Bathe

Bathe, the radiant R&B duo of singer-songwriter Devin Hobdy and guitarist-producer Corey Smith-West, announce their new EP, Inside Voice(s): Side A, out September 13th via MNRK Music Group, and present new single/video, “Fields.” Marking their first collection of new music since the duo’s 2021 debut album Bicoastal, Side A is a lush and sorrowful plea to the present filled with ghosts of the past, emerging in an era when the future seems anything but certain.

Formed eight years ago when Hobdy and Smith-West were attending the University of Pennsylvania, the duo, now based in Brooklyn, NY, create music that, on the surface, sounds like a balm for the anxieties of modern life. This flowing sense of ease contributed to Bicoastal drawing in more than 30 millions streams. Amid that record’s unhurried grooves, though, were pangs of yearning and desperation that complicated Bathe’s placement in so many chill playlists.

Side A, with its serene, luxurious tones soundtracking songs about grief and millennial angst, doubles down on this beguiling contrast.

Following the previously shared single “Avalon,” a “reverie” (Rated R&B) described by VIBE as “the beginning of [Bathe’s] next phase where they have to find the balance between what’s real and what they want to be real,” “Fields” follows in Hobdy and Smith-West’s signature style of glowing R&B. Inspired by a true story, “‘Fields’ is a song about being out in nature with your crush on psychedelics,” explains the duo. “We wanted to hone in on the bubbly euphoric feeling of laying out in the fields on a sunny day with someone you love.”