Biography
Bathe, the Brooklyn-based pair, crafts mesmerizing indie soul they label "surf R&B," weaving in hazy psychedelic guitar lines and atmospheric layers while pulling from Cuban and Afro-Caribbean roots. Emerging from New York City's dynamic circle of boundary-pushing Black musicians, the duo first drew notice via the 2019 EP I'll Miss You and reached a larger audience with 2021's Bicoastal. In 2024 they issued Inside Voice(s): Side A, the opening installment of a two-part endeavor.
The project began in 2018 with singer/songwriter Devin Hobdy and guitarist/songwriter Corey Smith-West. Hobdy, raised in Queens by his jazz-musician mother, trained in opera at an arts high school. Smith-West, whose family arrived from Jamaica, counts a blues guitarist grandfather among his forebears. The two connected as University of Pennsylvania students through a shared affinity for Blood Orange, Frank Ocean, Toro y Moi, Beach House, and similarly off-center R&B and indie acts. By 2016 they were working with singer Ivy Sole in the psychedelic neo-soul outfit Indigold. After that collective dissolved, they carried on as Bathe and began uploading material online, among it the 2018 single "Sure Shot." The track spread virally, clearing the path for their debut EP, 2019's I'll Miss You. They resurfaced in 2021 with the follow-up EP Bicoastal. With 2024's Inside Voice(s): Side A they unveiled the first segment of a companion two-EP set, featuring reflective numbers such as "Avalon" and "Fields," a mood they signaled would be inverted by the darker Side B.
The project began in 2018 with singer/songwriter Devin Hobdy and guitarist/songwriter Corey Smith-West. Hobdy, raised in Queens by his jazz-musician mother, trained in opera at an arts high school. Smith-West, whose family arrived from Jamaica, counts a blues guitarist grandfather among his forebears. The two connected as University of Pennsylvania students through a shared affinity for Blood Orange, Frank Ocean, Toro y Moi, Beach House, and similarly off-center R&B and indie acts. By 2016 they were working with singer Ivy Sole in the psychedelic neo-soul outfit Indigold. After that collective dissolved, they carried on as Bathe and began uploading material online, among it the 2018 single "Sure Shot." The track spread virally, clearing the path for their debut EP, 2019's I'll Miss You. They resurfaced in 2021 with the follow-up EP Bicoastal. With 2024's Inside Voice(s): Side A they unveiled the first segment of a companion two-EP set, featuring reflective numbers such as "Avalon" and "Fields," a mood they signaled would be inverted by the darker Side B.
Albums
Singles
