the ocean?

Yeah, yeah. Totally.

How do you think your Vol. albums delineate from the other projects you’ve released?

I think it's almost just a way of naming them without putting too much emphasis on one idea or something. I feel like most of the projects that I've put out solo are these volumes. I've made a bunch of other records with other people that are called different things and I've put out a few projects that are called other things, but most of my releases have been these nine volume albums. And I feel like it's mostly just an easy way for people to know what order they're in.

Do you like to go back and listen to them? You have a massive body of work out.

Yeah, I feel like I do. Every now and then there'll be certain projects I kind of forget about for a while. It's hard for me to listen back to music I made a really long time ago, like from when I was in high school. It sort of cringes me out. But with the Lucy project, I still like how it sounds. I don't feel cringed out listening to stuff from 10 years ago, which is good. I'm glad that I feel like that because I think that means I'm doing something right.

Can you pinpoint the cringe?

When I listen back to stuff that isn't even out, stuff from when I was, I dunno, 14, 15, 16… Obviously no one knows really what they're talking about at that point.(laughs) I definitely listened back to music I was making in high school and I'm like, ‘why was I talking about this stuff?’ Also, I think I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to sound like and it's hard to listen to that process.

Would you say you're a nostalgic person?

Yeah, for sure. But not in a way where I want to relive the past or something.

[Laughs] Right. Do you have any particular artists you’re listening to or are there any other mediums that inspire you at this moment?

I don't know. Not really. I sort of feel like there was a bunch of music I listened to when I was, I don't know, in between 10 and 16 that sort of still feels influential. I'm always influenced by new things, but I don't really listen to as much music as I should. I'm working on music all the time, so I'm listening to all these different things I'm making. I used to listen to music with headphones, but I’ve overdone it a little bit [laughs]. I need to listen to less music or something.

I recently lost my headphones and just let that be a catalyst for me listening to not nearly as much music as usual. I miss it, but it’s nice to actively listen to your surroundings sometimes. And if you're not really taking a ton of outside influences in, it’s easier to deeply connect to yourself as a source. The Lucy projects and a lot of your other collaborations feel very immediately recognizable to me as you.

Yeah, it's true. I feel like also things are- at least for me- things I hear when I'm out and about definitely play a big role in ideas of stuff I make and things I want to make. Even if I’m at the grocery store, a lot of times I get inspiration to either sample something that I hear in a store or by the self-checkout sounds and stuff. There's so many funny little melodic things around.

You love the store.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot to learn at the store.

Your sound is persistent, and self-assured. I love it just as much as when I first encountered the earlier volumes a few years ago. I’d like to know more about your approach to songwriting and if it’s morphed over time?

Thank you. Yeah, a lot of the time I'll have a melody or some ten second vocal melody. Sometimes it doesn’t have words, but most of the time it’s a phrase I’m singing to myself. I'll just make a voice memo and then go to the piano and see how I can make it work. Most of the stuff that's not sample based music that I make is pretty much all written on the piano. And then on this new record, there's definitely a handful of songs that have samples in them. Usually with those, I'll be making the beat before I have an idea for what the vocals will do. Making beats with samples has been a lot more fun for me in the past few years and it's good. But I sort of hope to move along from that after this record and have it be more of my own compositions, not just beats with clips of old songs or whatever.

So this is probably not the most evolved version of your sound so far?

Yeah, I wouldn't say that. I feel like I've been sitting on some of these songs. Some of the ones on this album are almost three years old, and then some that are four months old as well. So there's a bunch of new stuff and there's a bunch of stuff that feels really old to me. I think there's 17 songs on it, and usually I put six or seven songs on a project. It feels sort of mixed tape-ish to me. I'm just so used to it and I've been sitting on it for so long that it's hard for me to think of it as evolved or something. Friends who I showed it to seem to think it's more cohesive than I thought it was, so that's good.

I almost didn’t notice that there were 17 songs on it. I really like that it’s a 30 minute listen. And I agree with your friends, I wouldn't have guessed that you made them across different timelines. It’s a cohesive purge.

Yeah, totally. I feel like it'll be good to get it out and kind of move along.

You use a lot of aphorisms and story-book style language in your lyrics. It’s all very sincere. I really love it, and I think that might be why I've had such an affinity for it for so long too. At the end of the day, it's dealing with those things that never really go away, take as old as time.

Yeah, thank you. That is what I'm always going for. I feel like there's never going to be a shortage of content about those kinds of topics.

Were you in love when you wrote a lot of these songs?

[Laughs] Yeah.

Yeah.

Probably, probably all of 'em in different ways. I don't know. I feel like I try to infuse the music with that. When I think of the songs on there, I feel like you can hear that energy in the happier songs. Then there's a bunch of sad songs, or songs that sound sad- to me. And I don't think I'm showing an in-love side on those, but I don't know. That's kind of a tricky question.

I hear that. It’s not that you’re specifically singing about love, but the melodies on a lot of your tracks kind of lift my heart in that certain type of way. It’s all clearly involved, and there’s humor in it. It puts me in this perfect mood, that comes with good communication. Even the sadder songs.

Alright- Easier question. What are you working on right now?

I guess things are feeling a little bit more chill right now than they’ve been, just because I think I have three projects finished. I have this solo record coming out, and then I have a record with the Taxidermist band that's done and going to come out in March. And this Safe Mind project record that’s also going to come out. So right now everything's lined up and I'm just sort of waiting.

And we wait.

Yeah, I'm excited to start on a new batch of music and try to…I don’t know. I feel like I need to be learning more than I'm learning right now. I want to take the next bunch of months to try to maybe learn something.

What do you want to learn?

I'm not quite sure. I want to learn some new skills. I should be reading more.

For some reason I assumed you read a lot.

I really don't. Honestly, I really enjoy it when I’m into it, but getting to that point isn’t always easy for me.

Right, makes sense. You’re working on a ton of music projects.

I mean, I'm definitely trying to continue to focus on music as much as I do now. I'm just in a position where everything's about to be a clean slate, it’s been a while since I’ve not had files that I keep going back to.

Do you like being outside?

I like being outside, yeah. I walk a ton.

Do you have a favorite walk you do?

There's this range in Western Mass called the Holyoke Range. There’s a bunch of different mountains, and I sort of bounce between a lot of them. I go hiking almost every day, and a lot of the hikes out there only take an hour or two. I feel like that's as consistent as music for me for my life in Massachusetts. I spend a lot of time outside.

Do you have a typical “day in the life” right now?

It's always different. I feel like I'm really bouncing around. I'm in New York now and I'm going to go back to Massachusetts, and then I have another show in New York on the 10th.

Oh really?

With another project, Club Casualties. It’s me and my friend Nick Atkinson. He's completely off grid. Never was on social media or smartphone or anything. And he's a producer, but he's on the mega outskirts of the scenes. We're opening for that group Kassie Krut. Then a couple days later, I’m coming back to New York to do another show with the Safe Mind project.

Lots of movement. Have you ever made a time capsule?

Yeah. When I was a kid, I did one.

What did you put in it?

I put my school picture and some little Legos or something. I just put a bunch of toys that I liked. At the time, it was in a peanut butter jar. I think it had one of those wallet size school pictures, and I don't know what else was in it. I feel like I put some little notes, but I dug a really deep hole because I was obsessed with that book Holes.

Legendary book.

Yeah. My dad was like, you can dig a hole in the yard if you want to. I really wanted to, and I wanted to make it the same depth as the ones in the book, which were, I think they were six by six foot holes. So I was out there with my neighbor digging for weeks, and then it was deeper than my head, and then I buried the capsule in there.

I'm obsessed with that. That's so cool.

Yeah. It was before the movie came out, but the trailer was out, and I think I was like, this looks really cool. But the book was a big inspo.

What would you put in a time capsule now?

Probably some, probably like a flash drive. I don't know. It's hard to know. I feel like lots of stuff is going to be obsolete, so it's sort of hard to know what would be good to leave in there.

Yeah, that's true.

[Laughs] But maybe a more contemporary school picture.

Sweet.