The mysterious New York City-based musical duo MS MR (Lizzy Plapinger and Max Hershenow) emerged to make their imprint on 2012 with "Hurricane," an introspective alt-pop masterpiece heralding the arrival of a new band, a new sound and a new approach to pop. An unofficial video for the track popped up on YouTube in May 2012 and has since garnered more than 1.5 million views. Awarded ‘Best New Track’ on Pitchfork, the duo's single quickly rose to number one on Hype Machine. “We’re interested in exploring the nature of mixed media and collage,” says Lizzy, “and how music transcends all these various platforms.” Chief among them is MS MR’s lively—if thoroughly mystifying—Tumblr page, which they used unprecedentedly to debut their EP, the critically lauded Candy Bar Creep Show (2012).
Mainstream and underground press on both sides of the Atlantic soon took notice and before long MS MR’s songs were popping up everywhere, including “Bones” on the trailer for Game of Thrones Season 3 and "Hurricane" on catwalks everywhere during Fashion Week. "Prepare to be blown away," predicted the Guardian. Soon after the release of their EP, the duo signed a deal with Columbia Records for the worldwide release of their debut album.
In the beginning of 2013 MS MR released “Fantasy,” the first track off of their upcoming album Secondhand Rapture. For the full-length Lizzy and Max initially wrote and recorded all the tracks in Max’s home studio in Brooklyn. Composed over the course of a year and produced by Max, the duo then brought in Tom Elmhirst (Adele, Amy Winehouse), to mix the full-length and add some additional production at the legendary Electric Lady Studios. “It was a big leap from the glorified closet where we recorded our demos to our first real studio," says Max. Secondhand Rapture is an intriguing aural Jenga that combines humbled ballads (“Dark Doo Wop”), experimental epics (“Head is not My Home”), and pure pop belters ("Think of You") alike. It expands on what Candy Bar Creep Show sketched out, seamlessly referencing everything from ’80s new wave to ’90s pop, doo-wop to country. “We both listen to a lot of different music from all different genres and time periods,” says Lizzy. “We wanted to create an environment that was cinematic and grandiose but also self-aware and playful.”
"From the beginning we knew we had a really unique musical chemistry," adds Max. "We continued to write as much as possible and didn't really think of ourselves as a band until we'd collected a body of material. We wrote in secret around both of our day jobs so our intensely personal friendship developed alongside our musical relationship, as we wrote the album." Their collaborations evolved into a inter-reliant process: “We share the earliest kernel of an idea and extensively cross edit each other so that our process becomes completely intertwined.” Translating the recorded tracks to a live stage was a challenge the duo hadn't considered while writing, but support tours with Marina and the Diamonds, GROUPLOVE, and Jessie Ware gave them time to develop into an act the Village Voice called "intoxicating" and voted one of the best shows of the summer. MS MR will be touring extensively throughout 2013, playing headline shows and many festivals around the world.
