The interior artwork for Gypsum’s self-titled debut features a pinhole solargraph taken by drummer Jessy Reed. Long exposures, explains Reed, are “a nod to the way in which the band has moved slowly over time to create this complete work.” Rounded out by guitarists and vocalists Sapphire Jewell and Anna Arboles, and featuring all three members on backing vocals, Gypsum is a synergistic exercise in collectivist arrangement, dissolving artistic ego into cooperativity. Jewell and Arboles’ voices blend with atomic affinity, rich alto leads encircled by hazily imploring harmony stacks. Reed, whose interest in Brazillian polyrhythms and Latin percussion inflect her performance, navigates twisting song structures with otherworldly fills. The guitarists’ lifelong love of riot grrl and grunge inform the dynamic builds of their intricate fretwork; as a group, Gypsum cites genre-hopping jazz and punk as influences. If it sounds like a science experiment, its three members view it that way too. Gypsum got its name after a band field trip to the L.A. Natural History Museum. A rock that takes both functional and vibrational forms—desert rose crystal, drywall—aligned with the possibilities of the project, which takes its members outside of insular writing and into an ecstatic commitment to the songs and one another. Gypsum formed as a weekly jam session in 2014 while Jewell, Arboles and Reed were music students in need of an outlet outside the confines of their respective curriculums. At first, the band elaborated around song motifs brought by Jewell - like on the song “Give It,” with its mesmerizing hi-hat work and chasmic, stop-and-start waves of Sleater-Kinney-esque guitar interplay. But that process gave way to holism: “Lungs” showcases the band at its most collaborative with outer space riffs and feedback cacophonously coalescing over sophisticated snare patterns. Arboles brought songs in, too, like “Snow White,” where reverberating gasps paint eerie strokes around stutter-climb guitar transitions. Jewell sums it up deftly: “Many bands figure out a system that works for them, but for us it's different every time. I like that no matter where one of our songs originates it ends up feeling like a Gypsum song.” 

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Genre: Alternative / Indie Rock / Post Rock 

RIYL: The Sea and Cake, Warpaint, DIIV, Sleater-Kinney