Eugene Marie

Found Sound

Now based in Brooklyn, songwriter Lucy Marie Horton grew up in Vancouver, Washington. She says she didn’t experience catcalling until she moved back East. 

Working with songwriting partner Spencer Eugene Stewart, Horton decided to work these catcalls into her electro-pop band Eugene Marie’s latest single, “Nice Smell.”

“All of those lyrics were catcalls in the city,” Horton explains. “I had to write it down.” And this process mimics how Stewart likes to work: basing his backing tracks off found-sound sources, such as the street harmonica player that gave inspiration for the new single. 

“I followed the same concept as ‘found sound,’” she adds, “but with ‘found lyrics,'” explaining other lyrical inspiration on the EP comes from random conversations with strangers.

Horton calls her band’s upcoming EP “very Brooklyn-based,” and the results, at times, recall a stripped-down version of the prog-pop meanderings from New York bands like Dirty Projectors.

And Horton says she and her songwriting partner realize electronic-based music isn’t always that interesting to watch performed live, so they place extra emphasis on lyrics and vocal melodies, rooting the music in an almost folksy place. 

“I think that’s where the accessibility comes in,” she says. “The lyrics and the melody are kind of like a folk song. But the electronic parts make you feel like you could dance to it.”

Eugene Marie comes to Eugene alongside dreamy and rising Portland indie rockers The Tamed West as well as Eugene’s own Snow White 9:30 pm Friday, June 23, at Sam Bond’s Garage; $7, 21-plus.