ear are an American electronic pop duo made up of Jonah Paz and Yaelle Avtan, who met in 2024 while studying at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Neither came to music as a first calling: Paz was a painter and Avtan a ceramicist. What brought them together was a shared obsession with British post-punk, IDM and the work of Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous, with Paz bringing a love of twee pop and Avtan a background in digital hardcore.
Their debut single, ‘Nerves’, was recorded on Avtan’s iPhone in the university library and self-released in 2024. It travelled fast, drawing around 200,000 monthly Spotify listeners within months, an unusually quick ascent for a song made with so little. Further self-released singles followed before the duo signed with Surf Gang.
The Most Dear and the Future, their debut album, arrived on Surf Gang in September 2025 and includes ‘Dogs’. Pitchfork described their sound as ‘small, sampledelic pop’, while The Face called them ‘the no-caps, lower-case sound of the indietronic underground’; The Fader named the single ‘Real Life’ among the best songs of 2025. The music is fragmentary and intimate, with chopped samples and soft, half-spoken vocals that sound as if they are being overheard rather than performed.
Momentum has been considerable for a band so young. ear supported Yung Lean in Canada, sold out a European tour that included two London nights at Ormside Projects, and moved to A24 Music for their second album, Rumspringa, released in May 2026. Paz has also launched a solo project, Sacred Holes.
