Foyer Red are the Brooklyn-based trio of Elana Riordan, Mitch Myers, and Marco Ocampo, who also plays drums in Hypoluxo. Their upcoming debut EP Zigzag Wombat is named after a fanciful graffiti tag that Riordan saw around the city, but it feels appropriate for their music, too, an off-kilter brand of indie rock with a tinge of melodic sweetness and a healthy dollop of manic post-punk energy. Today, they’re sharing new single “Blood,” an immediately appealing song that shows Foyer Red at their most accessible. As Riordan explains:

Our song, “Blood”, was one of the last songs we wrote on the EP! We wanted to try something poppier, and once Mitch came up with the melody, I felt compelled to write about a real story, personal and raw, but long enough ago that I can laugh about it now.

In the summer of 2019, after a glorious night of friends and drinking and dancing at the Hypoluxo show at Our Wicked Lady, I suffered a horrible injury that took months of recovery and gave me what I call my “blood baby”. When I got home that night with Marco, we had to take our dog, Fig, out for a walk. Marco dove face-first into the couch, so I took it upon myself to take her out alone. Drunk and clumsy in my cowboy boots, I managed to slip as Fig pulled me down the stairs and I flew many feet in the air. It really wasn’t her fault, she was a puppy at the time and was just really excited to go outside! I blacked out and woke up with my face on the floor of our building. I screamed and cried all night long, literally howling, with Marco holding various frozen foods on my face and body. The left side of my face took most of the fall.

I was a full time student at the time, commuting into the city every day. For the next few months, I cycled through various stages of physical and emotional healing. My face turned red, purple, blue– then green… yellow. (“October’s latest fills in the porcelain”) It was fascinating, and I was captivated by the back and forth between injury and healing, between flesh and mind. Other people were fascinated too, even concerned, or in the strangest of cases, amused?! During a time where I was commuting much more than usual, I felt fragile and breakable in my body like I never had before, literally terrified of being bumped into. The left side of my face is still incredibly sensitive, and although it has dissipated for the most part, what felt like a pocket of congealed blood right under my cheekbone became known as my “blood baby”, and I referred to it often as if it had a life of its own.

Listen to “Blood,” along with previous singles “Slander” and “Plutterbee,” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Fribbe”
02 “Blood”
03 “Slander”
04 “Blue Pearl”
05 “Swimming Pool”
06 “Plutterbee”

Zigzag Wombat is out 10/22 via Terrible Records.