Grass Widow don’t sound like any other band. Struggling to describe what I mean by this in a review of their previous album, Past Time, I wrote “they create their own formalistic, aesthetic universe with its own internal logic. They don’t sound like they are following anyone’s rules at all. They sound like they are listening to themselves and each other and creating their own musical language.” I was happy and surprised when they told that me they decided to name their album “Internal Logic” as a reference to my review.

I first met Grass Widow last fall in Brooklyn when I got to DJ their show opening for The Raincoats. It was a perfect match. The audience was there to see both bands and it was the rare occasion where neither band seemed to overshadow the other. The next morning we all went out to breakfast and the conversation was easy and free and at times very funny. It felt nice to be in a group of fifteen or so women artists who were all prioritizing their work. Gender wasn’t the focus that day, but it wasn’t absent from the table either. It was good to be in a place where we could all be comfortable in our own skin and not forced into some kind of rigid category or prescribed role. It made me realize how much I miss playing music with other women and need to seek out creative female comrades. We became friends that day and have since kept in touch.

The next time we met, Grass Widow was touring the west coast with The Raincoats and their show in Seattle was even better than the one in Brooklyn. We decided to capture some of our conversation for The Believer, so we met in Olympia for coffee the following morning and I asked them what they would like to talk about in an interview. Stupidly, we didn’t record it, but I did take notes. The interview below happened a few weeks later, when Grass Widow was back in town for a few days to play shows with Deep Time. I think of it as a moment in an ongoing conversation between friends that will continue with or without the tape recorder.

—Tobi Vail

I. BUSINESS

TOBI VAIL: I just listened to your new record, Internal Logic. Let’s talk about how it came about.

HANNAH LEW: When we were writing our previous record, Past Time, it was a really hard time for us personally. My dad passed away and all these terrible things happened; a lot of the songs were really therapeutic to write, but not as pleasurable to play. So when we were writing Internal Logic, we...