The origin story of indie-pop icons Ivy resembles a musical fairy tale set in the vibrant cultural setting of early 1990s New York City. Guitarist-vocalist Andy Chase decided to start a band and placed a classified ad looking for musicians. One of the people who responded was a talented songwriter named Adam Schlesinger. When Chase and his girlfriend Dominique Durand decided to record some original tunes to give as Christmas gifts for friends and family, they enlisted Schlesinger to play bass—and Ivy was born.
From their 1995 debut Realistic on forward, Ivy specialized in chic pop music brimming with empathy and gorgeous textures. Their six studio albums featured exquisite arrangements and influences: 1997’s Apartment Life was an indie-pop classic; 2000’s Long Distance incorporated trip-hop and a Stereolab-esque electronic sheen; and 2005’s In the Clear was a glowing synth-pop opus. Along the way, Ivy dabbled in the film world, contributing a cover of Steely Dan’s “Only a Fool Would Say That” to the movie Me, Myself & Irene and scoring the film Shallow Hal, among others.
Ivy last released an album in 2011 and despite the members being busy with other endeavors, the group never broke up. Over the years, a new generation of artists discovered Ivy, citing them as a major inspiration and influence, recognizing the cinematic nature of Durand’s vocals, and the band’s airtight arrangements and airy dreampop sound. These include some of indie’s biggest names (Snail Mail, Beach Fossils) and emerging artists who are making huge waves in 2025 (Momma, Slow Pulp, Wishy, DJ Python).
Sadly, Durand and Chase assumed that Ivy was in the rearview after Schlesinger tragically passed away from COVID-19 in 2020. But somewhat unexpectedly, here in 2025 comes a new Ivy album, Traces Of You. Built from the ground up using demos and song fragments dating from between 1995 to 2012, all of these new songs feature contributions from Schlesinger, with the blessing of his family. The resulting music possesses the twinkling magic of Ivy’s classic work, paired with the kind of emotional wisdom gleaned from surviving life’s most challenging moments.
Chase and Durand planted the seeds for Traces Of You while prepping reissues of Ivy’s back catalog. Their now-label, Bar/None Records, suggested including some unreleased tracks for these releases. As Chase and Durand started digging through Ivy’s storage locker, sifting through painstakingly restored reel-to-reel tapes and old hard drives from studio sessions, they kept uncovering hidden gems. After giving some bonus tracks to their label, Durand and Chase realized they still had dozens of unfinished songs, ranging from mere musical ideas all the way to tunes that were nearly complete.
The duo knew they would only consider working on Ivy demos featuring Schlesinger, but they were overwhelmed by deciding which songs to finish. In response, they reached out to Ivy’s backing keyboardist and guitarist, Bruce Driscoll, to help go through the archives and work on the music. “It’s like a messed-up fairy tale to collaborate with people who are some of my closest friends, under these weird circumstances without Adam being there,” Bruce says. “These guys are instrumental in me doing music; they were a big reason why I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I can do this music thing’ and moved to New York when I was just starting out.”
Chase and Durand trusted Driscoll’s instincts and perspective completely, and in the end, Driscoll ended up co-writing all the lyrics and melodies on Traces Of You, with the bulk of work spread out in 2022 and 2023. “Bruce is probably the only person that Dominique and I could think of that Adam really would have blessed for this job,” Chase says. “He really led the charge. He had this objectivity that we really needed.” .
Lead single “Say You Will,” an oceanic synth-pop song featuring drums from Joey Waronker (Beck, R.E.M.), was built from a 2009 demo where Schlesinger played bass and keyboard. The flute-augmented French-pop gem “Mystery Girl,” meanwhile, dates from circa Long Distance, and incorporates an acoustic guitar part he was working on, while the introspective “Fragile People” grew out of an idea that featured Schlesinger on bass as Chase handled guitar and Mellotron. And the waltzing orchestral-pop swirl “Wasting Time” features Schlesinger repeating the word “duotone”—an idea once deemed too silly that now feels poignant.
Chase notes they were sticklers about making sure Schlesinger’s contributions fit in seamlessly. “Inevitably, there were songs where we liked the direction they were going, but they didn’t work with the old parts Adam had put down,” he says. “So we had to make it work—or else we couldn’t use the song.”
That egalitarian way of making music was always very much how Ivy worked with Schlesinger; in fact, Chase notes that the songs on Traces Of You emerged in many different ways, just like the Ivy records they made with a more traditional process. With the record, the band isn’t trying to simply recreate the past, but rather place Ivy into a distinctly contemporary context. Driscoll encouraged Durand—who hadn’t recorded music in nearly a decade—to sing in a fuller voice. “It was very strange for me, because I felt like, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ I felt naked,” she says. “But Bruce insisted, ‘Just go ahead. You just have to try.’ That was really inspiring for me.”
Understandably, recording without Schlesinger was often an emotional experience, with Durand citing “Fragile People” especially as a tune that brought her and Chase to tears in the studio. “Unintentionally, the song stirred up something really melancholy for us— in a very specific way—about Adam,” she says. She notes that Ivy didn’t want to lean on cliches about losing Adam when writing lyrics. “It’s influenced by the loss of someone like him, but we did it in a way that’s very subtle,” she says. “There’s a ghostly feeling in the meaning of the lyrics.”
Poignantly, Traces Of You ends with “Hate That It’s True.” An aching pop song about the pain of unresolved grief and the power of eternal love, it’s dominated by a melancholy Schlesinger acoustic guitar and Driscoll, Chase and Durand whispering incantations of affection. In the end, the album honors Schlesinger’s musical talents and creativity—but just as much magnifies the magic of Ivy, and the indelible chemistry and spirit that can’t be broken by space or time.
“You can imagine how terrible it’s been to lose Adam,” Chase says. “The only silver lining is that we could breathe life into these songs that he contributed to and it was a great experience making this record happen. It was some of the most fun I’ve ever had, working on music with Dominique and Bruce.”
“It was also bittersweet,” he adds. “But what was nice about the bittersweetness was that I wasn’t alone in feeling that way. We all did. We were like a school of fish— three little fish, missing that fourth fish, all swimming in perfect union with each other, going through both the highs and lows.”
Publicity Contacts
Website
Press Kit
Photos
