Doug Dulgarian founded Julia’s War Recordings in 2021 to help his friends release cassettes of the cool music they were making. The Philadelphia musician and They Are Gutting a Body of Water frontman has long demonstrated a fondness towards physical media formats: wearing out CDs in his tour van; dismantling VHS tapes for music videos; and, as a kid, collecting unlicensed remix compilations of tracks by his favorite artists, absorbing an eclecticism that he’d eventually reflect back in TAGABOW’s output.
Since 2017, Dulgarian has grown TAGABOW from its placid, solo origins into one of the decade’s most influential and inventive shoegaze bands; the proof is in Lotto, their bold and relentless breakout LP from last year. Meanwhile, Julia’s War helped launch the careers of indie luminaries like Wednesday and Feeble Little Horse, and their rolodex currently boasts promising up-and-comers like Cashier and MX Lonely. In light of the success of both his band and his label, Dulgarian wanted to make his own foray into the mixtape shuffle—to make, as he put it, “mashups of all [his] favorite artists,” like the CDs he listened to as a kid. The result is KOOL FAITH / LOOSIES II, where TAGABOW enlist over a dozen featured artists from the Julia’s War roster and beyond for a wide-spanning compilation that proves the influx of press coverage and indie-rock stardom has yet to water down the band’s prowess.
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The mixtape’s 29 tracks feature guests spanning a range of genres and levels of visibility. Hotline TNT’s menacing riffs and sustained vocals take the lead on the muscly “rodman,” and Spirit of the Beehive bring a splash of warped psychedelia to the dizzying “my Happening.” TAGABOW’s music often synthesizes analog and digital elements, and the mixtape format allows them to push their versatility further: Dulgarian’s affinity for jungly breakbeats, for example, goes full Chicago footwork with help from expert DJ Manny on the stuttering “5dime.” The influence of hip-hop on TAGABOW’s production comes full circle on “yellow dolphins,” where emo-tinged guitar loops soundtrack laid-back verses from RXKNephew and FearDorian, and “stone driveway bypass,” with an instrumental playful enough to make meme-rappers DupontPavilion and beat fella’s absurdist bars feel like serious fun.
