April + VISTA are on the rise

“We met the way all modern duos meet, on SoundCloud,” the pair tell me. “Not anymore!” George corrects, as they nostalgically comment on “the good old days” of bonding over the music-sharing platform.

“April found my work through a mutual friend of ours at school, and recommended that we work together,” Thompson continues. “So April reached out to me via message, and we linked up in the city to talk music.” 

George and Thompson can recall the exact location, down to the street name, of their very first in-person meeting. They tell me that the process of coming together was something organic. Thompson likens it to the experience of catching up with an old friend. They found that they shared the same interests, the same taste in music (notably bonding over MF Doom, Flying Lotus, and trip-hop), and even the same beer — Pilsner — which Thompson notes that he now hates. "My tastes have changed,” he laughs. 

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But what hasn’t changed is their artistic synergy. It compelled them to take the plunge and start recording together just a week after that meeting, and saw them go all in on their first project as April + VISTA, a six-track EP titled Lanterns, released in 2015. “We wasted no time,” George reflects. “We just hit the ground running.” 

With George being from Virginia Beach and Thompson from Prince George's County, Maryland, George acknowledges Thompson as her “gate” into the DMV DIY music scene, which sprawls across Washington DC, suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia. 

"Growing up there, there wasn't as much of a music scene as there was a lot of musical education,” George explains of her experience in Virginia Beach. “My background was split between learning strings in school. I started in fourth grade, and then I practised in church, which is where I learned how to compose music, play with a band, sing with a choir, and learn different techniques. So my understanding of music was very rigorous and structured, and I always felt like the odd one out because I wanted to play with feeling. I felt at war with what I wanted to do and what I was taught to do.”

After finishing college, where she played in the symphony and orchestra, George explains that by that point, she hadn't even considered music as a viable path. “I wasn’t really thinking that music was going to be a profession for me because I didn’t really fit in the classical scene,” she says. I didn’t have an understanding of where I could even go.”

It wasn’t until George got landed her first job out of college that she realised that actually, music was her only option. She couldn’t mould to a corporate environment, explaining that sitting at a desk, thinking about marketing and KPIs was a direction she couldn’t see herself pursuing. “When we met, I was like, ‘I’ve got to make music work. It’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s the only thing that I feel free doing, and I would like to express myself.”

It was through joining forces with Thompson and tapping into the broader DIY scene that George could finally see that vision of being a musician. "They kind of adopted me and taught me everything I needed to know," she says, with a sense of gratitude present in her reflection. 

“I’m super proud of the scene that I grew up in,” Thompson continues, speaking of his background in PG County. “And we carry that DIY spirit with us. Everything that we've learned about navigating local music culture, finding our own voices and creating something unique was inspired by our favourite bands and the local music culture. That's what it was all about, doing something completely your own.” 

With that ethos in mind, the pair have built upon the momentum they established early on with a slew of EPs, including You Are Here, released in 2018 and Pit of My Dreams, released in 2021, which was followed by a live EP and two remix collections. Now, they’re gearing up to release their debut album, Traditional Noise — a collection embodying the rich soul, alt-pop, rock, electronic, and R&B-inspired sound that they have crafted over the past several years. 

The album, made with collaborators including producer Tony Kill and drummer Bradley “Foots” McDonald, was predominantly recorded and performed by the pair in their own home, with George composing her own string arrangements throughout. They describe their first full-length work as a labour of love, but ultimately one that they had fun making. As they juggle full-time jobs with their musical practice, they observe the beauty of how living their day-to-day lives shaped Traditional Noise. 

“I think we took a little longer on this project than we did any of the other ones because we wanted things to flow,” Thompson notes. We wanted to live life, and we wanted to just enjoy the process.”

“Living life is so important,” George adds. “You have to interact with people who aren’t in the music scene. Before the pandemic broke out, I would commute to work and a lot of my lyrics were written during my lunch break, or in a meeting when I wasn't paying attention,” she laughs. “But all of those experiences of having to connect with friends, family, random people on the street, all of that shapes our worldview as artists and gives us a lot more insight.”

This was a necessary core for an album dealing on which many of the songs address the impact of capitalism on the human experience, as George says, referencing the album track “Bless My Heart” featuring Tony Kill. “Spinning underneath the heavy hand of capitalism, how do I still live a full life?” The song carries a sense of paranoia and disarray in a looming, low bassline, a percussive groove that feels like time ticking away before you can catch up, and the occasional sharp riff that cuts through the repetition of “Lost myself there, bless my heart”. 

It’s the most overtly dark preview of the album in sound and lyricism, while elsewhere, the instrumentation is smoother and more delicate with George’s vocals as a robust focal point. “Love Unspent” and “Grotto” are built on trip-hop rhythms, while “Standing in Place”, which the pair observe as a “final goodbye” to their past selves as they continue to evolve, plays with a more fluid, improvisational flow. 

Each track was selected with intention as a starting point to the album, as the pair note that they have struggled with being pigeonholed into the alt-R&B category, namely as black artists who feel the inevitable influence of what George describes as “an invisible, but very strong gravitational pull” towards R&B and hip-hop. 

"We both thought that it would be very important for people to understand that these are our roots, and that’s something we're very proud of having," George clarifies. "These are our roots, and that's something that we’re very proud of having. We can't erase the voices and sounds that raised us. But we can also make so much more.”

Traditional Noise is a snapshot in time for April + VISTA. It’s even represented by the album’s artwork, which is a photo of a fossil that they took themselves, they reveal. "We want people to understand that the album is a fossilised representation of who we are as artists,” the pair agree. “When people listen to the record, we want them to be thinking of it as a proper introduction to who we are creatively. But we also want people to feel invited to slow down, really think about who they are in the world and in relation to their communities.”

While the pair wanted some elements of the album to be challenging, they also wanted it to be warm and rooted in feeling and nostalgia to ensure accessibility, allowing listeners to "glue themselves back together” to resolve a sense of disconnect that can emerge from years of working in autopilot just to survive. And ultimately, it's a work that checks all of their boxes. While the record is inspired by living life, it also holds open space to soundtrack day-to-day moments big and small — whether it be feeling your emotions, or cooking a hamburger, as Thompson relates to his own experience of listening to Stereolab’s “Brakhage” while cooking burgers. “That's always been a comfort song for me, and I've always wanted to make something that allows someone to have a similar experience,” he muses. 

While George and Thompson recognise the importance of tackling such pressing and widespread topics such as social structures and politics, they realistically ground themselves in the understanding that it's not up to them to save the world, but they do have a voice that they can use. 

“I just feel like it's so important as artists to address politics in your art," George affirms. “You can make protest music. You can really get into the nitty-gritty. But you can also make music that just allows people to stop where they are, feel the emotions that they're feeling, and process them. That can be revolutionary in itself.” 

Looking back at a creative partnership that’s stood the test of time, I ask George and Thompson how they managed to stay inspired and work up to their debut across all of these years. “Prayers,” is what George tells me jokingly. But throughout our conversation, it feels that the music is simply fated, able to stand seamlessly on their connection and understanding of one another. And practically, the development of their skill sets over the years allowed them to fully realise Traditional Noise as something that they could be proud of as artists who keep getting better. 

“A lot of the album is ideas that we’ve attempted in prior projects, but now we've got the skills to commit to it fully,” Thompson explains. “We're just really proud that we were able to push it out.”

“I just view this as our biggest accomplishment,” George adds. “What would we be doing if we weren’t making music together?”