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Babehoven - I See Them, I See Me

$25.00

*Please note this is a pre-order - orders are expected to ship the week of September 21st*

Maya Bon and Ryan Albert–the duo behind Hudson, New York-based band Babehoven–share a home with two notable figures: their blind cats Trilobite and Zorza. The four of them are packed into the same domestic space, yet they move through it with their own perceptions and understanding of the world–an experience that has had a profound effect on the two musicians. I See Them, I See Me, Babehoven’s third studio album, probes into this idea of a “parallax view”– different perspectives on the same reality–as the band seeks to reorient themselves in relation to society’s increasingly warped ways of being and seeing. Through fourteen tracks that crackle with clear-eyed vision, Babehoven has crafted a transcendent new collection that gets back to the heart of what makes music meaningful and life worth living.

For the first time in Babehoven’s prolific output–which includes, mostly recently, 2024’s Water’s Here In You–Bon and Albert blew the doors open on their process, inviting in three different engineers to capture the songs in four different studios. The all-star line-up includes Sam Evian, Kevin Copeland, and Phil Weinrobe, who also acted as a co-producer. “We wanted to incorporate a fresh, live, honest feel into the recordings,” the band says. “We actively tried to have more fun with making this album.” To that end, much of I See Them, I See Me was live-tracked with a six-person ensemble, and Weinrobe instilled a philosophy of “no playback, no headphones, and no preparation” to create maximal presence in the room. This approach allowed the band to loosen up more and tap into the energy of being onstage, where they spent much of the last few years on tour.

From the opening track “You’re a Liar,” which blooms with fiddle and the clip-clop of hand drums, the band establishes a new palette that conveys a lighthearted spirit. The rollicking blend of indie and alt-country sparkles with slide guitar, hardinger fiddle, and a sprightly vocal twang that Bon says pays homage to Emmylou Harris and Patsy Kline. Albert, meanwhile, cites classic folk-rock artists like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and The Band as influences for the warm, down-home sound.

In 2024, during Babehoven’s first headline tour, Bon suffered from paralysis of her right vocal chord. For much of the next year, she was unable to sing, and she was told that she might never recover. “I have so much gratitude now that I am able to sing again,” Bon says. “To not only sing, but to sing with joy. I think part of the idea of ‘having fun’ with this album is trying to really enjoy what we can do, the gifts we have.” In light of this, the album rings out as a sort of triumphant fist-pump, the flash of a battle scar. On lead single “Blue Around You,” a country-flecked stomper, Bon sings: “Yesterday a stranger told me they can see / That I feel levels of pain that could’ve broken me / And I thought, mmm but I survived it.”

While many of the songs in Babehoven’s discography are built on intricate cyclical melodies, I See Them, I See Me is full of wide, catchy choruses–anthems to be sung by a crowd. On heavy-hitter “Lasagna,” a song about seeing and being seen in a new relationship, Bon sings over a thick bed of guitars: “And I’m reading you between my knees / When you break in two, I’m relieved.” “Wave Has a Place” also carries the live-show energy, with driving drums and yowling verses that simmer down to a mantra-like refrain: “This is your home / and it’s always going to be safe.” Later, on “Three Reds” –which takes its name from a car game the band developed on tour–the album title is looped in a chant that feels like the release of a pressure valve.

Around the time of her vocal injury, Bon underwent nine sessions of high-dose ketamine therapy for depression. Each session sent her into a kind of lucid dreaming, and many of the lyrics on the album have a surreal, associative quality, further blurring the edges of reality. In the grunge-tinged “Am I in a Dream,” Bon recounts a litany of dreams while watching her home in Topanga Canyon, California, burn–referring to the real-life nightmare of the wildfires that destroyed most of the area in January 2025. The song features Ella Williams (Squirrel Flower), singing a haunting countermelody: “My home is burning / LA’s on fire.” “As things with climate change and the state of the world get more dire and confusing,” Bon says, “it’s hard to tell sometimes if what we’re experiencing is reality because it feels so unbelievably grim.” Albert agrees, adding, “We have a beautiful life, and also we are witnessing catastrophe after catastrophe happen around the world.” It is another parallax view: what is real and what is a dream?

At the end of an album that questions the nature of our reality and how to move through it, closing track “Pelorus” feels like an answer. Named after a river in The Lord of the Rings, the song references a line spoken by the character Aragorn: “Let down your sword. / There’s no one left to fight.” Over strains of guitar that shimmer like light on water, the band finds their peace.

I See Them, I See Me is a buoyant journey toward liberation, taking back the reins of joy from the circumstances that would separate us from it. Babehoven is moving forward on their own terms, their two blind cats blinking milkily up at them. “We get to choose how we view the world around us,” Bon concludes. And perhaps, these songs suggest, we meet each other somewhere beyond sight. Somewhere deeper, closer to the heart.

1. You're a Liar

2. When You Look at Me

3. Lasagna

4. Monster

5. Blue Around You

6. Something True

7. Red Interlude

8. Jess Has a Place

9. Am I in a Dream

10. Wave Has a Place

11. Neck

12. Beetle on the Scene Pt. 2