chokecherry’s Izzie A Clarke and E. Scarlet Levinson paths crossed via the fertile San Francisco music scene. After bonding over a love of Sonic Youth, Fugazi and Nirvana, they played in a variety of Bay Area bands, and it was after watching each other perform that the seeds for their collaboration was sown. After signing to the terminally-cool Fearless Records they released their debut EP in 2024, and now hit us with their first full-length, Ripe Fruit Rots And Falls. An album that captures the existential dread that comes with living in the modern world, and wraps it up in some of the most sublime melodies ever heard.

I don’t know what I was expecting from a band called chokecherry and an album titled Ripe Fruit Rots And Falls, but it wasn’t the sublime, lush, multilayered opener that greeted me when ‘Porcelain Warrior’ poured from my speakers. However, one thing you quickly realise when dealing with this duo is always to expect the unexpected. Recalling The Sundays and Cocteau Twins, it’s an otherworldly introduction and one which alters the listener’s perceptions, hypnotically taking us from this world and transporting us to a higher plane. If you had to categorise this track then its shimmering beauty would place it in the dream pop genre and wraps its sonics in a fuzzy Novocaine buzz. That makes the following track, ‘Major Threat’ (a not so subtle tribute to Washington hardcore heroes Minor Threat) all the more startling. With bass rumbling and speakers smoking, it’s a high octane blast which seers the skin and gets pulses racing. The sonic shift between the two tracks is arresting, a splash of cold water to wake us from our slumber, but when we remember the chokecherry golden rule, it all makes perfect sense. Like a mirrorball that’s constantly rotating and shining light in every direction, Ripe Fruit Rots And Falls is an album in perpetual motion with each of these ten tracks sounding markedly different. This could result in an eclectic, uneven listen, yet this is an album stitched together by its own diversity meaning that the bright sunlight of ‘Secrets’ contrasts the dark ‘Oblivion’ perfectly.

Ripe Fruit Rots And Falls is a record that cuts to the very quick of human existence and encapsulates the experience of being a caring, sentinel being in a harsh, uncaring world. The Earth can often be a lonely place, yet this is one of those rare albums that makes a tangible connection between artist and listener, rounding out the sharp corners and making the world a more hospitable place. The more perceptive will notice that the album takes a more softer, introspective feel as ‘February’ gently ushers us to the album’s conclusion and the majestic title-track. As with fruit rotting on the vine, all things must end, but Ripe Fruit Rots And Falls finds chokecherry in full bloom.

• Ripe Fruit Rots And Falls is released via Fearless Records on 14th November 2025.
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Track List:

1. Porcelain Warrior
2. Major Threat
3. Pretty Things
4. Secrets
5. Goldmine
6. Part Of You
7. You Love It When
8. Oblivion
9. February
10. Ripe Fruit Rots And Falls