@ - AUTOSMILE - 4AD

Philadelphia based art-folk duo @ (pronounced ‘at’) share a new single entitled “I Know You Are (But What Am I Thinking)”, heralding the release of their 4AD debut Autosmile Friday, October 16.

“I Know You Are (But What Am I Thinking)” is the most immediate and catchy of Autosmile’s four singles; a chamber-pop amalgam of medieval flourishes, twinkling keys, and swaying violin which emphasizes Rose and Filipczak’s tendency toward harmonious, imaginative songwriting. 

The band have said, “This is the most emo song on the record - we met our emo threshold with this one. Album out Friday thanks for listening!”

The track also arrives alongside an accompanying music video directed by Sage Caswell, made in collaboration with the band using thermal imaging cameras.

Previous singles off Autosmile include: "Bird", where an eerie chromatic trance of acoustic guitar and cinematic clarinet passages is juxtaposed by a gorgeously uplifting choral harmony; “Punish My Mind”, a dystopian Beach Boys-esque track complete with fluttering woodwinds and raucous distorted monkey howls; and the impressive nearly 7-minute album title track “Autosmile”, which claimed Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Track’ among other wide-spread acclaim. 

Multi-instrumentalist songwriters Victoria Rose and Stone Filipczak have a pact, a devotion to each other and to the music of @. In their solo existence, Victoria works as a beekeeper and Stone as a self-taught computer programmer, but when they get together, they become a singular, avant-garde song force. Over time, the two began collaborating long distance, and soon developed the @ formula – half Victoria songs, half Stone songs, with each filling in the cracks of the others compositions and Stone handling overall production. On their new album Autosmile, the band’s first with 4AD, @ have harnessed their unique process to reimagine the psychedelic folk tradition as an undeniably contemporary art form, carefully balancing beauty and pain and shifting between black hole heaviness and patient understanding, never abandoning a sense of wonder. 

Both Victoria and Stone are incisive, classic songwriters, and their occasionally baroque arrangements and production touches give the songs a rough-hewn yet virtuosic quality. This inventiveness, applied to songs that hold up against classic psych folk records, sets @ apart, somehow looking backwards and forwards all at once. There is a consistent darkness to the moods of Autosmile, but @ is also an inherently playful enterprise, unexpected prog flourishes lurking behind incisive indie rock song craft. 

Autosmile follows @’s 2021 debut album Mind Palace Music — displaying the duo’s penchant for confessional lyrics and affinity for blending digital and analog elements, the album was an organic success story via word-of-mouth praise and well-deserved press recognition. In 2024, @ released their subsequent EP Are You There God? It’s Me, @, where they diverted from their usual acoustic instrumentation to soul-searching on a sonic side quest into more electronic music. In the time since, the band has become an in-demand live act with support shows alongside Snail Mail, Cameron Winter, and Black Country New Road.