Yucky Duster

Yucky Duster’s debut album is filled with embittered, hard-truth moments that force you to sit up straight and take notice. The Brooklyn band — made up of members from Bluffing, the Gradients, and Slonk Donkerson — writes songs based around contemporary frustrations: the self-explanatory “Friend Zone,” the stalled job market on “Donny S Hits Zack Up For A Job,” the tortured cellular anxiety of “Break Your Phone.” There’s a caustic levity to Yucky Duster, grounded by the conversational style of dual vocalists Madeline Babuka Black and Maggie Gaster, who commiserate with each other across pinched guitars and nervy drumming.
Case in point: the devilishly satisfying “Paul Revere,” which asks the song’s subject, “Do you really think you’re that good looking?” before laying into them for being a pompous creep: “Yes, I know you were on TV — that doesn’t mean you can say rude things to me,” Gaster sings. Babuka Black interjects: “Wait! I wanna say something… I felt your dick two years ago, and it’s small as fuck.” These candid moments give the album an improvisational quality, sort of like you’re just goofing around and catching up with your friends while digging into life’s deeper injustices.

Similar sparks occur on “Friend Zone,” which asks “Does that make me a bitch? Does that make me a bitch?,” mimicking society’s snotty tone when a woman doesn’t want to reciprocate a man’s advances and just wants to stay friends. “Construction Man” sees the whole band chiming in, turning catcall distress into an army of unfettered voices. “Blue Elvis” starts off as a sparkling doo-wop but soon descends into a twitchy punk song about wanting someone you know is bad for you; “Real Good Case Of The Bads” is an acute examination of depression and isolation packaged in a warm hug.

Yucky Duster is in and out in under 20 minutes, but the band packs enough variety and compulsively listenable moments throughout that make it a pleasure to keep returning for more. Listen to the whole thing below. - Stereogum

Brooklyn band Yucky Duster's new single "Flip Flop" is a goddamn perfect, endlessly quotable anti-crush song. The group's Madeline Babuka Black penned the track — which is from their forthcoming self-titled debut LP and is premiering today on The FADER — after realizing this dude she was into was actually kind of lame. Told me that you were a Scorpio on the patio/ Like I didn't already know, sings Black over Yucky Duster's simple beats and noodly guitars, And your friends they kind of blow/ They're all jerks I don't know.

"I wrote 'Flip Flop' when I had a thing for this guy in a buzzy band and it was becoming increasingly obvious that he wasn't interested in me," the band's Madeline Babuka Black wrote in an email to The FADER.

"Shortly after I saw him wearing flip flops and I realized I had made a huge mistake. I mean, who wears flip flops around the city? That's disgusting, flopping all that street sludge up into your toes… Also one of his friends was a jerk to me and that was a turn off. It's tempting to idealize someone if you love their music, especially in a romantic context. This song is about the reality of my crush — uneventful and embarrassing."

Listen to "Flip Flop" below, and preorder the record via Birdtapes here. If you're in town, Yucky Duster's release show is at Brooklyn's Shea Stadium June 3. - The Fader

The subject of longing has permeated through most music for about as long as we can remember, but where its presence is ever constant, its shape is ever changing. Charm-punk outfit Yucky Duster finds a way to fit sunny, melodic nostalgia rather than exasperated lamentation in their new single, “Gofer”, off their debut record, out June 3 on Birdtapes. Bits of ’60s surf cruises in and out of bewitching punk grit, neither ever really making their ways into the full swing of genre, but rather, kind of existing on their own, one seamlessly handing off to the other, and back again.

The origins of the project, having started as just Maggie Gaster and Madeline Babuka Black with a bass guitar and drumkit, are pronounced in the opening seconds, a buoyant rhythm section carrying unthinkably sunny vocals, despite the plaintive inquisitions they are pondering. The guitars, brought to the table by Zack O’Brian (also of Slonk Donkerson) and Luca Balser (also of The Gradients/Gummy), serve to bulwark the steadfast drive of the melody, and the self-aware, self-knowing question of the lyrics, “how long, how long is too long?” Established in such a simple question are a simultaneous realization, a coming to terms, and a determination that enough time has been wasted on the “you” of the song. Better things to come for “me.” - Impose Magazine