Singing the Divine Voices

Written by Maria Lovejones

Award-winning San Diego band, The Microblades , talks to Reckless Correspondent Maria Lovejones about the supporting the local music scene, being best friends first, and their “Cowboy” music video.

San Diego, USA

San Diego, USA

“Do you need a ride?”

“Which way ya headin’?”

“East. You?”

“Anywhere you’ll take me.”

It is here where The Microblades’ “Cowboy” music video begins. The video starts in the Anza-Borrego Desert on the eastern ridge of San Diego County. The Anza-Borrego transforms the coastal San Diego of legend into a peripheral landscape of myth. It is in this daydream where the first chords of “Cowboy” chime, the bassline tremors, the rhythm kicks up, and The Microblades appear before us like a desert mirage.

“You’re too famous in this town, and you know it.”

With just three singles out, the San Diego-native vintage rock trio have been blazing through the Southern California indie scene. The Microblades, comprising Giulietta Randell as the guitarist and lead vocalist, Imogen Collis as the bassist, and Lauren Deerinck as the drummer and backup vocalist, are one of the most captivating acts to emerge from the San Diego indie scene post-pandemic. From their first show in 2022 at Attitude Brewing Co. as neophytes to their inaugural performance at the 2024 San Diego Music Awards showcase week as nominees, The Microblades have maintained that tenacious sound that captivates as much as it mystifies. Is it indie or is it folk? Is it pop or is it rock? Are they real or a play of light? It's true: the sound is ineffable, but it's enduring and it makes us want to hear more.

Randell expresses that the creative process is always dynamic. “When the inspiration strikes, it feels so much like the gospel,” Randell muses. “Like, oh my gosh… I’m singing the divine voices.”

“[It’s] a lot of spontaneity,” Deerinck remarks. “That’s how we usually do things. Giulietta comes up with a melody and she sends us a demo, and during rehearsals, we bounce ideas off of each other.”

Their fiery debut, “Think of All the Good Things” (2020), sparked from a voice memo passed between Randell and Deerinck. Randell drew the idea for the “Rainy Day Fund” (2021), from spinning Miles Davis records and pitching spare change into a jar. “Cowboy” (2023) emerged after Randell attended her first post-pandemic backyard show and left illuminated by the familiar conviction, “I need to write something about this.”

The Microblades cite their musical influences on a continuum. There are traces of everything: deliveries borrowed from The Who, lyricism echoing Joni Mitchell, technique marinated in Led Zeppelin. A melodic sincerity shining through it all. They baptize their eclectic sound with a “real bare bones'' authenticity. An authenticity that sparks the “Nouveau star persona” in the chorus of “Think of All the Good Things” or fills the red cup with fancy champagne in the verse of “Rainy Day Fund.”

“You always have to have an element of artistic vision,” Randell emphasizes. “An element of spectacle, essentially.”

“Glam grunge” is the medium they arrived at. It’s the sort of authenticity that is as cinematic as it is candid. Hard edges dusted in glitter, shattered mirror balls on hardwood floors, striking hi-hats in ball gowns, and sliding through pentatonic scales under fluorescent lights. They’ve married their aesthetic to their artistry.

“We were trying to find a different way to combine our more edgy elements, but also more dressed up,” Randell explains. “That’s what we thought was a good compromise.” And that compromise bleeds into their music as well. Manifesting in the sleek continuity of their performance and instrumentation. There’s an infectious confidence in the way they play off each other. A winking conversation on the bridge, a piercing dialogue on the refrain. “I will build my drum part, especially the kick off of what you guys are doing,” Deerinck says to her bandmates. “I’m not just doing my own thing. I want it to be very call-and-response.” This is all a testament to The Microblades’ skill and style, but also to the near-telepathic bond they share as friends. They speak of each other with beatific endearment. Randell remembers meeting Deerinck, ethereal in her butterfly-studded platforms and her billowing red hair. Randell remembers admiring Collis in their high school French class, and thinking, “That is the coolest person ever.”

“We’re all best friends first and bandmates second, I’d say,” Randell says. “We’re all very passionate,” Deerinck concurs.

When Randell sat down to write the San Diego Music Award-winning “Cowboy,” she did so with Laurel Canyon on her mind. “Joni Mitchell or Carol King or Paul Simon,” she elaborates. “They have a lot of poetic phrases and lyrics that are really based off of this imagery [and it] really hooks me in.”

Though steeped in nostalgia and attribution, “Cowboy” is an ode to contemporary San Diego. Where every breath is a song. Where every evening is radiant. Where every backyard show is a muse.

“It was my first introduction to the local music scene and I was just awestruck,” Randell elaborates on the San Diego show that inspired “Cowboy.” “Not only by the crowd reaction, but the musicians and I saw that they were like one or two years older than me. It kinda made me realize there was a scene going on and I just really loved that dynamic and that culture.”

This is the San Diego where Randell attended her first post-pandemic show and this is the San Diego personified in “Cowboy.” The song surges with the vibrancy of the indie rock scene: a constellation of local landmarks in the lyrics, a dreamy ripple in the vocals, a sonic sangfroid in the instrumentation.

“There’s so much artistic labor not only in doing artistic things but also supporting other artists,” Randell says.

The Microblades fall under this shiny San Diego tradition of symbiosis and revelation, but they find themselves beyond it as well. They find themselves in a getaway car, east of the backyard shows and the eternal summers. Pushing through the twilights and the equinoxes, into the distance of new realms, new terrains, new heights.

It's easy to find The Microblades in the frame. In wedding dress filigree and dyed-denim overalls, in cherry red fringe and sun-bleached combat boots. Implacable harmonies whistling through the cottonwoods. This is where you’ll find The Microblades and this is the journey they’ll take you on.

It begins with the hitchhiker’s thumb, and it ends on the open road.