Slow Fiction explore identity and performance on debut album, dollhouse

Formed by singer Julia Vassallo, guitarists Paul Knepple and Joseph Skimmons, bassist Ryan Duffin and drummer Akiva Henig, Slow Fiction released their first self-titled EP in 2023, to be followed by End Of The Night and Crush in 2024. dollhouse sees the band exploring identity as a private world always on display. Today, they show a new side of their full-length work with "satellite", which arrives after previous single, "junior year".

The track explores what Vassallo describes as “collective atrophy in a country that’s poisoned with an Us vs. Them mentality”. She explains: “I was thinking of a person watching something uncomfortable on TV, and then being like ‘oh, that’s too much, I have to turn it off,’ because as a whole we’ve become selective with our empathy.”

dollhouse was recorded over several months, and the final mixes were completed in January with engineer Sonny DiPerri (DIIV, Julie). The album was self-produced by the band and developed across different locations: their Brooklyn rehearsal space, an upstate New York retreat, and a studio north of San Francisco.

“We are a family and we work on our music like that. Everyone is part of the organism,” Vassallo says of how the group's tight-knit dynamic influenced the way that dollhouse came together, which allowed them to revisit and reshape the songs over time. “You have to live with the song a little bit,” Duffin adds.

This Friday (19 June), Slow Fiction will be supporting Vundabar for the final show of their Gawk 10-year anniversary, with more shows to be announced from the band soon.

dollhouse artwork

dollhouse tracklist

“junior year”
“ninetynine”
“mouthpiece”
“what the night told me”
“bottle episode”
“idle hours”
“g.a.l.s.”
“dollhouse”
“satellite”
“heavy metal”
“turning down flowers”