In a perfect world, the dust settles in the aftermath of life’s most chaotic periods to clear a neat, sunshiney path. In the real world, sometimes the dust never settles — it surges up and around in a messy whirlwind of howling gusts and flying debris.
In these moments, one can crumble. Or, in indie-rock outfit Barbara’s case, they sit back, stretch out and smell the roses.
Barbara’s upcoming record So This Is Living is the older, more composed sibling to their 2022 debut Escape Artist, which, as bassist Bridget Hartman describes it, was adolescent — experiencing life’s storms and searching for a way to cope.
“Escape Artist was us escaping life; it was written during a time where there was more turmoil, when we were still finding ourselves after life happening, and then we all started settling into our lives and growing,” Hartman says. “And Barbara was there, growing with us.”
So This Is Living finds the three-piece ensemble still expanding into new territory, equipped with an audibly fresh air of balance and poise.
“We’re coming into ourselves,” says drummer Anna Panella. “We’re building our confidence with our sound, we’re building our confidence with our ideas — knowing that our musical ideas sound good and feel comfortable and feel right, rather than just grasping at straws and seeing what sticks.”
‘More intention’
Last month’s lead single, “Dark Water Disco,” is an excellent example of Barbara’s ability to seamlessly and boldly breach new territory. It’s a psychedelic rock jam in its purest form, eventually unraveling into measure upon measure of bossa nova-tinged, keyboard-heavy bliss.
The accompanying music video — a home-movie style montage shot on a turn-of-the-century camcorder — is a visual identifier of everything Barbara is about. It’s an homage to each other, to Calgary, where they play a local festival every year called Bob-Sled, and to the Front Range music scene they’ve grown to cherish together.
“This is the exact kind of song, when we were living together, that we would play when we’re all drunk in the kitchen, dancing together, just the three of us having a great time,” Panella said. “We created a song that fits that soundtrack, so that’s also what we wanted the video to encompass.”
The band’s members recently stopped living together after several years, a change that fueled Barbara’s growth. Vocalist and guitarist Camilla Vaitaitis says a bit of distance deepened their bond.
“When we are able to get together and play, there’s a lot more intention,” Vaitaitis says. “It’s cool to see how that intention is coming through in our music.”
‘Not forcing it’
This new sense of intentionality manifests collectively and individually. Barbara’s three members met as music students at the University of Denver — each classically trained, committed to their craft and completely burnt out.
Being introduced to sounds and songs from all over the world helped reignite their passion, Harman says.
School “exposed us to so many different kinds of music. It gave us this vocabulary and this ability to critically listen, fully immerse ourselves in it and figure out what it is we enjoy about songs.”
The trio discovered a shared affinity for Brazilian music at DU that strengthened after seeing São Paulo artist Sessa at Bob-Sled in 2023.
“Now, I feel like almost every song on the album has some kind of a Brazilian influence, if it’s nylon string guitar, or certain rhythms, or the acoustic bass,” Vaitaitis says. “A really deep part of the album is our love for the music of Brazil.”
So This Is Living presented a critical opportunity for Barbara to return to their respective instruments — Vaitaitis on piano, Hartman on saxophone and Panella on trombone — and fall back in love with them.
“Now that we’re integrating our classically trained instruments, it’s almost healing some of the burnout,” Vaitaitis says. “It’s helped me to introduce it into this new environment of Barbara, where it’s not my focus, but it gets to be part of my musical fabric.”
All these pieces — maturity, confidence, individuality, friendship, curiosity, expertise — were once fragments, difficult to distinguish and nearly impossible to truly harness. Now, they’re tools Barbara is deftly using to introduce something entirely original to the local indie scene.
“It’s this patient process of letting it fall into place and not forcing it,” Hartman says. “That’s the really fun part about how we started and how we’re growing.”
ON THE BILL: Barbara album release show with Milk Blossoms and Flutter. 8 p.m. Saturday, April 5, Hi-Dive, 7 S Broadway, Denver. $15