Four notes is all it takes to recognize Touch Girl Apple Blossom’s “The Springtime Reminds Me Of…”
Dustin Pilkington, the group’s bassist, and I are seated at Tweedy’s Bar while guitarist and vocalist Olivia Garner flits between our conversation and patrons’ drink orders. She turned down the overhead speakers a notch for our interview, but not too much, because we’re all listening for those four notes.
NTS Radio, an internet station with an ardent focus on music discovery, is on, and Yo La Tengo bassist James McNew is sharing his monthly picks. In early April, with rain wafting off the concrete and the earliest buds daring to become flowers, the quartet’s first single from their upcoming debut album, Graceful, is a seamless addition to his playlist.
In an exaggerated tone somewhere between awe and trying to play it off, Garner is telling me how the earnest indie band got picked up by K Records, an iconic, Eighties-born independent label founded by indie rock pioneers Beat Happening – whose song “Indian Summer” provided TGAB with their colorfully quilted, free-association band name.
“It was pretty much the most dream-come-true situation that you could imagine for a girl like me,” she says of the signing, when those four introductory notes fill the barroom.
Then there’s cheering, laughter, dancing, and a little humming along to be done. Because although these two, like their other bandmates, boast impressive scene accolades and lifelong music careers, they are neither too cool for sincerity nor too jaded for glee.
“We’re falling/ Bird calling/ Reminders that you’re alive/ Sun shining/ It’s biting/ I want to stay inside/ But I must go/ I can’t say no/ The world keeps turning/ The springtime reminds me of…”
Garner’s sugary, muffled voice floats in over the speakers in a twinkle of plinky strumming and irresistible riffs that channel a dash of Americana twang at some times, a splash of twee bubbliness at others. The single doubles as the opening track to Graceful, out May 15 via Perennial and K Records. The album’s 10 tracks, which dip into raunchy, distorted rock licks and cathartic punk-ish fills – courtesy of drummer Daniel Powell – are grounded in a catchy sensibility Garner chalks up to Pilkington’s tireless riff writing and the guidance of their so-crowned “pop guru,” guitarist John Morales. It’s a refreshing take that already earned the band, formed in 2022, a Best Pop award at the 2024-25 Austin Music Awards.
“Push-pit fun” is how Powell describes Touch Girl’s sound. Somewhere between load-in and soundcheck for their April 18 show with Voxtrot, the drummer jumps around playfully in front of an empty Mohawk stage, hands clasped in front of him, lightly jostling imaginary audience members and putting on a loopy, sweet grin to demonstrate the joyful, “not moshing, not not moshing” energy he’s describing.
Like their name, TGAB’s music has clear roots in the scrappy, melody-embracing DIY scenes of the Eighties, which championed genuineness and youthful innocence, eschewing note-for-note perfection in favor of fun and connection. The band’s four-track 2023 release of sparse, catchy bedroom rock, EP, lives in a hazy world of fuzzy guitars and vocals, anchored by big chord changes, earworm riffs, and simple drum lines.
“Obviously I feel like Touch Girl has an element of nostalgia, but we’re also: Be here now,” Garner says. “As much as a purely guitar band can be in the present moment.”
On Graceful, that presence is felt as the quartet pushes those initial inspirations into a more adventurous palette, blending their playing styles and respective backgrounds into ever-melodic, guitar-forward songs that prize pop stickiness, candid lyricism, and easygoing rock experimentation. Poetic heartbreak ruminations in “Heart-Go” are bookended by frenetic drum fills and psychedelic guitar unravelings; a hip-hop-borrowed rhythm sets the scene for “Moon Was Gone”; and a jam section on album cincher “Big Star Shinin’” features sci-fi universe-building sound effects and a bass-heavy, almost-dissonant piano solo.
Also new on this record is Pilkington’s voice and songwriting on the twilight-hued ballad “Moon Was Gone” and candy-coated love song “I’m Lucky I Found You.” His dulcet, equally forthright tone complements Garner’s athletic, airy tenor and adds to the group’s versatility.
“We were just experimenting with this album. I don’t want to be the singer of Touch Girl – I think Olivia is amazing – but I’m really proud of the stuff that I did,” Pilkington says. Swapping songwriting roles, he explains, keeps the band from being too precious about their process or performance. “It doesn’t serve us or the crowd to try to be perfect.”
Garner, who cut her teeth playing louder and more self-serious rock in New York’s Hotline TNT, traces her musical roots to her dad’s collection of XTC and Kraftwerk – and the label that now represents TGAB. “If it weren’t for discovering Beat Happening and the Microphones and watching [The Shield Around the K] documentary on YouTube alone in my little weird room, I would have never picked up a guitar, honestly,” she declares. She wears that influence on her sleeve – or her hand, really, where a “Godsend” tattoo nods to a 1992 Beat Happening tune.
Pilkington, who’s played in hardcore bands like Total Abuse and Burnt Skull, shrugs when asked about genre influence. “I always, even from an early age, loved everything. Any song that is good is a song that I’ll like, it doesn’t matter what genre,” he says. From Michael Jackson to Metallica, big performers form a through line of what catches his ear, a streak that comes out in his Hotel Vegas karaoke performances of songs like OMI’s “Cheerleader” and Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack,” and in what Garner calls his “bouncy ball” stage presence.
That confidence drains away, however, when he steps up to the mic for the songs he wrote and sang on the record.
“I have a severe vocal stage fright,” Pilkington admits gravely. “I wrote songs that are personal, and I want them to sound good, and I don’t like focusing directly on me. I like being part of the team.”
As he debates performing those songs live and whether or not he’ll continue to write lyrics for TGAB, he and his teammates are getting comfortable leaning into their specialties in the context of the group. Powell and Morales both add the thrashier side of their talents to local post-punk outfit Guiding Light, among other acts. They bring those stylings to TGAB too, but, “In this band, I have to pull it back,” Powell contends with a shy smile. More and more, as the foursome grows into a playful performance approach, the drummer is letting loose, riffing with Morales on metal- and hardcore-inspired jams.
“We’re just making pop songs how we know how,” Pilkington says.
“It’s cool to see people take something that’s iconic, but nothing about it feels stale or like it’s rehashed from the past. It’s more [of] an extension and a new creative future,” Jolie M-A, music video producer at K Records and guitarist for NYC trio Ribbon Stage, says of TGAB. A longtime friend of Garner’s, the two crossed paths at New York’s Bread & Roses Festival last September. Afterward, in an online Chronicle interview, M-A read that the group was looking for help with physically releasing their debut album. Immediately, she and Perennial Records founder Hayes Waring felt the Austin band was a fit for their merged imprints. It was more than namesakes and stylistic resemblances that sealed the deal.
“They are people who are doing what we do in their own community, and that’s such an invaluable resource to have,” M-A says. “We were definitely impressed by Touch Girl’s very tactile approach.”
She points to their hand-drawn visual aesthetic and preference for analog methods – but more than that, it was the group’s dedication to forming relationships with fellow bands and approaching the scene with a harmonious, teamwork-centered mindset. Sonically and spiritually, solidarity is having a moment in music.
Though K never stopped putting out ambitiously explorative guitar-pop albums from legacy acts (like English twee icons Heavenly) and 21st century-born outfits (like Olympia synth-pop duo CC Dust), their roster has caught more attention in recent years.
“We’ve just been doing our thing for a while and there hasn’t quite been a sense of excitement or attention on the movement in the same way,” M-A says. “It’s been really exciting to be poised a little bit differently right now.” Looking back on the first time K Records and jangly indie rock found the alternative spotlight, it’s hard not to see a broader cultural and political alignment. “We’re in a place in life where there’s so much uncertainty and it can feel really disempowering [when] so many conditions are dictated by the ruling class,” says M-A.
Following their first release, TGAB have been swept up in a playful wave of analog nostalgia and sincere storytelling that has inspired whispers of a “twee renaissance.” Oh, how the crowd recoils at this delightfully sing-songy, single-syllable word, which Merriam-Webster defines as “affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint.” An internet search generates countless photos of Peter Pan collars and polka dots and early-Eighties guitar-pop bands whose names appear again and again in this story: Heavenly and, of course, Beat Happening. A deeper dive reveals pejorative roots in British slang, locking the term twee in a waltz of cringe and reclamation.
“The act of embracing excitement and beauty in the face of political despair was its own kind of rebellion,” Jacobin wrote in 2022 of the Eighties movement. British punks of the era were looking for different ways to protest Thatcherism and opt out of the commercial music industry when twee was first born. Later, in America, the community expanded through K signees like the Microphones and others, including the Moldy Peaches and Tullycraft.
Since the brightly colored tone and fashion trend last reared its head a decade and a half ago, in the form of Zooey Deschanel and Frankie Cosmos, alternative music has preferred slouched irony and sneering coolness. Rough-and-tumble shoegaze and political resistance by way of high-octane volume have dominated independent airwaves, just as they did when the first exuberant notes of twee pop cut through the distortion. After some scrambling to adapt to changing industry demands, musicians of all kinds, including punks themselves, have been drawn to a simpler, scrappier production style and a lighter tone threaded via a subterranean support network.
“There’s a big connection between the underground punk scene and DIY indie,” says M-A. “The whole K roster is really an extension of the DIY hardcore punk scene and punks making music that’s no longer quite as angry and aggressive in that way – but it is a really natural extension.”
“It’s still pretty angry and aggressive, just maybe musically different,” Waring butts in, then pauses. “Angry and aggressively honest,” he offers after a moment of thought.
When this subculture emerged, like now, the sonic movement was centered in an anti-establishment ethos celebrating connection over competitive commercial success, which is an even more complicated mandate in the contemporary music industry. “It’s not: How do I game the Spotify analytics?” says Waring. “It’s: How do I build community and continue to build meaning through something that you love?”
“This is a way to be directly in opposition to that by taking power into your own hands, in your own communities, even if you’re just booking a show in the living room with your friends,” M-A continues. “It’s so important to be making things with your own control of the production and making things where you get to call the shots and dictate the vibe and find a way to bring people together in person and not just online.”
In the face of economic uncertainty – not just in the music industry, but in the market writ large – and a melding of right-wing political and corporate interests, taking creative matters into your own hands can be an outlet for broader frustrations too.
“Where else can you start, except with your friends and in a community?” Garner says. “Starting a band is a really good way to harbor a big relationship with the people around you.”
“We’re really trying to build something that is outside of certain structures of domination, and it’s not always easy,” says M-A. The recent success of TGAB’s tour with Midwest indie rockers Good Flying Birds, which kicked off at South by Southwest 2026 and led to several sold-out shows across the Southeast and East Coast, illustrates – for the band and the label – that they don’t have to buy into algorithms and short-form video content to reach people.
Powell gets a twinkle in his eye recalling fans coming up to the merch table at stops far from Texas, telling him they’d driven hours to catch their show. “I was just like, this is why [you came]? We have only five songs online right now,” he laughs. “It’s crazy that there’s such [a] community for it, and that we’re accepted in it, which blows my mind, and I love it. I can’t even believe that people care about our music, really. It already blows my mind that [we’ve done] all the things we’ve already done.”
“[It] really speaks to that peer-to-peer network [that is] totally outside of any mainstream profitability. That it still has teeth and that it’s still connecting with people is really meaningful,” says M-A.
As they gear up for a debut release already more anticipated than they could’ve imagined, the quartet is eager to keep writing and experimenting with their sound and eventually get back on the road to bring Graceful to a sprouting fanbase. Even if they, like all true cool kids, bristle at any label application, they’re standing firm on the twee-associated foundation of an independent rock music network.
“It’s the only destiny for indie rock. We have to be there for each other,” says Garner. “The way that Touch Girl Apple Blossom has been able to grow as a band is proof that it’s the opposite of competition. It’s solidarity and love and community and support.”
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly credited bassist Dustin Pilkington as the singer-songwriter of Touch Girl Apple Blossom’s “Big Star Shinin'”; guitarist John Morales wrote and sang on the song. The Chronicle regrets the error.
This article appears in May 8 • 2026.
