In this spooky season where the days get shorter and the nights get longer and colder comes an apropos album from Bay Area trio Rainbow Girls. “Haunting,” self-released on Oct. 13. It’s “thematically and musically darker and heavier” than the band’s 2023 record, “Welcome To Whatever,” which came out just under a year ago.
“The songs on ‘Haunting’ deal with death, loss, trauma, astral projection and overcoming fears,” the band tells the Source Weekly. “These songs are meant for your spookier, more melancholic playlists — paired best with candlelight, the witching hour or a solo night drive where you can scream and cry along to the entire album.”
The threesome of Erin Chapin, Caitlin Gowdey and Vanessa May has been deftly blending their vocal harmonies for almost 15 years, and with “Haunting,” they aim to put the diversity of their prowess on display.
“The entire concept for this album came about from the word ‘haunting’ itself, which is the most common word people use when describing female harmonies,” Chapin says. “But what is it about female harmonies that make people want to describe them as ‘haunting’? They are powerful. And if a woman is powerful, then she must be a witch. She must be otherworldly or special, because a regular woman couldn’t possibly be powerful on her own. We are reclaiming ‘haunting’ as the adjective to describe our power — the power we find in reckoning with our trauma, grief, loss and fear.”
Over the course of 13 songs, the band’s spellbinding skills shine bright as they weave harmonies with pop panache on the standout single, “You Must Not Feel The Way I Do,” or front- porch folk flair with a John Prine twang (who they namecheck in the lyrics) on “How To Deal,” or an ethereal intro that explodes into anthemic rock riffs on “Subterranean Homesick Alien,” the Radiohead classic from the seminal “OK Computer,” before floating back down to earth before doing it all over again. There are fuzzy, electric blues on “Dead Ringer” and paranormal whispers on the album closer, “Goodnight Angel.”
“These songs are meant for your spookier, more melancholic playlists — paired best with candlelight, the witching hour or a solo night drive where you can scream and cry along to the entire album.”
—Rainbow Girls
“In recent years, the writing of a song has been a solitary practice. For this album, the lyrics and structure of each song were crafted individually,” May explains. “While most of the songs were presented as complete, there were a few instances in which we’d work together to further refine the form. Before we’d gone into the studio, we spent a week workshopping the material we were hoping to record.
“During that week, bridges were built, harmonies explored, verses were sometimes cut or rearranged. We wanted to work together to strengthen the songs, to present them in their most distilled form. Because most of these songs were new, most of them required a lot of co-composition in terms of instrumental parts. There was a lot of writing that happened in the studio.”
“This record, like many before it, was recorded in our home studio by engineer Jeremy Lyon featuring string arrangements by Chris Lynch (on ‘SMS To The Void’), Griffin Goldsmith and Trevor MeNear of Dawes (on ‘Paying My Tab’), and a band collaboration with hot brother (on ‘Spread Me Thin’),” the band says. Drummer Nick Cobbett also contributed to the album.
“With this project, we were given an opportunity to present our perspectives while actively exploring our shared creative capacity,” May says.
Rainbow Girls first dates sharing this new music will be this November in the Pacific Northwest with a stop at Sisters’ intimate venue, The Belfry, hosting a fog-filled, spectral evening on Friday, Nov. 8. The aforementioned Lyon, who “engineered, mixed and helped produce ‘Haunting,'” will open the night with a solo set.
“Jeremy is one of the backbones of our community,” the band says. “He is Dimed Records. He is creating the Sonoma Sound as he engineers and mixes many of the artists and bands in this musical community.” Also known as King Dream, Lyon “is an incredible singer/songwriter and shredder. He played on a bunch of the songs, and he’s coming on the road with us to help bring this record to life on stage.”
Rainbow Girls’ world is rich with collaborations, including recent features on Willy Tea Taylor’s excellent ’80s sendup, “’69 Malibu,” Goodnight, Texas’ countrified “Tough” or myriad tour dates with witty troubadour John Craigie, who’s based out of Portland.
“We are part of an expansive web of artists in the Bay Area,” the band explains. “Our home studio has been the birthplace of the last several Rainbow Girls records (‘American Dream,’ ‘Welcome To Whatever,’ ‘Rolling Dumpster Fire’), as well as John Craigie’s ‘Asterisk The Universe,’ Aviva le Fey’s ‘The Fool’ [and] Eric Long’s ‘Seadreamer,’ in addition to tracks by King Dream, hot brother, Caitlin Jemma, The Heeters, Daniel Steinbock and more.”
For those looking to eke a few more days out of this year’s Halloween season, experience how Rainbow Girls weave this vast musical network together in real life when Lyon and Cobbett help bring “Haunting” to life at The Belfry.
This article appears in Source Weekly October 24, 2024.
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