Philadelphia Shoegaze Outfit Flatwaves Opens Up a Box of Sugar Coated Memories in Their Video for “Lorraine”

You were a baddie slashing tires

But time wore away

All your thorns

Now I carry all your flowers

In times when shadows lengthen and the air quivers with unrest, the notion of guardian angels walking unseen beside us as quiet constants is a comforting thought. They are the whispers that steady trembling hands, the light that catches in a stranger’s eyes, reminding the fearful they are not abandoned. Though uncertainty narrows vision, angels coax it open, revealing hidden paths between despair and hope. In the midst of doubt, they linger at the edges of knowing, patient as the tide, urging hearts toward love. Their presence is less miracle than mercy, a gentle assurance that the universe remembers each name. In this case, it’s Lorraine.

Flatwaves, a Philadelphia-based four-piece, takes that ethereal presence and folds it into a sound both enveloping and immediate. Since 2018, they’ve resisted confinement to one style, colliding the gauzy textures of 90s shoegaze with the swirling haze of fuzzed-out garage rock and the charge of rock ’n’ roll. Their influences: The Black Angels, Nothing, Cloakroom, Dum Dum Girls, True Widow – serve as reference points, but their approach is unique, built on hypnotic guitars, driving percussion, and vocals that reverberate in the vast, echoing air between.

Lorraine drifts through recollections of a complicated figure; once rebellious, now softened by time, balancing longing with the ache of distance. There’s affection, but also the unsettled sense of not knowing where the story leads.

“Lorraine is a scrapbook of memories that add up to a well-informed suspicion that guardian angels might be real,” says lyricist Tara. “Plus, I wanted to write a ‘name song’ and I was obsessed with the name Lorraine for a few months. There was a time in the 1920s, when my grandparents were born, where a lot of kids were named Lorraine. And you know, oddly enough, portions of Lorraine and Paloma were inspired by moments Allie and I had last time we were on Catalina, a very eerie and magical place. There’s a lot of enchantment out there, and I find that time periods and people that are seemingly long gone are signaling very loudly right now, at least to me. Maybe it’s our collective energies, maybe it’s our guardian angels.”

Bob Sweeney’s video for the track amplifies that spectral pull. A Philadelphia legend behind the lens, Sweeney shapes a vision like a late-night Euro-TV broadcast or public access show stumbled upon by accident; an unmarked doorway into a basement where another decade is still spinning on the turntable. The imagery is inviting, lending Tell Me Secrets a visual echo to its themes of blurred realities, death, and the persistence of memory.

(Save some donuts for us, Lorraine!)

Tell Me Secrets is the band’s second LP, recorded at Studio 4 with Justin Bartlett, mastered by Will Yip.

Listen to Lorraine below and order Tell Me Secrets here.

Catch Flatwaves live in the City of Brotherly Love: