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Premiere: Separatr’s “Meet Cute”

Release date: September 27th, 2019

Dan Ray September 27, 2019
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Premiere: Separatr’s “Meet Cute” September 27, 2019

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

Photo courtesy of Separatr

Ah, the end of September: the kids are back in school, the pink and purple hues of the sunset are coming earlier and earlier, the leaves are starting to fall, and the season of summer flings is drawing to a close. Whether you left your sunshine cutie back at your favorite vacay spot or you’re gearing up to don some matching sweaters and hit up a pumpkin patch, the beginning of fall is the time to reflect on all those late summer nights cozying up to your crush by the bonfire.

Enter: Bellingham noise-pop duo Separatr. The project of married couple Stephanie Melvin and Joe Douglas, the duo has got all your romantic fantasies covered with their new single, “Meet Cute.”

Well…sort of. The three-minute track is a crunchy-guitar-influenced satire of your favorite rom-com moments. Starting with a twinkly aura that brings to mind a cinematic shot of a young woman lazily trailing her hands through a field of sunflowers, sun spots cascading over the camera lens, “Meet Cute” quickly drops into distorted and crackling, yet punchy and melodic, guitars from both Melvin and Douglas.

When Melvin comes in on vocals, she’s grungy and hard-driving, adding a fiercely punk edge to lyrics like “I’m hoping you’re a straight out of Jane Austen / hate me ’til you love me kind of guy,” “let’s go outside / and fight in the rain,” and, my personal favorite, “I’m hoping that you chase me / through the airport / beg me not to leave / because I make your life complete / or some other cheesy kind of line.”

Take a listen to the track below to add some humor into your love life. Whether you’re still crying in bed over the loss of your Danny Zuko or you and your sweetie have decided that “[You’re] All In This Together,” we could all use some light-hearted self-deprecation.

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Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).