Satomi Matsuzaki plays bass and sings, Greg Saunier plays drums, John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez play guitars. But what is Deerhoof really? Hell if we know. Pitchfork went so far as to label Deerhoof as "the best band in the world.” The New York Times described them as “one of the most original rock bands to have come along in the last decade.” From their humble beginnings as an obscure San Francisco noise act, they've become one of indie music's most influential bands with their ecstatic and unruly take on pop.

“Right when it starts to feel like home / it's time to go," Stef Chura sings on “Slow Motion,” a twisty, dim-lit guitar pop song where she curls and stretches every word. There are worlds of emotion is in the ways Chura pronounces phrases with twang and grit, alternatingly full of despair, playfulness, and abandon. Chura calls her music “emotional collage,” eschewing start-to-finish storylines in favor of writing intuitively about feelings, drawing from experiences and references related to a certain sentiment. Her debut studio album, Messes, is embedded with her years of experience playing around the Michigan underground and setting up DIY shows in the area. Originally from Alpena, Michigan, Chura began playing in the Ypsilanti area in 2009, before dropping out of college, she moved to Detroit in 2012. Chura has been home-recording and self-releasing her songs for six years, playing bass in friends’ bands as well. Through intricate guitar work and warm, textured production, Messes finds her trying to making sense of life’s ups and downs. “It’s about emotional mess, not physical mess,” Chura says. “The title track is about knowing that you are going to do something the wrong way, but you’re doing it anyway because you want that experience. I’ve had to do a lot of things the wrong way in order to figure out how to live my life.”