Founded by musician Sabrina Fuentes, Pretty Sick burst out of New York City's underground
with a clearly defined sound, drawn from 1990s grunge but forged in the crucible of the city’s
DIY scene. She released her self-titled debut EP in 2017, and in 2020 signed to Dirty Hit (The
1975, beabadoobee), building a fanbase with a series of heavy-yet-catchy alt-rock anthems like
“Superstar” off her 2020 EP Deep Divine and “Dumb” off her 2021 follow-up Come Down. In
2022 she released her Paul Kolderie (Pixies, Radiohead)-produced debut album, Makes Me
Sick Make Me Smile, before embarking on tour with both beabadoobee and Yves Tumor,
performing at venues around the world. Along the way, she’s modeled for elite fashion brands
like Calvin Klein, Anonymous Club, and Marc Jacobs while garnering praise from the likes of
The New York Times, Pitchfork, The FACE — and even Iggy Pop. Never one to sit still
creatively, Fuentes pivoted with the Streetwise EP in 2024, six songs of propulsive, electronic
club-pop made with Swedish producer Woesum (Yung Lean, Bladee). Now, Fuentes is
gearing up for the release of Anarchy, her sophomore album, combining influences from rap,
rave, and shoegaze into blistering new forms.
Fuentes, bass player and vocalist, launched Pretty Sick all the way back in 2013, joined by her
friends Ella Moore on guitar and Eva Kaufman on drums. Cutting their teeth in the New York
City DIY scene, the band quickly built a following across the city, playing countless shows at
now-legendary spaces like Shea Stadium and Silent Barn and releasing their self-titled debut,
the Pretty Sick EP, in 2016. Their sharp hooks and dense, distorted textures echoed ‘90s icons
like Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins, while staying grounded in the present-day immediacy of
the city’s interwoven skate, rock, and jazz scenes. After Moore and Kaufman left for college,
Fuentes moved to London in 2018 to study music at Goldsmiths University. She assembled a
new lineup, which included drummer Austin Williamson of Onyx Collective and guitarist Wade
Oates, formerly of The Virgins. The group honed their sound through intense songwriting
sessions and constant live shows, with the city’s experimental rock scene sharpening Fuentes’
appetite for creative risk and new ideas. “You can literally gig every night if you feel like it and try
a different set every night,” she says. “Something I carry with me is trying to not necessarily do
what's expected.”
In 2020, Pretty Sick signed to Dirty Hit—home to The 1975 and beabadoobee— and released
the Deep Divine EP, which included anthems like “Superstar”, while 2021 follow-up Come
Down featured “Dumb”. Both singles earned tens of millions of streams and praise from
Pitchfork, DAZED, and New York Magazine. The pandemic halted gigs, so Fuentes holed up
in the studio for her raucous, raw 2022 debut, Makes Me Sick Make Me Smile. She toured
internationally afterward, opening for beabadoobee later that year and Yves Tumor in 2023,
playing shows across Europe, Japan, and the United States.
She was riding high, but creatively, she was restless. Feeling her grunge phase had peaked,
she reinvented her sound from the ground up. “I've been making rock music since I was 13,”
she says. “I'm not going to bang my head into a wall trying to make the same kind of music
forever. I just don't think it's going to be as creatively fulfilling as trying everything I want to try.”
She tapped in with Swedish producer Woesum (Yung Lean, Bladee), a rap-rave mastermind
best known as an architect of the Drain Gang sound. “The traditional way of making music was
always with a band in the room,” Fuentes said. But working with a producer — “Just showing
up, making stuff up on the spot — it was exhilarating.” Their sessions yielded over 30 tracks,
eventually refined to six songs for the 2024 Streetwise EP, which swapped distortion pedals for
synths, channeling propulsive dance music with lighter textures and a sense of humor. It gave
Fuentes a “completely fresh start,” she says. “So much of the rock stuff we do is heavy
emotionally. I wanted to step back from that and experiment with new sonic worlds.” Now, her
years of experimentation have coalesced into her most sophisticated, dynamic work yet:
Anarchy, her forthcoming sophomore record. It’s a culmination of her career so far, fusing the
emotional candor of grunge with her appetite for electronic experimentation.
Working primarily with producer Oscar Scheller (Lily Allen, PinkPantheress), Fuentes
recorded Anarchy in Los Angeles, crafting what she describes as “a maximal rock-electronic
hybrid” that draws from “indie pop, shoegaze, and rap.” The album’s creative process began
loosely. “When me and Oscar started, we tried some poppier, brighter stuff, but it didn’t feel
right,” she recalls. “Only when we wrote ‘Anarchy’—that was the first one that felt like a strong
step in the right direction.” The title track—a brash “mission statement” for the
project—exemplifies the album’s synthesis of influences ranging from My Bloody Valentine and
Slowdive to Sleigh Bells and Chief Keef. “It feels like rock music, but also doesn’t,” Fuentes
says. “It’s something other people aren’t doing right now.” The title reflects her refusal to be
boxed in: “People put so much into a personal brand or an identity as a public-facing artist. I’m
not here to give people exactly what they want all the time.” That same defiance fuels her
production choices, leaning on crystalline synths, heavy beats, and no shortage of distortion,
which Fuentes uses as both a musical and emotional tool: “It’s such a big part of rock music and
also a big part of electronic music, but in really separate ways. I wanted to find a way to
synthesize those traditions—keeping all of the beats fat and wide, and just maxing out the sonic
capacity of every song.”
While Streetwise emphasized brightness and levity, Anarchy explores deeper emotional
territory. “Songwriting is therapeutic for me,” she says. “This record goes back and dives more
into darker parts of my life, or stuff my friends have experienced.” The result is a collection she
describes as “big, fat, angry, maximal”—bridging electronic experimentation with raw feeling.
Even as she ascends, her loyalty remains to the underground scenes that shaped her. “Not
caring to follow rules,” she says, “or meet expectations for any reason other than doing things
for yourself—that’s the through line.”
