Gracie and Rachel is a

chamber pop Chamber pop (or Chamber rock; also called baroque pop and sometimes conflated with orchestral pop or symphonic pop) is a music genre that combines rock music with the intricate use of strings, horns, piano, and vocal harmonies, and other compo ...

piano-violin duo composed of singer-keyboardist Gracie Coates and violinist Rachel Ruggles, high school friends from

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

based out of

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

Background

Coates and Ruggles met at Berkeley High School in dance class when they were assigned to make a song for the class’s dance show. Coates went on to study at Berklee College of Music and Ruggles at

Jacobs School of Music The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music. It has more than 1,500 students, approximately half of whom ar ...

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

, but they continued to rehearse together over video calls, creating music that combined Coates' pop songwriting with Ruggles’ classical training, before they decided to move to Brooklyn to play music together.

Career

The duo recorded their debut album in their Bushwick loft where they also live together. Their single "Tiptoe" premiered on WNYC Soundcheck. They released several black and white videos to tease the release of their album: "Go", "Tiptoe" premiering on Baeble Music, "(Un)comfortable" premiering on Impose Magazine, and "It’s Time" premiering on Earbuddy. The video for "Only A Child" premiered on NPR Music where

Bob Boilen Bob B Boilen (b. April 10, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American musician and media personality. He is the host and creator of NPR's online music show ''All Songs Considered'' and NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts series. In 1979 Bob Boilen p ...

praised the "terrific tension in the sound, an underpinning of mystery set against a baroque, but modern, pop foreground." The song was later chosen as one of NPR Music’s 100 Best Songs of 2017. Gracie and Rachel’s self-titled debut album was teased with a full-album stream on The Big Takeover before its release on June 23, 2017 via United For Opportunity. They were voted by

All Songs Considered ''All Songs Considered'' is a weekly online multimedia program started in January 2000 by NPR's ''All Things Considered'' director Bob Boilen. At first, the show featured information and streaming audio about the songs used as bumper music on ...

listeners as #4 of their favorite new artists of 2017. The album was chosen as one of Bob Boilen’s top 10 albums of 2017 on NPR Music and one of the 25 best of 2017 by Echoes. Gracie and Rachel has also released covers of "

Gucci Gucci "Gucci Gucci" is a song by American hip hop music, hip hop recording artist Kreayshawn. The song serves as the lead single from her debut studio album, ''Somethin' 'Bout Kreay'' (2012). It was released on June 14, 2011, by Columbia Records. By ...

" by fellow Bay Area artist

Kreayshawn Natassia Gail Zolot (born September 24, 1989), better known by her stage name Kreayshawn, is an American rapper, singer, and music video director from Oakland, California. In 2011, while serving as a member of a rap group with her friends, she ...

and "

Elastic Heart "Elastic Heart" is a song written by Australian singer Sia, featuring Canadian singer the Weeknd and American record producer Diplo, for the soundtrack of '' The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'', a film based on the novel of the same name by S ...

" by

Sia Sia Kate Isobelle Furler ( ; born 18 December 1975) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Adelaide, she started her career as a singer in the acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s. In 1997, when Crisp disbanded, she rel ...

. They have performed live sessions at NPR's

Tiny Desk Concerts Tiny Desk Concerts is a video series of live concerts hosted by NPR Music at the desk of ''All Songs Considered'' host Bob Boilen in Washington, D.C. The first Tiny Desk Concert came about in 2008 after Boilen and NPR Music editor Stephen Tho ...

and

Paste Magazine ''Paste'' is a monthly music and entertainment digital magazine, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with studios in Atlanta and Manhattan, and owned by Paste Media Group. The magazine began as a website in 1998. It ran as a print publication fro ...

. In early October of 2018, in response to Dr.

Christine Blasey Ford Christine Margaret Blasey Ford ( ; born November 1966) is an American professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She specializes in designing statistical models f ...

’s testimony against Judge

Brett Kavanaugh Brett Michael Kavanaugh ( ; born February 12, 1965) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since ...

, Gracie and Rachel released a song and video titled “HER” that went viral on Facebook and was spotlighted on Channel 12 News Brooklyn. In September of 2020, the duo released its sophomore album, ''Hello Weakness You Make Me Strong'', on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records, with the single, “Ideas,” featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered, the music video single, “Trust,” spotlighted on American Songwriter, the music video single, “Underneath,” highlighted on Refinery29 and Flaunt Magazine, and the album making #2 on Echoes Radio’s Top 25 Albums Released in September 2020. The music focuses on facing vulnerability and using it to find strength, and it has been called “great advice” by NPR Music’s Bob Boilen. After nine years of living and working together in Brooklyn, Coates moved to upstate New York. Long distance collaboration resulted in a new dynamic for the duo which they explored in their 2023 EP ''Nowhere Now Here,'' which focuses on their continuing connection despite living apart, giving "another element to their duality" (WNYC).

Style

Gracie and Rachel describe their sound as "orchestral pop." They perform live as a duo. Duality is an integral part of their style, reflected in their sound through the interplay between Coates' singer-songwriter background and Ruggles' classical training and in the clothing they wore during their first two album cycles, with Coates in white and Ruggles in black. All photoshoots and music videos for their debut album are also in black and white. For the release of their 2023 EP ''Nowhere Now Here'' they began wearing clothing in a wider array of colors. Their lyrics are autobiographical and reference themes of anxiety, censorship, and empowerment.

Discography

*''Nowhere Now Here'' EP (2023) (Righteous Babe Records) *''a whisper becomes a shout'' EP (2021) (Righteous Babe Records) *''Hello Weakness, You Make Me Strong: The Remixes'' EP (2021) (Righteous Babe Records) *''Hello Weakness, You Make Me Strong'' (2020) (Righteous Babe Records) *''Gracie and Rachel'' (2017) (United For Opportunity)

References

{{reflist Berklee College of Music alumni Musicians from Berkeley, California Musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area Righteous Babe Records artists