underscores

The music of April Harper Grey, known professionally as Underscores, is difficult to characterize. Initially posting dubstep-influenced music online as a teenager, she later expanded Underscores into a hyperpop-influenced project, chopping up genres on her debut album Fishmonger (2021), which featured tracks like “Your Favorite Sidekick” and “Spoiled Little Brat.” Her 2023 album Wallsocket, featuring streaming favorites like “Locals (Girls Like Us)” and “Cops and Robbers,” was an intricate concept piece about small-town America, marketed with a highly detailed internet rollout. The San Francisco-raised Grey had an upbringing punctuated by widespread creativity. She enjoyed creative writing and video editing, running a channel devoted to the popular video game Minecraft. Her formative influences included artists included Madonna, Jack White, and Beck, and she was a self-described band geek in high school. As a teen, she was exposed to Skrillex’s Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites, which gave her a gateway to making EDM-inspired music of her own. Her first EP, 2016’s Air Freshener, was primarily instrumental, while her 2018 follow-up, Skin Purifying Treatment, added jazz influences and original lyrics. Two more EPs, 2019’s We Never Got Strawberry Cake (which Grey later called one of the works she was most proud of) and 2020’s Character Development, soon followed. During this period, she also released music as part of the electronic outfit Six Impala and the bedroom pop collective Papaya & Friends. Grey’s work as Underscores reached a wider audience in 2021 with the release of Fishmonger and its companion EP Boneyard aka Fearmonger. Grey began turning more toward hyperpop and pop-punk with these efforts, adding glitchy electronic beats to crunchy guitars and pitch-shifted vocals. The releases earned praise from artists like blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Danish producer Lido, and Grey scored a gig opening for alt-pop duo 100 gecs. In 2023, Underscores released Wallsocket, an ambitious concept album about coming of age in a fictional Michigan town. Grey wrote all the songs acoustically before fusing the LP’s diverse sonic threads, taking inspiration from rock, hyperpop, alt-country, and folk songs. She promoted the album with a sprawling ARG (alternate reality game), encouraging fans to seek out information about the album, its themes and storylines, through specially created websites. ~ Mike Duquette