Harris Thurmond is proud of the bands he has graduated from, but he’d rather look forward. It’s hard to blame him. His new project, Intercom Heights, shines with the joy of an artist discovering a new source of creativity, of a songwriter finding collaborators equally obsessed over a collective vision. Thurmond was an integral part of the Seattle music scene during the grunge years and his credits are nothing to scoff at, playing guitar and writing in Hammerbox, Orbiter and Sanford Arms, but he’s been in Austin for 15 years. He’s seen the same thing here: The city has changed, the scene has evolved, and he’s been creating moving art through it all.

Thurmond joined a band in Austin called New Roman Times, who put out three albums, two of which Thurmond was a key contributor on. Though the band fell apart, Thurmond found great joy in making music with the group, particularly Josie Fluri, who played bass and sang. After the band split, Thurmond did what he always did: write. He was inspired by the interplay of male and female harmonies, that perfect moment at which they meld and form something entirely new and unexpected. When Fluri approached Thurmond to gauge his interest in a new project, he immediately found a fit for the new music he was working on. “When Josie first said, ‘I would love to do something together again,’ that became an important motivating factor for me.” They found the group’s third member, Meg Bernhard (a former member of Black Books) and Intercom Heights was born a short while later.

The band’s forthcoming debut record, Night Measures is a prime example of what happens when three musicians find their platonic collaborators. The songs move to naturally occurring places, they feel immediately familiar. It’s an album about love and love lost, conjured through sturdy, melodic basslines, shoegaze-inspired guitar parts, and those all-important multi-part harmonies. Thurmond sounds like Matt Berninger of The National fronting M83. This is psychedelic midnight pop after four glasses of wine and a date that might have been great...or, it might have been terrible.

The joy is in the mystery, especially on songs like, “Do You Know How You Feel,” where a subtle tambourine pushes Thurmond’s moody guitar to terrestrial heights. He sings, “When the morning comes to life/What’s the first thing that greets your eyes?/Is it love or just passion?/Is it something that’s real?/It’s a delicate question, do you know how you feel?.” Thurmond never looks for answers, just for someone else asking the same questions. “Fascinated” bops with a bit of optimism, with the hope so often enveloped in mystery. “Your velvet overcoat was lying there on the ground/You’re reading horoscopes/With the lights turned down/I’m fascinated by you now, honey,” Thurmond sings. The intrigue in his voice is palpable, the joy of the unknown coursing through his veins.

Mixed by Jim Eno of Spoon, Intercom Heights’ Night Measures sounds like a band in the middle of an epic run, not a newly formed group finding their footing. The songs are crisp and direct, lived-in but still exciting at every turn. Despite the longing and regret that fuels some of the tracks, there’s a palpable joy that moves through the album. It comes from Thurmond’s progression as a bandleader, songwriter, and studio dweller. “After you've been making music for a while, you realize how hard it is to create something that stands up to your favorite songs. If you make something that you really like it's so rewarding and you want other people to hear it,” he explains.

It’s the kind of album you hear in a passing car, and suddenly, you can’t think about anything other than finding exactly what that perfect song was. “Music doesn't live on its own, so my joy comes through getting better at recording myself. I really am happy with this thing and that's not something I can say of everything I've ever done,” he adds. Intercom Heights is music made for a quiet night alone or an indescribable night of connection. It’s the latter that Harris Thurmond yearns for with Night Measures. “I just want people to hear it, and feel something from it.”