The New York City band Amiture Music makes fresh guitar music for 2026. In our interview, the band calls their latest single, “Memory Sequence,” their version of a power ballad. It recalls both anthemic post-grunge and more artful, crafty forms of rock damage. The song is one of many needles the band threads throughout their forthcoming self-titled debut record, where an angular rock language is deployed not in service of 90s nostalgia but rather something more elusive.
We recently sent some questions to the band, which was formed by songwriter Jack Whitescarver and features multi-instrumentalist Allie Wrubel and a powerhouse rhythm section of drummer Justin Fossella and bassist Max Beirne Shafer. Read our interview with the band and both listen to and watch the music video for “Memory Sequence” below. Amiture Music releases March 20th on Dots Per Inch Music.
Every song on your new record was started with the drums being tracked first. How did that inform the final product?
Amiture Music: We recorded everything with the musician Dan Howard in his home recording studio. The parameters of the space meant that we had to track drums and bass first before everything else. It came out of necessity but it ended up giving the drums an opportunity to be just as musical as any other instrument. Justin plays the drums like an opera singer sings. We really wanted them to sound pure and not too pornographic and produced.
We hear a bit of a Slint influence on this new record. Are we tripping?
Nobody in the band really listens to or thinks about Slint but they were a great band.
What is your relationship with the history of rock music? Has it changed over the years? Does it ever feel overwhelming?
Rock music is about timbre and meter. Those are the musical elements that get touched the most when all four of us play together. Rock music is truly modern. The history is still very young.
What is “Romance” about? How did that track come together?
Romance was a good experiment that happened during recording. We collaged a few bits and pieces that got recorded in between tracking the songs for the album, all these improvised elements feel dead and then you breathe life into them by bringing them together. It’s a cinematic song. It’s one of two songs on the album named after a film by Catherine Breillat.
Some of these songs dance around more conventional structural choices. Do you ever think you will write a power ballad?
“Memory Sequence” is our version of a power ballad. Our aim is to never betray the music. If we write a song that needs to be a power ballad we certainly won’t hold back.
Do you have any good vocal tracking stories you would like to share?
Jack had a sinus infection and his voice sounded absolutely fabulous because of it.
What NYC music has you excited right now?
Eliana Glass, Bella Litsa, anything touched by Dan Howard. Lou Salome. The solo music of Justin Fossella and Max Beirne Shafer. Open Head although they’re in Kingston. Isaac Eiger’s solo project Threshold.
I have a few hours to kill in Manhattan. What should I do?
Start at The Cloisters at the top of the island and then go to the very bottom at Spa 88. Have dinner at August Gatherings. See a movie at The Roxy—find Dillon Friend. Congrats you’ve spent $10,000.
Photo Credit: Kayhl Cooper
.png)
