MICHELLE Is Writing Electrifying Indie Pop Songs Around the Dinner Table

AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS, the second studio album from Brooklyn band MICHELLE, is a canvas of gracefully mixed vocal gymnastics, sticky drum grooves, electrifying disco, pop, and soul melodies. The album is home to love letters to both friendship and isolation, and advice for dancing through the motions of youth. MICHELLE are six people in their early twenties, feeling equal measures of joy, sorrow and vulnerability, writing songs around the dinner table.

“POSE” is an ode to independence and “grooving alone,” and its music video was filmed in the Chambers Street subway station in New York. Noisey caught up with MICHELLE while they were on tour opening for Mitski, on the road between Detroit and Toronto. 

They have a gentle way of mentioning their music and their bandmates. Vocalist Sofia D'Angelo told Noisey, “I’ve become more aware of how each member of MICHELLE inspires me to grow and be a better person in different areas of my life.”

They are navigating the day-to-day lessons and rituals of touring, from memorizing each other's gas station orders, to learning to calm adrenaline after shows to access comfortable sleep. “I learned that rest is a necessary part of a creative cycle,” Vocalist Emma Lee told Noisey, “Today’s goal is to stay positive… and bonus points if I can track down a burrito for dinner.”

MICHELLE makes connections between the classic and the modern. They simply enjoy their connection to music and each other, and try to cast a web of gentle, melodic relief as widely as possible. D'Angelo told Noisey, “Personally, since MICHELLE is helping me live out my dreams, I just try to have as much fun as possible in the sessions, during the shows, and in the studio. The work is tough, extremely rewarding, but more than anything, it’s fun.”