Initially the bedroom recording project of Blair Howerton, local fourpiece Why Bonnie now pulls back the covers and squints into the outside world. In Water floats a sleek, dream-pop EP tinged by lingering melancholy, which quivers around the glaze of its bright, glittering sound. The honeyed “Made of Paper” opens by conjuring the pastel palette of Toronto’s Alvvays. “Practice” undulates slowly, and the uneasy guitar lines piled with dizzying keys that wind through “Bright Boy” propel the disc to a shadowy place, Howerton pleading, “Bright boy, come to me.” Her voice shimmers with easy effervescence, but on the latter halves of both “Bright Boy” and the closer, “Walking Like This,” it blossoms into colossal and consuming, both an anchor and elevator for Why Bonnie’s sound.
This article appears in April 6 • 2018.