On a bright day in late November, Michael Dehn (23Ox, 25C) sat in the corner of Kaldi’s Coffee at the Emory Student Center, working on an overdue assignment. His band’s debut album, “Girl Forget,” was set to release in eight hours. He wasn’t just nervous. He was thrilled.
Released on Nov. 22, “Girl Forget” is the first album by the duo Girl Stew, which is composed of Dehn and Alex Minovici (23Ox, 25C). Though the songs on the alternative album rely heavily on guitars, they also include bass, drums, electric keyboards and the organ.
While Girl Stew formed after the duo meeting their freshman year at Emory University, the duo has been writing music individually for years. Dehn released one album called “the nosebleeds” (2023) under his artistic pseudonym mj dehn, and Minovici has experience writing music but has never produced songs for public consumption.
Dehn and Minovici met as members of Oxappella, Oxford College’s gender-inclusive a cappella group. Over their time at Oxford, they bonded over their similar musical tastes and a shared love of the guitar, and soon began playing music together.
“We've played covers, like random BS, together for a very long time now,” Dehn said. “And then we kind of joked about writing songs, but we never actually fully committed to it until last spring.”
After four years of collaboration and months of writing, Girl Stew recorded their EP at Mirror Mirror Recording Studio in Atlanta, under producer Graham Tavel. During production, Dehn used the studio’s eclectic keyboard room as a personal playground.
“I could have spent days in there if we had the money for it,” Dehn said.
In the four years of time since meeting, the pair has formed a strong friendship. Dehn admires Minovici's musical genius, but mocks where their music tastes diverge — namely in Minovici’s love of 10-minute, wordless composites of instruments and Dehn’s obsession with lyricism.
These influences are prevalent in “Girl Forget.” The alternative album draws from songwriters such as Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver. These artists, who “paint very big pictures with their words” as Dehn describes, play a pivotal role in influencing the band’s artistic vision.
For Dehn, the inspiration is less lyrically influenced. Instead of focusing on long narrative tracks, he admires the emotive quality of music.
“At the end of the day, I always gravitate towards good melodies, good lyrics and digestible song forms,” Dehn said. “Alex will definitely disagree with me on that part. She has playlists of songs over 10 minutes and shorter than one minute, but if it feels good, it feels good.”
Minovici’s main inspiration comes from songwriter and composer Joanna Newsom, whom she regards as a musical “goddess” for never repeating the same lyrics twice.
The duo has sought to highlight and honor their inspirations through acoustic covers throughout their artistic journey and often posts the renditions to their Instagram. Dehn praised his favorite songs for providing insight into how life works.
“They speak to us and they speak to a certain questioning of the world around us, what's normal and what isn't, and what could be,” Dehn said.
“Girl Forget” reflects that sentiment by diving into themes of profiling the surrounding world and learning to love what you ultimately can’t control. The opening track, “I.D.K. You,” laments ending a relationship with someone who was once close. Minovici’s vocals lead the eulogy with harmonies by Dehn. She wails with electric guitars: “I don’t know you / No one cares / No one.”
Writing lyrics in the middle of the night on their notes apps, the duo lives and breathes their music. Songwriting serves both artists as a creative outlet and an escape from everyday life.
“My notes app is my greatest treasure and my worst enemy,” Dehn said. “I’ll be up at 3 a.m. and be like, ‘This line is good’ and wake up in the morning and be like, ‘What was I doing.’”
Minovici writes some lyrics in hopes of freezing a moment in time and how those moments exist independently of human intervention. Her lyricism, particularly in the final track "Asymptotic," seems to focus on this delicate balance between the stillness of an untouched moment and the passage of time.
“When you see dust on a bookshelf, it's there on its own and nobody put it there,” Minovici said. “It means the bookshelf was left undisturbed, I have these images and put them in these words.”
When Minovici writes, she reflects on the deeply personal inspiration behind her music, often drawing from intense emotional experiences.
“The “Asymptotic” guitar part was written during a time where I was mourning someone who had passed away,” Minovici said. “It's interesting that the lyrics don't really have anything to do with that, but the guitar part does.”
While songwriting, Minovici sits down to escape those intense feelings she can’t control. She elaborated further on how her songwriting process serves as an emotional outlet.
“A lot of the times that I sit down to write a song is because I'm feeling something so intensely and I don't know what to do with the feeling,” Minovici said. “It needs to go somewhere, and it usually goes into the guitar.”
Girl Stew's debut album, “Girl Forget,” introduces a unique Southern Gothic sound that blends raw emotion with powerful guitar melodies. Tracks like "I.D.K. You" and "Fickle Flicker" showcase their ability to create both haunting and beautiful music. With “Girl Forget,” Girl Stew proves that their combination of vulnerability, creativity and musical talent can forge connections with listeners on an emotional level.
