Whitney - Spark (Milky White Vinyl)

Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek could hear the staggering differences in the songs theywere writing for their third album as Whitney, SPARK—the buoyant drum loops, the effortlessfalsetto hooks, the coruscant keyboard lines. They suddenly sounded like a band reimagined,their once-ramshackle folk-pop now brimming with unprecedented gusto and sheen. Butcould they see it, too?So in the ad hoc studio the Chicago duo built in the living room of their rented Portlandbungalow, a shared 2020 escape hatch amid breakups and lockdowns, Julien and Max decidedto find out. Somewhere between midnight and dawn every night, their brains refracted bythe late hour and light psychedelics, they’d play their latest creations while a hardware storedisco ball spun overhead and slowed-down music videos from megastars spooled silently onYouTube. Did their own pop songs—so much more immediate and modern than their hazyorigins—fit such big-budget reels? “We’d come to the conclusion we weren’t going to be filmingSup