In October, Silver Liz released the single “There’s No Need”, which marked a left turn in their sound from guitar-laden shoegaze to hazy lofi club pop. The track reached #1 on Hype Machine and a performance of it helped earn them a victory among 30 acts in the first-ever virtual reality Battle of the Bands competition hosted by 100% Electronica, the flagship vaporwave label founded by George Clanton and Negative Gemini.

The duo comprised of Carrie and Matt Wagner, who just recently relocated to Brooklyn via-Chicago, is now releasing their follow-up single “Roman Candle Part II”, which they also debuted in the final round of 100% Electronica’s VR Battle of the Bands back in March. The competition is what forced them to finish producing the track. “We had no idea they would invite us back to perform in the final round after we won in the second round with ‘There’s No Need’ and we had no other new songs ready,” Matt explains. “So, we basically had 10 days to write and produce this song. All we had going into it was part of the intro. The song hasn’t changed much since March, but we wanted to wait a while before officially releasing it to make sure we still liked it since we wrote it so hastily.”

Much like “There’s No Need”, the new song blends electronica with the duo’s penchant for reverb-drenched textures made of swirling synth and shoegaze-y guitar. The song also eschews traditional pop song structure. It is a mostly instrumental dance track with just two short verses of impressionistic lyrics describing mixed feelings about moving away from Chicago, where Carrie and Matt spent most of their adult lives.

“Matt and I were preparing for our move back to the East Coast where we both grew up, which made me think of how we had felt lonely when we moved to Chicago not knowing anyone,” explains Carrie. “To capture that initial feeling of loneliness, I thought of the first verse when I actually was listening to a podcast about a TV show in bed…It was ‘Search Party: The Podcast’, and I was laughing at that episode's banter in our bedroom literally in complete darkness like a freak, then I realized shortly afterwards how sad that would look to someone microscoping into that moment”, she explains. “I think we both knew we wouldn’t stay in the Midwest long-term given that our families and a lot of our friends stayed on the East Coast, but it was definitely a formative time, and I'm grateful for how much time it gave us to figure out what we wanted to do and for having more opportunities there to make those things happen. It's where we actually formed our band after we got married.”

Explaining the meaning behind the song title, Matt says, “Back in 2013 when we were in college, before Silver Liz was a thing, Carrie and I once recorded this original track called ‘Roman Candle’. It shared a lot of the same influences as this song, but our productions skills at the time were so bad and it now sounds so silly to us. Calling this a ‘Part II’ seemed fitting since we simultaneously circled back to making electronic music and moved back East, closer to where we grew up, which is what Carrie’s lyrics are about. This track sounds like what we wanted to produce back then, but didn’t know how. We also always wanted to live in New York at some point. With that being said, we are really happy this is the first song we get to share since moving here.”

If listeners would like to hear the precursor to this track, which Carrie and Matt recorded in college back in 2013 way before the formation of Silver Liz, they will receive it as a bonus track if they purchase the single on Bandcamp. Please do not share the bonus track on any public streaming platforms.