underscores

April Harper Grey, who performs as Underscores, creates music that resists straightforward description. After uploading dubstep-tinged tracks online during her teenage years, she broadened the project into hyperpop territory, slicing across styles on the debut album Fishmonger (2021) that included “Your Favorite Sidekick” and “Spoiled Little Brat.” The 2023 album Wallsocket, spotlighting streaming standouts such as “Locals (Girls Like Us)” and “Cops and Robbers,” formed a layered concept work centered on small-town America and was rolled out through an elaborate online campaign.

Raised in San Francisco, Grey grew up surrounded by creative outlets. She pursued creative writing and video editing, maintaining a channel focused on Minecraft. Her early touchstones encompassed Madonna, Jack White, and Beck, while she identified as a band geek throughout high school. As a teenager, Skrillex’s Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites introduced her to EDM production, opening a path for her own electronic experiments. The 2016 EP Air Freshener stayed largely instrumental, whereas the 2018 follow-up Skin Purifying Treatment incorporated jazz elements alongside original lyrics. Two subsequent EPs arrived soon after: 2019’s We Never Got Strawberry Cake, later cited by Grey as one of her proudest efforts, and 2020’s Character Development. Throughout this span she also issued material with the electronic group Six Impala and the bedroom pop collective Papaya & Friends.

Underscores reached broader listeners in 2021 via Fishmonger and its companion EP Boneyard aka Fearmonger. With these projects Grey shifted further into hyperpop and pop-punk, layering glitchy electronic rhythms over distorted guitars and pitch-shifted vocals. The releases drew acclaim from blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Danish producer Lido, while Grey secured an opening slot for alt-pop duo 100 gecs. In 2023 Underscores unveiled Wallsocket, an ambitious concept album depicting coming of age in a fictional Michigan town. Grey composed every song on acoustic instruments before weaving together the record’s varied sonic strands, drawing from rock, hyperpop, alt-country, and folk traditions. She supported the album through an expansive ARG that directed fans to specially built websites for details on its themes and narratives.