Herb Sundays 194: Chanel Beads

Shane Lavers’ knowing grin and trademark zip-up hoodie have a filmic quality. You can imagine his heel turn as that of an action-movie bad guy whose smile disappears abruptly after he clears an enamored customs agent.

The music of Chanel Beads (a “band,” but also him) is scene gold that successfully captures the feeling of “non-place” that has come to represent this decade, or Avant-Pop that accesses raw data from sources such as Hejira and rap and sophistipop, like that of ML Buch (Herb 101), to arrive at an approximation of the now.

One of the records that did that for me last decade, if not sonically, but in atmosphere, was Varg’s Nordic Flora Series Pt. 3: Gore-Tex City (2017), a tense train ride across a rainy Europe of the mind with stops at each zeitgeisty inflection. Both this and the two Chanel Beads albums capture their respective milieus so perfectly that you go back to them for clues about what will come next.

If there is no dominant sound of the 2020s, instead many sonic tableaus awash in signifiers, then the most successful artists can layer it on thick in whimsical brushstrokes that appear unified from afar, someone maybe like Oneohtrix Point Never, with whom Lavers shares a semi-regular collaborator Al Carlson, a wizard with mixing and sometimes production duties, a master of music with a depth of relief that is the beauty in itself; mouthfeel as leading attribute.

But staging is not enough to warrant all this praise; a big part of how it all works, apart from the tunes, is that the multiband EQ of romance, apathy, ennui, and urgency is set at just the right levels. You could look to Lavers’ status as a film school dropout for these clues, but it’s more likely a disposition of being deeply sincere and aching for recognition, without stepping beyond the lines of good taste.

I wrote “gossamer intensity” in my Apple Notes doc for this week's post, which I know is kinda trash, but I’ll run it since it works for describing the band. It's both pleasing music that can catch you off guard, and more beautiful than imagined, and sometimes as grating.

In interview mode, Lavers is somewhat non-elitist and lacks eagerness to prove himself in his references. Instead of leaning into the discourse, he gently bows out (Interview Mag: “What song feels the most post-internet?” SL: “Idk if I’m missing something I don’t know what this means?”). Listening to him with the How Long Gone hosts Chris Black and Jason Stewart (Herb 63 and Herb 64), few clues are given about his idea of craft, maybe just allusions to liking Metallica’s St. Anger, which are quickly dashed. Semi-strong opinions, barely held.

It’s not an inherent aloofness, though; he seems to have a solid sense for what the project is about: “A lot of the inspiration for my music comes from those fleeting moments when you have a surge of confidence, a eureka moment, and you can tie your worldview into a neat little bow. Then, a second later, you’re like, ‘Oh no! That doesn’t make any sense.’ It all falls apart immediately,” Lavers told Crack Magazine in 2024.

Maya McGrory is Lavers’ partner and one of the two core non-Lavers Chanel Beads people (alongside the brilliant Touch-released artist Zachary Paul). She also records music as Colle which has been described by Kieran Press-Reynolds as a “kind of idle reminiscing” or the sound of “coming home to your parents’ place [that] can make all your teenage habits and memories surge back up.”

In a clip from an older Ion Pack podcast I checked, Lavers clocks McGrory as sort of the one to please in the unit, a standard bearer who encouraged Lavers to leave Seattle for New York to push it further. She is also a key figure in the project's visual identity, which in itself acts as a fifth Beatle, so to speak.

Harry Tafoya’s feature for The Guardian has Lavers saying: “Maya and I got our spiritual and psychic armor built and strong,” Lavers says, “and I think the best part of our collaboration and relationship is just being able to … help me repair and fortify that psychic armor, and vice versa.”

The piece continues: “Lyrically, his songwriting gathers around an unstable emotional core that is so dense in its unspoken feeling that it manages to achieve an aching kind of orbit.… But it’s his knack for writing massive, anthemic hooks that has given the band considerable attention in the world of mainstream pop. Billie Eilish has shouted out Chanel Beads, Rosalía has posted their music, and last year they played as an opening act on Lorde’s Ultrasound world tour.”

But it’s also just the randomness in a perhaps overly professional industry at the moment, which gives the project its appeal. Sorry to my friends at Jagjaguwar for the admin challenges, but releasing two records in a row with the same exact name is objectively awesome. A Peter Gabriel-level of obfuscation, which makes their album reviews feel oddly evergreen.

Sometimes Lavers lets his mellow slip, and a relatable despair looms over the ouevre. From a Talkhouse piece: [Shane: “But also, even the context of, ‘what has cultural impact?’ I don’t really give a shit. I’ve really been trying to be less of a cultural critic.”]

Shane: …in 200 years, they’re not going to be giving a shit about anything that’s happening today, they’re only going to be caring about the Beatles. I feel like there was a window of time — and this is kind of a paranoia, I’m-worried-about thing — but I feel like the window is closed.

Isaac: Oh, and that there’s no more culture? Culture is just done?

Shane: Yeah.

Isaac: I think that’s just depressing, honestly. I don’t think that things happening now are less significant. I mean, I definitely feel that impulse, like, None of this shit matters, only things made before 2000 mattered. But I think that’s just getting used to the air you’re breathing, basically, and being like, No, this matters. But maybe you’re also right. I have no idea. But, OK, let’s say 500 years — I just mean, even the things that mattered the most will go away entirely. And that’s just crazy. But everybody’s fighting and groveling so hard for their little thing, and it just doesn’t matter. It’s not going to matter at all.

Only someone, or a crew in fact, who cares so desperately, but is also aware of art’s would-be futility, can make something truly beautiful in this lane. This is what the era demands: Self-awareness as a non-negotiable, but not at the expense of rapture.

Sophie Kemp’s review of the last Chanel album sums it all up nicely:

“More than anything else, Your Day Will Come is cool because it’s a good hang. Like you’re sitting shotgun in the car of someone you have a crush on and you’re taking turns being DJ. Like: you are riding your bike and you are a little bit drunk and it is 90 degrees so you’re wearing a rash guard because baby, you burn easily. It seems to say: to give one shit, to care about your art, to maybe even be a little funny about it, is it so uncool?”

Catch Chanel Beads on global tour this year with Herbal support from artists like Urika’s Bedroom (Herb 132) and Car Culture (Herb 188).

Bonus Beat:

• The album opener for Haruomi Hosono’s Yours Sincerely (Ghostly, GI-499) arrived on his birthday this week as “Note of Mothership.” Tickets are on sale for his two US dates at The Greek and Radio City Music Hall. Ghostly site and Bandcamp exclusive pre-order deluxe editions of the vinyl/CD are now available.