Brooklyn's Water From Your Eyes have really made a name for themselves. The duo comprised of Nate Amos (who had a breakout 2024 with side project This Is Lorelei) and Rachel Brown (who also releases music under the moniker Thanks For Coming) present themselves in a humble and understated fashion despite how audacious and daring their music sounds. While 2023's Everyone's Crushed made them a bonafide act to watch, It's A Beautiful Place, out today via Matador records, will likely send them over the top.

It's a Beautiful Place continues the duo's stellar run of experimental rock, with Brown and Amos delivering poignant political statements that only pack a punch if you're actively listening for them. They're disillusioned, but allowing themselves to dance under the weight of it all.

I talked to the pair over zoom last week to discuss the record, which also delved into a discussion of an Airbnb horror story and why Chicago is the greatest city in the world.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Leah from TND: The first time I heard the record was kind of on a passive listen, and my ears were generally pretty drawn to the instrumentation because that's kind of what ends up popping out at you first, as opposed to the lyrics. Audibly, [the lyrics] are not the focus point because of Rachel's delivery. What's the intention behind that being the sonic layout of the record? 

Nate: I think for me it's kind of a rock music vs pop music thing. You know, it's a combination of different things. So by the time the lyrics are written and the vocals are recorded, all the music is done. The nature of that sort of process is that the vocals end up fitting into everything that already exists, rather than things being built around the vocals, which just kind of lends itself to that sort of balance, I guess. Tt's not really an intentional thing. It's just kind of an artifact of the method. 

Does Nate write around what Rachel brings in? Or is that vice versa?

Nate: It all starts with the music. I feel like that's how a lot of rock music works, where it's kind of like the music exists first and then the vocals are kind of built to accommodate the music rather than the other way around. And again, you know, part of it is method, but again also like you mentioned it's part delivery. The contrast between the really aggressively present music and the detached vocal performance is part of what make both things pop the way they do conceptually. 

Did you intend for this record to be as inherently political as it is going into it, or is that just kind of like what ended up being top of mind and what ended up lending itself to these instrumentals? 

Rachel: I wish it could be positive. I wanted it to be less nihilistic than the last record just because you can't really expect change if we don't have hope. The lyrics are meant to be somewhat abstract. The way that the writing works is like a lot of times, there's already syllables. It's never meant to be too on the nose. But I mean, I can't really imagine writing music that's not somewhat politically charged in this day and age. I mean, it's impossible to separate yourself and your life and what's happening across the world. I mean obviously it affects people to a different degree and we're pretty lucky that I'm not going to be affected by a lot of what's going on. But to say that all of these things happening doesn't weigh on your soul – I think if people don't think that way, they're just not weighing their souls.

One of the songs with lyrics that I was having a bit of a a harder time parsing was "Nights in Armor". What exactly are you trying to communicate with a song like that? 

Rachel: That song is funny, because they're already lyrics that we wrote for it like 3 years ago. And then we just never released it. So when we brought it back we just changed some of the words. I feel like none of the songs are really meant to communicate any particular idea, it's more just like a feeling. I guess it's less about understanding and more about intuitively feeling. The idea is like, you're kind of fighting for a better future in some way. But the middle part, where it's just me speaking and it's like "gold rush," those are literally lyrics just from "After the Gold Rush".

Nate: We have an existing tradition of involving Neil Young in things. 

Rachel: Yeah, that's "Nights in Armor" also, taken from the lyric at the beginning of "After the Gold Rush". That song was funny because it's from an existing song which I guess was technically a love song originally. 

Nate: The first version was just called "Love Song". I think we both just had crushes when we made ["Nights in Armor"].

Rachel: Yeah that's real. When we revisited it we kind of made it less about an individual experience and more vague, then also just added in references to Neil Young. 

Were there any other artists or records that were influential in making this album? 

Nate: I think the song "Life Signs"– the way it ended up being put together was kind of inspired by "Around the World" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was a bunch of separate parts that I wanted to slam together and wasn't sure how, so I kind of looked to that song. "Around the World" is kind of remarkable because it's a couple different ideas that feel very separate but operate together seamlessly in a way that almost feels like, 0n paper, it doesn't really seem like it should work. But then it works beautifully. I think a lot of the time the goal for this project is to try and do things specifically in a way that we haven't directly observed somewhere else, unless it's very intentional. So, if we are like looking somewhere else for inspiration, there's kind of a conceptual reason as to why we're looking to that particular place. 

Rachel: I just pulled up the lyrics to "The Leanover" by Life Without Buildings when I was writing the lyrics to "Playing Classics". The only thing that really made it in there was "contact contact". Also, I guess I was just thinking about Brat.

In what way? 

Rachel: It was Brat summer. It's a dance song. I was thinking about the song "Club Classics", that's kind of why it's called "Playing Classics". I mean, even with "The Leanover", I pulled up the lyrics and I was listening to it. I feel like it didn't really have that much effect? I think sometimes it's nice to just look at other material and to think about other material but not in like "I want to make this" way and more like a "I like this song" and I want to translate how I feel about this song and how much I like it into our song... just like in a spiritual way. 

Nate: In a vibe way. 

Rachel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like trying to take the vibe of the song. I love the vibe of "The Leanover".

Nate: Plagiarizing the vibe. 

Vibe plagiarism?

Rachel: Yeah, exactly. 

I'm finishing up a music business degree, and one of the first handful of classes we took was about copyright law. One of the things they drilled into our head was "you can't copyright a vibe" because there were so many lawsuits that tried to claim as such, and they all just kept getting struck down. 

Nate: Well, because no one's inventing a vibe. There are only so many. It's the same way you can't copyright a chord pattern because there are only so many chord patterns. 90% of popular music, or probably more than that, is the same chord pattern and the same tempo. I feel like everyone is just subconsciously influenced by everything they're exposed to anyway.

I don't know if there's really such a thing as an original idea in music, so if you begin to go into vibe copyright, I feel like that's a slippery slope. And then there's just no new music to make. 

Yeah, I mean, also just in terms of like legal jargon, it's not something that can be like tangibly defined. 

Nate: Yes. 

I also wanted to ask about Rachel playing for the "Indie Rockers for Zohran" event. I wanted to ask about what the process of getting that event together looked like. 

Rachel: My friend Charlie was pretty instrumental in DIY music and he was my first music friend in New York when I was visiting colleges. I was still in high school and living in Chicago when he and I met. He just texted me and was like, "Do you wanna help me with this benefit fundraising show?" and I was like, "What do you need help with?" He said, "You can do anything, if you want to play." His brother is in DSA and said something about how the end of August, beginning of September is a really good time to get people back into thinking about the election and raising money. And then I don't know what happened, but this was supposed t0 be one show and then it ended up being four shows. God knows what reason.

Seven years ago, I said I would never book another show, so the fact that I just booked this is astounding to me because it's really stressful. I kind of just put out feelers to see who'd be interested. My friend's cousin was trying to do a food pop-up so we could fund events, and then Charlie reached out to two of the venues and I reached out to Nightclub. And then, yeah, just reached out to a bunch of bands, or more so they reached out to me on Instagram. Anything I need at this point in my life I just post on Instagram and see what comes toward me.

But then Charlie and I were talking and about how there's only a certain amount of money you can raise for a campaign. Plus, obviously so many people donated to [Zohran's] campaign, so we thought it'd be also more important for some of the money to be going towards causes that are near and dear to our hearts – and I think the hearts of most people who are voting for Zohran – which are New York City migrant solidarity and the Sameer project, which donates to famine and families in Gaza.

It just kind of snowballed into what it is, but it's been nice because when I started asking people on Instagram, people reached out and wanted to be involved and wanted to help broadcast it. But all I did was really connect people via e-mail, to be honest.

The scene that you guys are part of in Brooklyn – with fantasy of a broken heart and YHWH Nailgun, Model/Actriz, all those bands – how has that community affected you personally, and do you think it makes a tangible difference in the political unrest that we're living through currently? 

Rachel: Personally, I feel like the scene of musicians and bands that we know in New York – the main effect is just friendship. Getting to hang out either in New York or in random cities across the world, at festivals and whatnot. It's just nice to know that everybody's kind of on the same page. I don't think I could associate with people who don't believe in the same kinds of freedom that I believe in. Not that I can't associate with them, because sometimes you're born into families and sometimes you just know people that you care about them on a personal level but you don't "agree" with necessarily. It's also like motivating to keep trying to do what you can. If everyone you know was silent about stuff it would maybe feel harder to be vocal.

I just met Hayley Williams. She's so cool and she's so vocal and has such a crazy platform and is just so fearless with how she uses it. So I feel like in most of the rooms that we're in, people have the same feelings? Definitely some people have been pretty rude to me about. I mean, not even rude. People have just been really cruel about Palestine on occasion. They pretty much imply that they want everybody there to die, which is very unsettling, I would say. Obviously that just makes you want to talk about it more. I don't know. Having people in your life that aren't sociopaths? Always a great thing.

You met Hayley Williams through the Stereogum gig, right? 

Rachel: Yeah, I guess she's a fan of ours. She actually was the one who wanted to be interviewed, which is really funny.  

How did that gig come about with Stereogum?

Rachel: It was just Instagram. I just got a message. After many years of posting about how I need work, I got a job through my DMs. They were just looking for something to do video stuff. Since, outside of music, I do video things and I'm comfortable being on camera, it kind of seemed perfect. 

I also wanted to touch on the religious through line of the record. I know you were brought up under different branches of Christianity, but individually, how has your upbringing in the church affected your outlook on life in the context of the record?

Nate: I mean, I think growing up regularly attending church, and seeing the ways that the church interacted with the community that I lived in made me very skeptical of organized religion being a productive practice for humanity. I essentially just felt like I was watching a lot of people give themselves a pat on the back for participating in rituals without really applying the morals that came with religion to their day-to-day life. That was a repellent for me personally and I think I had kind of an extended moment where I didn't re-approach religion, but just because my distaste for organized religion kind of morphed into a distaste for any sort of spirituality for a while.

It wasn't like a product of making this album, but I kind of began to think about religion in less literal terms and more in the context of the natural order of the universe and appreciation for this kind of coexisting absurdity and reality. Wondering if that really is evidence for some sort of higher order of things, or if it's a symptom of consciousness and a drive that we feel to find some sort of explanation, you know? Is it because the explanation is really there or is it because we crave explanation? And so reapproaching that question was a big part of this album for me. 

Rachel: I grew up Catholic. I went to Catholic school. I'm like, culturally Catholic. My grandma was Irish Catholic and that's the only reason we were ever Catholic. I think a couple of things have stuck with me. Even like when I'm like, "Oh, I don't believe in like the Abrahamic God." I don't believe in some humanoid-like being that either wants to bless us or smite us.

One time we were at a really haunted Airbnb, like, genuinely so haunted in New Mexico. I was absolutely fucking terrified. And when I was falling asleep, I was in a really negative mindset. I was just not feeling super awesome in general, so when I was falling asleep, I was like "ohh my negative mindset is leaving me open to possession." So then I was like kind of half asleep and my body felt paralyzed, but I ended up just doing the sign of the cross over and over because I was like, "If there's something that's gonna protect me, it's this."

So I guess in times of fear, I turn to God, which I guess most people do. But most of the actual things that I carry from Catholicism are caring about the people around you, even the people you don't know, and especially the people who are the least fortunate: the poor, the sick. That's the thing that the church, at least when I grew up, really drove home. And to be generous, and that Jesus was extremely generous and non judgmental. Treat everybody as you want to be treated, but also that there's a larger force than ourselves – [larger than] anything that we can conceive. I think that there is. Even though I don't necessarily believe in God as I was taught about God, I do believe that there's a larger force, and that it's all connected. But I think the closest thing you could come to really perceive that is, like, quantum physics. But I don't know shit about math, so. 

Were there other things that made that Airbnb haunted? Or was it just the experience that you detailed? 

Rachel: OK, so many. This was our second tour ever in the US and I thought it'd be really fun to go somewhere out of the way so we could see the stars and it'd be nice. Mistake. It was like you rolled up off this kind of street highway, and in Christmas lights, it said "Airbnb" and the door was just unlocked. There was a bunch of Catholic iconography in there. There were a bunch of crosses and paintings of Jesus. There was a little display case with holy water in it. And at first I was like, "that's creepy." But then, as the night went on, I was like, "no, actually they're just doing their best to protect themselves from the demonic presence in this fucking house."

There was a whole room that was just covered. It was like sectioned off by plastic. There was a whole part of the house where there was no entrance that you could see, but it was very clear that there was another part of the house. There's no Wi-Fi. There were a bunch of movies on DVD, but the DVD player, when you turned it on, would just go in and out and in and out. So we're kind of just sitting in this fucking living room. The vibe was just horrendous. I understood why they had so much holy water and shit because I was like, "This place does feel like there's evil spirits lurking around."

Where were the lights placed? 

Nate: Over the whole front of the house. 

Rachel: It was like the whole front of the house. Everything you could see. 

I wanted to close out with this. Rachel said in your cover story for Paste, "I got 300% more texts about the Pope than me launching my indie rock star boyfriend." What was your experience following the Conclave? 

Rachel: I got so many texts. I'm from Chicago as I said earlier. I went to Catholic school, so I got a bunch of texts from my friends. I texted all my friends from Chicago who also grew up Catholic. Any time still to this day, if I'm talking to somebody and they're from Chicago and also Catholic, I'm like, "Chicago Pope!" and then we have a huge high five.

My friend Shaad texted me. He's Australian and I think he was betting on the Conclave. I think they were trying to like bet about who it was gonna be. He was like, "congratulations." And I was like, "about what?" And he said "Chicago Pope." I got so excited. I was kind of on cloud nine for days. It kind of just really cemented for me having to grow up Catholic for so long, I was like, "this is what it was for." It was to be from Chicago for the first American Pope to also be from Chicago. My grandma grew up on the south side of Chicago. The Pope is from the south side of Chicago, also Catholic and Italian – though my grandma almost married an Italian, but she was Irish. So that was never going to work out. 

But it kind of just like cemented the idea that Chicago is the most Catholic city in America. Which to me it was always because that's where I grew up. Like literally, you can be from Chicago and become the Pope. Like, that's crazy.

Anything can happen. 

Rachel: Like it just never even occurred to me that a guy from Chicago could be the Pope. We could literally all be the Pope. It's just so exciting. I mean, I love being from Chicago, and it's kind of just like, another reason why Chicago's the greatest city in the world. We got the 90s Bulls, we got the Pope, we had the tallest building in the world for so long. It's the best.

It's a Beautiful Place is out now on Matador.