REVIEW: Gracie and Rachel -- Nowhere/Now Here

There are few things more intimate than creating art together. (I’m convinced that’s why we have so many couple duos: combine the heady intoxication of love and creative energy is a potent mix.) But what happens when, after nine years of creating together, you and your other half must split? Gracie and Rachel grapple with this question on their new EP, Nowhere/Now Here.

Gracie and Rachel are not a romantic pair, but they did live together for nine years. That intimacy is obvious in their organic, almost symbiotic pop music. The EP finds the pair moving away from their acoustic folk-inspired pop, exploring electronic sounds and a sense of spaciousness. “Call Away,” a reassuring track about finding unity in separation, exemplifies the pair’s sonic experimentation and themes as a woozy string sample anchors the pair’s rotating vocals and the insistent percussion.

The EP’s final track, “Selfish,” boasts the pair’s closest harmonies on the piece. The pair revel in finding space for themselves while committing to making their relationship grow, a celebration of chosen family and rooting for each other’s successes.

This is a bit left field for a country blog, to be sure, but Gracie and Rachel are firmly rooted in the essence of folk and roots music with a sharp ear for storytelling and an unrelenting commitment to truth. (You’ll also hear Gracie and Rachel on Righteous Babe labelmate Zoe Boekbinder’s recent single.) Amidst the pain of separation, the pair find a way to make the most out of it — and that’s country as fuck.

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