photo credits: Nicholas Mcdonough

I don’t hate love, and I don’t even hate Valentine’s Day (corporate nonsense and all), but it can feel isolating when you’re single. February 13th, though? That’s when the love feels most visible to me. Galentine’s Day is a reminder that sometimes the love you need most comes from your friends and the beautiful, chaotic life you get to share with them. So I found the perfect way to spend it: Honeymoon Phase.

A five-piece, all-star girl group emerging from the deep recesses of the Brooklyn music scene, they headlined Alphaville in Bushwick for one night alongside Pippy, Drop Dead Gorgeous, and The Most Beautiful Moth in America.

How could you not feel in love surrounded by some of the most talented women in Brooklyn.

Galentine’s Day is about celebrating friendship and how essential it is to have in your life, Honeymoon Phase is proof of exactly that. The band consists of Halina (guitar), Tess (synth), Ronni (vocals), Hannah (bass), and Claire (drums). They describe themselves as an “all-femme indie punk band blending Wet Leg’s deadpan wit with The Beaches’ gritty, anthemic energy,” and I’d have to agree.

Ronni and Claire had spent two years supporting the NYC music scene, leaving shows thinking we could do that, both coming from musical backgrounds but missing the feeling of being on stage themselves. Ronni floated the idea to Hannah, who had always wanted to learn bass. None of them really knew what they were doing yet. Hannah and Claire had never even played those instruments before, but that didn’t stop them. They needed a guitarist. Enter Halina, who had been playing for most of her life. Suddenly the idea felt real, and the girls had to lock in and actually learn their instruments. At their first meeting, they made a Spotify Blend together and discovered they shared over 90% of the same music taste. A match made in heaven, some might say. A few months later, they decided their sound needed synth. Tess was all in, taking what experience she had and fully stepping into the role. What started as a “should we?” between friends turned into something tangible. A band built not just on talent, but on trust, shared taste, and a beautiful blossoming of friendship that makes jumping into the unknown feel possible. And maybe that’s the most fitting part of all, their name. Because like any great friendship, or any great love, every band has its own honeymoon phase.

Isn’t the “honeymoon phase” so nice? Those dizzy, serotonin-flooded months of desperation and longing. When your partner can do no wrong, and every moment feels cinematic. Like all things, honeymoon phases end. Your partner becomes real again - the aftermath of intense emotions and thoughts of “should we still be together?” HMP captures both feelings perfectly, the highs and also the anger, the confusion, and the urge to run from feelings that are a little too intense to hold. HMP’s songs swing between vulnerability and defiance, which is exactly what makes them so entertaining to watch.

Cowboy Girl

Women on stage and women in the crowd (mostly) just make sense. The whole room was dancing, and screaming from start to finish. It felt less like a show and more like a shared release. Anger, joy, heartache, all of it bouncing off the walls at once.

Runaway

“I tried to love you relentlessly, turns out I’m my own enemy” from Runaway, oh to be a painfully self-aware hopeless romantic.

Polaroid

“I don’t fucking care at all. I’m a martyr I’m a bull”, HMP fan favorite Polaroid always ignites the room with unfiltered energy. This is where the screaming turns intentional. Women don’t always get the space to be loud about their anger, and I love when an environment like this not only allows it, but encourages it.

Wish U Were Dead

Wish U Were Dead, another banger because yeah, sometimes our worst exes really do bring that kind of rage out of us.

This wasn’t my first Honeymoon Phase, and it won’t be my last. Their sets are consistently electric, both onstage and in the crowd. In all transparency, I consider these girls my friends, you could argue that makes me biased but I’ve got a great ear. I’ve brought four different people to see HMP live, and every single one left saying the same thing: “Wow, they’re really good. When’s the next show?”

In a scene still largely dominated by men, there’s something deeply refreshing, almost necessary, about watching women take up space, make noise, and own it completely. As my friend Devyn said after the set, “I get emotional watching women. We need more of this.”

I’m reluctant to admit HMP doesn’t have any official releases yet. They promise it’s coming soon, and good things take time. And I promise it’ll be worth the wait. In the meantime, you can follow them on Instagram and TikTok to keep up. Not only are they wildly talented, they’re also incredibly sweet and absolutely worth paying attention to. Go see them. Stay stuck in the Honeymoon Phase forever.

HMP Instagram

HMP TikTok

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It didn’t.

After a few months working in hospitals and nursing homes, I had a quiet but unmistakable realization: this wasn’t the life I wanted to wake up to every day. I felt lost, suspended somewhere between who I was and who I thought I was supposed to be. What scared me most wasn’t uncertainty, it was the idea of settling into something that never truly moved me.

Music was the one constant. Not because I wanted to be the person on stage, but because I was drawn to everything surrounding it. The stories behind songs, the invisible threads connecting artists and collaborators, the way a melody can hold a memory or a feeling you didn’t know how to name. Music has always felt like a language I understood instinctively.

I’ve spent years making playlists, over 300 now. Some are shaped by seasons, some by moods, some by moments or people or passing feelings I wanted to preserve. Playlists became my way of paying attention, of noticing what stayed with me and why.

Last year I interned in A&R and publishing at The Culture Theory, where I spent my time discovering emerging artists and helping connect them with our producers to create something new. I’m now interning at an indie record label Ba Da Bing, learning how music moves from an idea into something that lives out in the world.

This space is an extension of my curiosity and love for music.

I want to write about artists I discover and return to, albums that leave an imprint, playlists that capture a feeling, and anything else in music that feels worth paying attention to. Think of it as part listening journal, part discovery log, and part conversation about the music that stays with us.

This is simply my way of listening more closely and sharing what I hear along the way.