Chicago-based rockers Bridget Stiebris and Haley Blomquist make fuzzily triumphant anthems under the name OK Cool. They landed on our radar with 2023's fawn, the latest in a series of EPs that goes back to 2020. This summer, OK Cool will release their full-length debut Chit Chat. Its lead single is "Waawooweewaa," a rousing number that, as you've probably already figured out, is named after the thing that Borat says.
Bridget Stiebris and Haley Blomquist wrote and produced everything on the new LP themselves, though they got engineering help from fellow Chicagoans Avery Black, Brad Harvey, and Wesley Reno. Most of OK Cool's past songs clock in under two minutes, but they got just a tiny bit more expansive while working on Chit Chat. "Waawooweewaa" isn't exactly a marathon -- it's two and a half minutes -- but its bleary and purposeful hooks get a bit of room to breathe. Here's what Stiebris says about it:
I wrote the demo for this song in 2019 after a recent breakup, and I was kind of just musing on the patterns of my past breakups and how I felt in that moment. Any breakup of a serious relationship just sucks, and I was in my feelings about it ending. I had also recently seen the movie Borat, which is why the song has a dumb name... but I think assigning some of these songs dumb names also helps me make fun of myself and not take it too seriously.
Below, check out the Roadhouse Productions-directed "Waawooweewaa" video and the Chit Chat tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Intro"
02 "Waawooweewaa"
03 "Safety Car"
04 "Splitting"
05 "Jeans (I Get It Now)"
06 "Loop"
07 "Sledding"
08 "Ruined"
09 "Fading Out Forever"
10 "Last"
Chit Chat is out 8/1 on Take A Hike Records. OK Cool will play a record release show at Subterranean in Chicago 8/14.
