Shoegaze indie-pop band Little Mae has established itself with a fierce gentleness on the local music scene, making some major strides since it was formed two years ago as a songwriter duo project by siblings Sam and Ethan Caspary. Now as a trio, with Gaetano Smolik on drums, Little Mae is catching everyone up to speed with the release of Painted Like Dandelions on Aug. 30.
The Caspary siblings come from a musical family, reminiscing on singing songs around campfires and performing at talent shows as young kids, but it wasn’t until 2023 that they decided to create music together in a serious way. It was shortly after that when they released Little Mae’s first single, “Magnolia,” that was recorded on GarageBand in their living room. One year later the single was nominated as a finalist for the 2024 Vic Chesnutt Songwriter of the Year Award.
Little Mae has done a lot of fast growing and evolving. In many ways, its previous releases are already dated. Not only does this debut deliver a more polished and confident version of the band, but it captures the youthful enthusiasm and contemporary attitude toward embracing the moment of its members.
“I’m really proud of our past releases for the point where we were when we made them, but I also feel like [Painted Like Dandelions] is the first digital recorded release that we’ve put out where it feels like our songs are living up to their potential, like the way they sound in our heads and the way they sound at shows. Now I’m really happy that we can press play on a stream and it sounds the way I want it to. It feels like we now have an accurate representation of ourselves on the internet,” says Ethan.
When asked about the specific goal of the album, Sam says, “Abstractly, to be as sparkly as possible,” but then adds, “We don’t know in the future where we’ll be. We’ll probably always be playing music together, because we’re siblings, but Ethan might move away and our drummer might move away, so it’s basically just to get a good snapshot of us right now.”
Discussing the sound of the album, that snapshot appears to be adding as much sparkle, shimmer and glow as possible to the tracks—which is a worthy effort for any shoegaze band. The Casparys say they’ve always shared music with each other and have a lot of overlap in influences, something that Ethan says he feels has been the most helpful factor in writing songs together. From Sam’s perspective, the most helpful aspect has been feeling comfortable enough to be open and honest about not liking something without worry of hurting feelings. So there is something to be said about that sibling connection after all.
Sam and Ethan’s differing personalities tangibly meld together while also peeking out on the album. The two often write songs independently, then entirely rewrite and workshop them together. Sam describes the process as “chopping things up and mixing it around and baking a big old, yummy cake.” The differences are most apparent in how the two viewed sequencing the album.
“Ethan had a lot of, like, thinking mathematically about this, and I was just like, ‘la, la, la. I feel like this one should go here,’” says Sam.
“I think the beauty of the digital streaming age is that there’s so many different creative ways to lay out an album. So the A side, B side thing is totally one that I love—when I get to the middle of an album and I feel this sort of instrumental break happening, like a sort of reset,” says Ethan.
Now that the album is finished and Little Mae has a defined sound, the next challenge will be translating that sound to stage for the band’s full slate of fall shows and beyond.
“I’m really proud of how it feels like we have a lot behind us, but I mean, the only instruments are guitar, bass, drums, and then we have two horn players that come in on a couple songs. Most of it’s me with a lot of weird guitar pedals making strange things happen, and Sam with this autotune vocal robot pedal making weird sounds. So that was some studio magic that I was really proud of,” says Ethan.
Little Mae is performing an album release show with special guests, so the live production of this show will more closely match the album than what the trio can pull off by themselves. The show will be held at Hendershot’s on Saturday, Aug. 30 with doors opening at 7 p.m. Also on the bill are Spitehound and Women in STEM, which Sam is also a member of. All three bands will be experimenting with new live arrangements for something that fans have yet to see.
WHO: Little Mae, Spitehound, Women in STEM
WHEN: Saturday, Aug. 30, 7 p.m. (doors), 8 p.m. (show)
WHERE: Hendershot’s
HOW MUCH: $10
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