Fuzzy, buzzy, dancey, dark: Minneapolis’ Partial Traces merge noise and melody with intricate guitars and tidal feedback. Departing from the more aggressive sound of previous projects, former members of Banner Pilot, The Soviettes, and Dear Landlord evoke The Jesus and Mary Chain, Cocteau Twins and The Wedding Present in understated songs celebrating distorted synth and tempered vocals.

Throughout 2019 and 2020, the band released a series of EPs primarily consisting of home recordings: Can’t Come Down, Only Wanted U, and Ghosts of the Sounds. During this time the band worked long distance between New York and Minneapolis, amassing a new batch of demos that inspired a return to The Terrarium Recording Studio to once again work with engineer Jacques Wait. The resulting album, Wild Surf/Quiet Blues, contains the bands most ambitious work to date, a weighty collection of songs that explore the unwieldy chaos of love and life in the modern world and finds the band embracing a darker more synth based direction sonically, while Macosko and Sparrows’ haunting vocals float over the arrangements.