Holy Wave, Triptides

In Ensenada, Mexico, where the Pacific horizon cuts a clean, unwavering line, Holy Wave recorded their latest full-length, I'm DADA, a record that feels both expansive and newly concentrated for the subterranean pop four-piece. Stepping outside the United States was less a retreat than a shift in perspective, creating distance to recognize a new sound that had been slowly taking shape among them. I'm DADA quickly revealed its character: more propulsive, more candid, and a more structurally deliberate work.

Working alongside experimental duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete at their studio El Derrumbe, the sessions folded community into the album, though its emotional core had already formed over months of pre-production. Half of Holy Wave is Mexican, with roots in the El Paso border region, so recording in Ensenada felt intuitive and relaxed. Joo Joo Ashworth, mixing engineer and longtime friend, also provided a pivotal presence, helping crystallize the album’s rhythmic language and subtly expanding the band’s sound. The songs began reflecting conversations about fatherhood and partnership, breakups and estrangement, the queasy acceleration of AI, and what it means to remain present and principled while the world lurches unpredictably forward.

This tension is not announced but absorbed into the music. Holy Wave stretches their familiar sense of woozy atmosphere into something leaner and more direct. There are more loops and samples woven throughout than before, grooves that feel constructed, cyclical, hypnotic. Some tracks drift toward dub’s elastic spaciousness; others pulse with cinematic downtempo gravity. There is a sense of momentum throughout the record, rhythms that pull forward, dream-saturated textures, sheets of fuzz, and softly suspended vocals.