Tears Run Rings

Tears Run Rings functions as a dream pop ensemble built through remote cooperation among multiple indie pop veterans. Four of its five participants had previously performed together in the 1990s as the Autocollants. By stressing the more ethereal qualities of that earlier work, the group developed a slower pace and a hazier overall texture. Their first album-length statement, Always, Sometimes, Seldom, Never, surfaced in 2008, after which they reassembled at irregular intervals for later releases including In Surges in 2016 and Everything in the End in 2024.

Laura Watling, Ed Mazzucco, Tim Morris, and Dwayne Palasek began their shared history in the 1990s with the Autocollants. During the following decade these four musicians joined Matthew Bice—who had co-founded Shelflife Records with Mazzucco—to create Tears Run Rings. The name references a Marc Almond composition, while the sound draws on the dreamy sweetness associated with Luna, My Bloody Valentine, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. As a result, the former Autocollants members set aside their bright, jangly twee approach in favor of reverb-swathed shoegaze. Because the participants lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland, they exchanged audio files over the Internet to build their recordings. Their atmospheric and translucent debut EP, A Question and an Answer, appeared on Disaster Club Records in spring 2007. One year later the band’s first full-length album, Always, Sometimes, Seldom, Never—an equally subdued and wistful set—emerged on Florida’s Clairecords. Distance followed as their second album in 2010.

Balancing other musical projects and family obligations, the collective spent six years shaping a third album through periodic sessions of writing, recording, and mixing. In Surges reached listeners via Deep Space Recordings in 2016. Two years afterward they issued the EP Somewhere and performed their first live show in a decade. Tears Run Rings have also produced occasional remixes for other artists, including Lavender Blush and Oceans. Conceived across several years and planned as a double LP, Everything in the End arrived in 2024.