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Sep 25, 2024 Web Exclusive By Marina Malin

When you hear a band like Water From Your Eyes, whose 2023’s Everyone’s Crushed rejects all tradition and conventional song structure, seemingly drawing inspiration from juvenile thoughts and city soundscapes, is covering Al Green and Adele, among others, in an all cover EP, you strap your seatbelt and prepare for a minorly threatening tumultuous ride of everlasting unexpected detours.

Since Everyone’s Crushed, Water From Your Eyes (aka the duo of Nate Amos and Rachel Brown) have seemingly adopted a “how can we push this as far as possible and then push beyond that” approach to their outrageous sound, demonstrating a level of absolute creative liberation. However, MP3 Player 1 falls short as it lacks their typically assured vision and absurdist technical work. The artist lineup is eclectic and may add to your initial reservations of the EP. If you were to put Chumbawamba, Adele, Al Green, and Third Eye Blind in a room together, it’s hard to imagine what they would pick each other’s brains about. There’s no common ground or cohesion, but that is not entirely the point. The level of randomness speaks to Water From Your Eyes’ obscure multigenerational muses.

Water From Your Eyes’ “Someone Like You” strips down the passion of Adele’s vocals to emotionless lyrics that make you uncomfortable as each memento of Adele’s desperate love loses meaning when coming from Brown. Though despite a dreadful sound, the track features the most exciting and humorous element in the entire EP: Amos subtly faded vocals of Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi” at odds with “Someone Like You,” filling in for an annoying little brother trying to slyly steal the spotlight. When your ear recognizes Lavigne, it is impossible not to laugh, creating the climax of the project’s entirety. The Lavigne embellishment demonstrates pure play, and doing something for kicks over rhyme or reasoning.

Brown can’t quite fit the power pose as Chumbawamba’s Dunstan Bruce in “The Good Ship Lifestyle” and fails to embody the sentiment or hit notes as Al Green does in “Tired of Being Alone.” By the time “Motorcycle Drive By” comes along you get tired of the 2000s Youtube parody sound the MP3 Player 1 evokes.

Though the distance between the four original artists couldn’t be more apparent, each track operates off the same formula and are strung together by Water From Your Eyes’ quirked-up aloof tone and predictable instrumentals, making it unclear if they are poking fun at the artists. The songs were clearly chosen for their own amusement, rather than for what they thought they’d musically succeed at. The restraint of showing off in this EP is a turn from the previously pretentious and protective Everyone’s Crushed.

Rather than using their abrasive sonic abilities to dilute the covers to insanity, Water From Your Eyes stay in their own lane, deliberately remaining underwhelming. The general indifference mythologized in the EP adds a sarcastic, yet modest spin. The duo does not add anything more than what the tracks already represent.
The EP’s strength is in its element of play. MP3 Player 1 is a reflection of creating what you want to create, and not succumbing to ideas of exceptionalism or perfectionism. In turn, the EP is not meant to sound “good,” but their detachment to the outcome is exactly what makes it so good. Water From Your Eyes are challenging the notion of covers and more largely, the process of making music; maybe we don’t need them to be extraordinary or prove their uniqueness, maybe artists can just have fun and exist as is. While it may be a hard listen to get through, conceptually MP3 Player 1 is the perfect exemplar for how approaching creative endeavors should go: playful and for kicks. (www.waterfromyoureyes.com)

Author rating: 7.5/10