Before fish narc sounded like the second coming of the Lemonheads, Olympia, Washington songwriter Ben Funkhouser toiled as a producer and beatmaker at the forefront of the SoundCloud rap scene. As a member of Seattle’sThraxxHouse collective and L.A.-based affiliate GothBoiClique, he went on to produce for Lil Peep and collaborate with Clams Casino and Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. Funkhouser’s production brought a DIY punk aesthetic, often juxtaposing rock-oriented arrangements with woozy witch house. He eventually pivoted to rock full-time on 2025’s grungier, Tigers Jaw-inspired frog song. On Uncle, fish narc sheds his past experimental impulses and finds a new identity within ebullient, feel-good college rock.
Perhaps you’ve heard Uncle before—at least, it’ll feel like you have. This sound dates to the dawn of dial-up internet. It lives at the dentist office, in your parents’ minivan, in the canned veggie aisle at the supermarket. The music on Uncle feels innate, as if Funkhouser had dug these songs out from deep within the crawlspace in his brain. Uncle wants to transport you to the days when radio-friendly college rock was en vogue, an era you might also associate with the early days of his label, Olympia’s K.
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Aside from drums and some bass by producer Alex Farrar, fish narc is all Funkhouser. If this is your first time hearing him sing, you’re in for a jump scare: His throaty delivery on de facto first track “Much Less Me” suggests you may have somehow stumbled upon a new Lifehouse record. Fear not, this isn’t that kind of ’90s homage: fish narc’s sunny instrumentation belies an underlying existential uncertainty. “It don’t get easier for you now, much less me,” Funkhouser laments. He’s following a lineage of power-pop troubadours like Doug Hopkins and Paul Westerberg, whose Shakespearean downfalls outweighed big hearts and even bigger dreams. Their influence, sprinkled with a bit of K’s (or Alex G’s) lo-fi ethos, is all over this record, in the acoustic jangle of “Student Driver” and the big, fuzzy, Tim-like anthems “Big Dumb World” and “Wouldn’t You Know.”
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
