carwash, the emo-tinged DIY pop project of 20-year-old multi-instrumentalist and multi-disciplinary artist Garrett Seamans, today announces the release of his debut EP, soap water, due out September 17th, and shares his latest single, “racetrack“. Following lead single, “boyfriend, girlfriend“, “racetrack” is the second track previewed off of the forthcoming EP continuing to build on the success of carwash’s early singles, including the viral “striptease” (15M+ streams). LISTEN HERE.

Across an audio-visual universe of multiple sounds and personas, the creativity of San Diego-based artist Garrett Seamans runs freely, hardly reined in by notions of genre or medium. Unfettered, escapist experimentation is the rule; vulnerability is the constant. From the alt-pop blankets of Postcard Boy to the comparatively guitar-forward carwash and the whimsical videos he releases under his YouTube channel, phylm, this ethos is what tethers all of Garrett’s myriad projects together. Away from the pursuits of his other projects, the music Seamans creates as carwash is influenced in part but not limited to: emo and indie rock of the ‘90s and the early aughts, sunrises spent on the San Diego coast, his cinematographic work, high school romance, the need for a language more accessible than words themselves. 

Of “racetrack” he shares: “There is an unspoken, very special bond about being able to waste time with someone. ‘racetrack’ is about that connection, a friendship where you can do absolutely nothing all day, but feel so comforted, so at ease. I spent so many days lying around my friends’ rooms trying to figure out something to do. We always eventually hop in the car and lap neighborhoods, driving in circles. That’s where the title ‘racetrack’ comes from, laps and laps around the same streets. While at the surface it seems so mundane, driving around has become the space where conversation naturally reveals itself. We become more vulnerable. We choose the music we want to hear, we show each other albums the other hasn’t heard, we stall the world”.

Composed of strummed, raw-mic’d acoustic guitar, Seamans’ half-murmured multitrack vocals and ghostly instrumentation and samples lingering and swelling in the background, “racetrack” paints this unhurried, unspoken intimacy in lo-fi tones reminiscent of Alex G. With its uncluttered, plainspoken, natural construction, the directness, and honesty of Seamans’ lyricism shine through ‘”racetrack“, as questions of aim, purpose and meaning in life intrude on his mindset before they are kept at bay through the serenity of routine and the solace of others’ company, even if only for the moment. “racetrack” is much like the cars and friendships that Seamans’ sings of a self-contained, timeless vacuum of a song, a safer space, where everything else stops and the noises of the outside recede.  

Chronicling the transformation of close relationship into young love, soap water was born during the seemingly endless, listless hours of lockdown-induced monotony: a cycle of wake, record, aimlessly plod around the neighborhood, record some more, and repeat that produced a cache of demos originally intended for Seamans’ ears only, for his own amusement and sanity as he whiled away the hours. The five tracks collected on soap water give a soundtrack to these two peculiar periods of life – the pandemic and adolescence; each of them ache acutely with the missing presence of human connection and yearn nostalgically for simpler times, looking to both the past and the future, as Seamans imparts stories of navigating life via friendship and his lyricism bristles with the uncertainty of an ambiguous future. 

Accompanied by a short film co-directed by Seamans and an old friend, soap water: the movie brings the narrative push and cinematic soundscapes of carwash’s debut EP to poignant visual life, due to be released shortly following the EP and premiered at an independent San Diego cinema, one of Seamans’ favorite haunts growing up. Written as a hangout movie, the short film zeroes in on one day in the life of a teenager who yearns desperately for his first kiss, capturing the fragile, fleeting moments of adolescence, where carefree abandon collides with the impending obligations of dawning adulthood, soundtracked by the music of carwash.  

“racetrack” by carwash is out now, buy/stream it here
pre-order soap water here

soap water tracklist
1. friendship
2. a big tree in a giant green field
3. racetrack
4. boyfriend, girlfriend
5. at least i lived it with you

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