Routine - And Other Things (2020)

Annie Truscott, bassist for Chastity Belt, and her partner, Melina Duterte, better known as Jay Som, were staying in Joshua Tree during a pandemic lockdown when they started their own music collaboration. Dubbing themselves Routine, the resulting five-song EP And Other Things features Truscott's songs and lead vocals with Duterte acting as secondary accompanist in a reversal of their roles with their main gigs. Duterte also lent her production and recording skills to the project. Bearing some resemblance to the dreamy, reflective nature of both Chastity Belt and Jay Som, without reproducing them, Routine's sound is more languid and lost in thought, with consistently sauntering tempos and distracted deliveries throughout. It opens with the lush, country-tinged drawl musically speaking of "Cady Road," a song appropriately about patience, hikes in the desert, and checking in with far-away friends. Its fiddles, banjo, and steel guitar tones seep through washes of chiming, strummed guitar and a strong, supportive bassline. Like a more pastoral Cocteau Twins, "Numb Enough" is up next, offering a still hazier, jangly sonic landscape as it asks, "How does it feel to be so bored?" and "Do you even care at all?" Only minor shifts are revealed as the ruminating track list progresses, including the relatively spare, acoustic first half of closer "Calm and Collected," though it eventually gains a dense texture as well. While each track is subtly catchy, the songs are less of note taken separately than together, as And Other Things' main takeaway is its loyalty to an enveloping atmosphere and mental state one that's more likely to carry listeners away the longer they stay.