More Eaze & Claire Rousay: No Floor

The term ambient emo is one of the many modern-day examples of a new generation unafraid to smash genres together that were previously considered no go zones by those before them.

Once upon a time, those cynical gatekeepers of that particular realm wouldn’t have considered emo for much at all. Like punk and hardcore before it, though, emo possessed a youthful energy that to unlocked something in the mind for so many, and like all cycles, the genre is currently enjoying its own renaissance.

While exponents of this hybridisation of ambient-based composition, whether more eaze (a.k.a. Mari Maurice Rubio) and Claire Rousay bake emo into their latest collaboration release, no floor, is debatable. If anything, their latest blissful wanderings extend the boundaries of post-country Americana; that simple bending of a string, eclipsing the auto tune-based offerings that made Rousay’s 2024 LP, sentiment, one that really had no middle ground: you either loved it or you didn’t.

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More eaze has also dabbled in auto tune via the playfulness of psych-pop (also to varied results), but on no floor, alongside Rousay, the multi-instrumentalist harnesses the aesthetic of paris paris, texas texas – her excellent 2024 collaboration alongside Pardo and Glass – and the results are equally delightful.

Together, more eaze and Rousay strike a beguiling balance. A nostalgia where the listener is placed back in time. Through the lens of locality that also lands the pair back to where they met in San Antonio, Texas (more eaze, now based in New York; Rousay in Los Angeles), there’s great emotional pull throughout these five compositions. On opening gambit hopfields, Rousay’s gentle brush strokes across the strings create a breezy echo that evokes open, secluded space.

But not as some might think. While many city dwellers believe that living in regional areas is all about barren landscapes and dangerous reptiles, it’s the concept of urbanised enclaves that is lost. Those unfamiliar with the lay of the land and in need of a roadmap to reach it, and it’s here where more eaze and Rousay thrive.

Growing up in a similar surroundings, it’s the liminal space between rural life and town-based environments that creates an uncertainty and subconscious displacement. Not only does more eaze and Rousay find themselves in this space; it’s where they produce the best results, moving the markers originally set down by the likes of Susan Alcorn, Chuck Johnson, SUSS and Michael Grigoni.

Elsewhere, and kinda tropical sees more eaze and Rousay tinker with the kind of left-field sounds that are more like a communication between characters from a video game. But amid a backdrop of loops, field recordings and earthy guitar, it forms as a soothing sound collage of Americana that few others have made.

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It continues on the applebees outside kalamazoo, michigan, where the pair stretch Americana as wide as the state of Texas. With wispy, cosmic dreamscapes and the lonely hiss of night, while the likes of droneroom and Daniel Bachman have captured the more rustic elements of this, more eaze and Rousay frame it via looking down from the night sky.

And it’s where they remain. Limelight, illegally, orbital Americana that stitches together the keys, strings and various other sounds into something cathartic. Then there’s the sleepy-eyed closer, lowcountry. A composition that slowly unravels as more eaze’s violin sparkles at the strike of every note, illuminating that very night sky.

From such vantage points, more eaze and Rousay give us a panoramic view of Americana, and in doing so, produce their finest work with no floor. A blueprint for ambient-post country, conjuring up sounds that form emotive snapshots of the same open space that both artists have been inspired by. It’s as far down the reality tunnel as more eaze and Rousay have travelled, and the results are vivid.

No floor is out now via Thrill Jockey. Purchase from Bandcamp.