On the heels of the X & Yde EP from last week, here’s another short post about a collaborative project that there isn’t a lot to know about. The EP Water Season by artists Hooky & Winter crossed my radar earlier this year thanks to the blog of Toronto radio guy Alan Cross.
Similar to Sounds of a Bite, Water Season is a short collaboration between artists with very different styles and backgrounds. In this case, this four-track project brings together Brazilian-American artist Winter (Samira Winter, who happens to be the cousin of the lead singer of blog fave Shower Curtain) and Philly’s electro-lo-fi duo Hooky (Scott Turner and Sam Silbert), merging dreamy shoegaze with glitchy electronic textures. The result is like a fading memory of a weird summer dream, an intimate and wistful — if off-balance and strange — combination of elements that line up into a kind of uncanny valley of surreal nostalgia.
The EP opens with “horseshoe,” led by a swirling guitar-driven sample, layered with drum loops and Winter’s gentle vocals, evoking a nostalgic, cinematic haze. “Lost Tears” leans into experimental electronica, with distorted vocal samples and haunting melodies, reflecting the EP’s theme of fleeting moments. The closer, “I Like You,” ties the project together with a delicate blend of dream-pop and glitchy production, its opening lines echoing “horseshoe” to create a cyclical, love-letter-like finish.
Water Season builds on Winter’s 2024 EP …and she’s still listening, which explored trip-hop and spoken word, and Hooky’s 2024 album Mirage, a reverb-heavy shoegaze-electronica fusion. Together, their a sound is both ephemeral and immersive, merging Winter’s otherworldly with Hooky’s controlled chaos. The EP’s lo-fi production and indie-electronica flourishes make it a perfect soundtrack for those quiet, reflective moments.
Further Reading
