The Olympia, Washington musician Ben Funkhouser, better known as fish narc, is a key member of GothBoiClique, the storied emo-rap crew. He was one of the late GBC leader Lil Peep’s go-to producers, and he’s done a lot of work across genres, including collaborations with late post-punker the Soft Moon. Over the years, fish narc has self-released some solo albums, and he caught the attention of Calvin Johnson, leader of Olympia indie institutions like Beat Happening and K Records. Now, fish narc has joined the K Records roster, and he’ll release a new solo album called frog song early next year.
On frog song, fish narc dives deep into the ’90s lo-fi aesthetic that essentially defines the K Records legacy. Today, he’s shared the gooey album opener “my ceiling,” a guitar-rock zone out with subtle shades of Auto-Tune and SoundCloud-rap cadences, as well as a blazing out-of-nowhere guitar solo. The song seems to occupy a middle ground between Mount Eerie and Lil Peep, and it also kind of shows that those two artists were never all that far apart. Here’s what fish narc says about it:
This song is about my girlfriend, Emma. She plays bass in the fish narc live band, and we rock together. The lightness she inspires in me is a gift, and this song is a tiny reflection of that. I was hanging out in NYC with keyblayde808 and remghost at a studio where we made the instrumental without much thought. The song came together so quickly that we decided to perform it on tour the following month. I loved seeing people fake sing along, or actually catch it by the last hook, and I took this to mean it was a banger.
Below, check out “my ceiling” and the frog song tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 “my ceiling”
02 “return to flames”
03 “boxy volvo”
04 “old band”
05 “crystal ball”
06 “can you really ever know?”
07 “cluefinder”
08 “interstate”
09 “never better”
10 “gas station”
11 “blueberry”
12 “disregulated”
frog song is out 2/14 on K Records.
