I typed ear band into my safari browser last September after listening to a 1000 second long album titled “The Most Dear and The Future”. My search results were ads for a  swimming headband to keep water out of your ears. This is not what I sought. It would  take several variations of “ear” “soft-electronic” “band” “music” to find the website of  Jonah Paz and Yaelle Avtan’s collaboration—ear. 

The duo’s sound is like a mug of lukewarm tea that steeps into a bright color. Every intricate layer is discernible to the tongue but the beauty is feeling it fall past your heart.  A vulnerability is implied through vocals that sound both distant and within, but not near,  and lyrics that are ephemeral and unspoken. You have to whisper along to the tacit  poetry of disjointed fragments. 

Seems that  

I'm all in  

If I know you will  

Lean into my hand now  

Don't say you're leaving  

(Fetish—ear)  

ear’s beats are full-bodied and soothing, contrasting the mainstream electronica scene’s  punchy dialect of Snow Strippers, Bassvictim, and The Hellp. Still, their songs are  physically compelling in a way that makes you spasm. Jonah and Yaelle affirmed this  inclination during their Boston show in March. Between sips from Pure Life plastic water  bottles, Jonah spoke into the mic to say “it’s okay to dance, you guys”. Standing arms  length from them, with no barrier in-between, I found myself more focused on keeping  my feet off the stage. I kept my eyes on the duo as their bodies seized and hair lurched in circles—Yaelle as a truffula tree. This was the final show of their first American  headlining tour.  

The group has amassed almost 365,000 listeners on Spotify since the release of their first single “Nerves” in November 2024. I encountered their music last summer through their EP “Fetish/Valley Serpent” but it wasn’t until the release of their album, The Most Dear and The Future, that I began following them passionately. When ear announced several shows in Europe I signed up for waitlist tickets even though I had no way of making it to London. When they posted tickets for an American tour I immediately bought two and texted my friend in Boston that we were going. Living in rural Texas, it would take my Mom picking me up from college, a three-hour long TSA line, a missed flight, a $50 uber, and a ride on the T to make it to the The Rockwell; a small, underground (as in you have to walk down a flight of stairs) venue near Tufts University in Somerville, Massachusetts. The crowd was entirely college-aged people, most with skinny bootcut jeans, anime-inspired haircuts, and shy postures. I wore a Texas-flag tank top. I met many students from Emerson College who were members of WECB, the liberal arts school’s student radio station. Other individuals I talked to attended Northeastern, Boston University, and Massachusetts schools. One group had come down from Maine. The combination of ear’s subduing resonance and intimacy of the venue made the concert feel hopeful, collective, and present. It’s something that seems in line with the duo’s dogma, from their whispers of appreciation to the crowd between songs, to the title of their album—The Most Dear and The Future. ear is a band that provokes softness in a world that is often overstimulating…“a red western realm of happiness…does anyone know about this?” (Dogs—ear)

Photo credit: Chris Noreika