The Bard College indie electronica pair went from an iPhone recording in the library to an A24 Music deal and a sold-out European tour in under two years.
ear are Jonah Paz and Yaelle Avtan, who met at Bard College in upstate New York in 2024 and came to music from other art forms, Paz as a painter and Avtan as a ceramicist. Based between New York and London, they play two Irish shows this month, so here’s a quick guide to how they got here, what they sound like and where to start.
How they got here
The story goes that they started collaborating after an impromptu open mic noise set on just their second day of knowing each other. Their first single, ‘Nerves’, came out in November 2024, partly recorded on Avtan’s iPhone in the college library. It was picked up by Spotify’s Cph+ editorial playlist, which put the unknown duo alongside a run of Copenhagen internet-savvy alt acts.
They self-released their debut album, The Most Dear and The Future, in September 2025. It earned a deal with A24 Music, the film studio’s record label, and a sold-out European tour followed.
Their second album, Rumspringa, arrived on A24 Music at the end of May this year. The title comes from the Amish rite of passage in which young people step outside the community’s customs before deciding whether to commit to them.
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What ear sound like
ear sit somewhere between indietronica, IDM, glitch pop and 2000s bloghouse, with soft, whispery vocals over collage-like production. Some writers have tagged it “laptop twee”, a nod to the twee, digital hardcore, British post-punk and Sparklehorse records the pair bonded over at Bard. They operate as a strictly 50:50 collaboration, and the sentimental, specific songwriting is as much the point as the glitches around it.
The first record leaned soft and bedroom-scale. Rumspringa swaps much of that for skittering breakbeats and squelchy square-wave bass while keeping the sighing vocals and lilting synth melodies on top, and its lyrics deal with the realisation that you can’t go back to where you came from. A fucked up Postal Service by way of Crystal Castles.
What is laptop twee?
So what is laptop twee? It’s less an established genre than a handy shorthand, and it’s mostly been used about ear. The idea is twee pop’s fragile, naive melodies and small-voiced vocals, built on a laptop instead of jangling guitars, with sampled textures, programmed beats and glitchy electronics doing the work. Activaire describes it as pairing the minimal beats and sharp synths of electroclash with the vocals of twee and folk. Eli Enis said laptop twee answers the question “what if Belle & Sebastian were really into Bladee in high-school?” and that piece also quotes a defunct Nina article that poses it as “when a traditional twee pop song is produced in a way that feels distinctly post-hyperpop.”
Laptop twee acts include bassvictim, Worldpeace DMT, Cootie Catcher, Amigos Imaginarios the femcels and ear.
The key songs
‘Nerves’ is where it all started, and it’s still the best way in. It opens as a hushed ambient ballad, with strings that sound more like horns, whispered textures and low rumbles under gentle layered vocals, before erupting halfway through into something close to a banger. Avtan has said the bass in the song was almost an accident: it was sitting off to the side of the session until they dragged it into the track, as she told No Bells.
If ‘Nerves’ is the way in, ‘Real Life’ is the live set highlight right now, a song that recalls the blog band buzz synth internet music era of Hipster Runoff circa 2010.
Where to see ear in Ireland
- Sunday October 25th, National Concert Hall, Dublin, as part of Haunted Dancehall, with Sunday tickets at €35.
- Monday October 26th, Button Factory, Dublin, with Sunken Foal in support, presented by Foggy Notions, with tickets at €24.50 including booking fee.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
