Natasha Janfaza and her band are big on the idea of not giving a shit. This doesn’t mean they’re spray-painting the anarchy symbol on their bedroom doors - rather, they’re unafraid of doing something that might make them seem corny. That too-muchness is a terrifying thing, but it’s at the core of Janfaza’s spirit, and it’s bled all the way out onto her band Tunnel’s EP, Vanilla, too.

Janfaza’s cues are normal enough in the indie world: she’s got a lot of Bilinda Butcher’s dreamstates and even a smear of Liz Phair’s whiplash – but the ambitions she yanks out of them aren’t. Her references exist because she cares for how these lodestars reframed what it meant to feel naked inside a pop framework.

All of this emotional wayfaring comes from the fact that Janfaza’s so disciplined by trade. She’s a classically-trained violinist, shifting neatly into the Washington, D.C. punk scene (the album features Fugazi’s Brendan Canty on drums). So her forensic attention to detail, her yen for unusually cinematic lyrics, her addiction to giving all of facets their due instead of robbing herself of any emotion - it’s the runoff of a mind plunging headlong into more unafraid-to-go-there modes.