MODERN LOVERS (curated by Foggy Notions) presents
Workman’s Club, Dublin
November 16th, 2026
As part of the inaugural MODERN LOVERS, a new music programme curated by
Foggy Notions across multiple venues in Dublin City from Nov 8th to 16th
@ (4AD Records) will play their biggest Irish show to date at The
Workman’s Club on Monday 16th November.
@ – Autosmile
16 October 2026 | 4AD 0910
Songwriters Victoria Rose and Stone Filipczak have a pact, a devotion to
each other and to the
music of @. In their solo existence, Victoria works as a beekeeper and
Stone as a self-taught
computer programmer, but when they get together, they become a singular,
avant-garde song
force. The East Coast house-show circuit first brought them into each
other’s orbit. Both Victoria
and Stone are long time participants in the D.I.Y. music world, with
their own separate histories
in basement noise shows, warehouses and all ages spaces (Victoria has
several records under
the name Brittle Brian, and Stone has most recently gone by the
pseudonym E.R. Visit). Over
time, the two began collaborating long distance, and soon developed the
@ formula – half Victoria
songs, half Stone songs, with each filling in the cracks of the other’s
compositions. On their new
album Autosmile, the band’s first with the legendary indie label 4AD, @
have harnessed their
unique process to reimagine the psychedelic folk tradition as an
undeniably contemporary art
form. @ are a coalition, a team, a two-headed cat, and their
collaboration has led them, once
again, to fascinating and timeless results.
The mysterious channels of the internet brought the songs of @’s first
album, Mind Palace Music,
into the lives of a much larger audience than Victoria and Stone had
ever encountered. The
album’s organic success story is miraculous considering the aggressively
un-searchable nature
of their deliberately obtuse moniker. Before their debut album, @ had
never played live or even
sung a harmony together in person. The collaborations were entirely
distanced. In the years that
followed, @ figured out how to have a band practice, how to perform this
music for audiences of
all sizes, how to sing together in shared air, and how to make each
other laugh on stage with
absurdist guitar-god solos. The process of becoming a formidable live
band was highly influential
on the way they decided to approach arranging Autosmile, opting for more
reproducible
experiments and relying far less on digital production flourishes than
in the past.
During the making of Autosmile, Stone relocated to Philadelphia and the
duo had the benefit of
finally living in the same city. However, the band still chose to work
on their songs individually; as
the adage goes: If it ain’t broke… Instead of booking out studio time,
they hired close friends to
guest on the album, adding cello, violin, and live drums to their
already expansive arsenal of
instruments. Victoria recorded her parts, as always, on a cheap 80’s
microphone inherited from
their step-mom’s old polka competition days. In lieu of a mic stand, she
regularly props it up in a
coffee mug, recording from her couch. Stone’s preferred setup is also
remarkably low tech, yet
the resulting sounds of their home-wizardry somehow remain lush,
complex, and occasionally
quite hi-fi.
Both Victoria and Stone are incisive, classic songwriters, and their
occasionally-baroque
arrangements and production touches give the songs a rough-hewn yet
virtuosic quality. This
inventiveness, applied to songs that hold up against classic psych folk
records, sets @ apart,
somehow looking backwards and forwards all at once. Album opener “Bird”
begins with an eerie,
chromatic trance of acoustic guitar & cinematic flutes that spins out
into an uplifting pop chorus
before crashing back into its introspective verse. There is a consistent
darkness to the moods of
Autosmile, but @ is also an inherently playful enterprise, unexpected
prog flourishes lurking
behind incisive indie rock song craft. Victoria explains, “Neither of us
is afraid of being over the
top musically…. being unafraid of getting dramatic or comedic lends
itself to really emotional
moments.”
On the epic, near 7-minute title track “Autosmile”, Victoria poeticizes
a mysterious breakup into
questions of demonology, no stone left unturned as the duo quests
towards respective and mutual
resolution. Whatever private matters are examined, mystery is
key—Victoria and Stone don’t tell
each other what their songs are about. @ believes “if we are writing a
song that can apply to many
aspects of our own lives, then it makes it more relatable to the
listener’s life.” In keeping, the lyrics
throughout the album bounce between adversity and possibility, exploring
the inner and outer
worlds with curiosity and prismatic awe. The nostalgic earworm “I Know
You Are (But What Am I
Thinking)” seems to laugh at the beauty of change and decay. This
ability to twist a negative
impulse into something beautiful also gleams on the standout “Punish My
Mind”, an expertly
arranged song complete with dense harmonies and intricate chord
progressions over which @
sing about the twin instincts to punish and comfort oneself, eventually
envisioning a pristine state
of pure acceptance.
Across Autosmile, Victoria and Stone carefully balance beauty and pain
while remaining one of
the most musically adventurous duos operating today. These eleven songs
nimbly shift between
black hole heaviness and patient understanding, never abandoning a sense
of wonder. In the
face of darkness, miraculously, perhaps impishly, an Autosmile forms.
