Tone Glow 233: Slippers
Slippers
Fronted by LA-based singer-songwriter Madeline Babuka Black, Slippers is one of the most exciting acts to emerge from the recent wave of scrappy indie-pop coming from the partnership between Perennial Records and K Records. The project’s sophomore album, Slippers 08 (2026), was recorded while Babuka Black was completing her MFA in animation at the California Institute of the Arts. Jude Noel spoke with her over the phone on July 29th, during the short period between the completion of her summer tour and premiering her new short film, Papertowel Maxipad (2026), at Montreal’s Fantasia Festival. The film will have its European premiere at Switzerland’s Fantoche Festival in September.
Jude Noel: I wanted to start off by asking about Papertowel Maxipad (2026). It was way more horror-adjacent than I expected, even though it’s still rooted in everyday life. Could you tell me a little bit about what inspired your short and what went into making it?
Slippers: It was my first-year film at CalArts, so I’ve since veered in a bit of a different way, but I feel like I had to get this out of my system. I wanted to make something irreverent that I had always dreamed of making, like a weird, late-night-feeling adult animation. My friend Rachel Walden wrote the short, and we thought of doing this because it’s something that Rachel actually did. I’ve always been really interested in the abject as a theme and as a tool. I went to art school, and when she was in college she was doing stuff like this at frat houses—I would go and I felt like it was abject. Meanwhile, I was getting into a lot of work by Vito Acconci and Paul McCarthy in undergrad. Kind of gross-out stuff.
Overall, I sought to make something that was like that but more Daria-adjacent, for lack of a better description. I worked straight ahead, so that means I didn’t really do a lot of storyboarding and I didn’t do key frames. There wasn’t a lot of pre-production beyond writing, either. I would start a scene and then, for the most part, decide where it was going as I drew it. I worked chronologically, which I probably wouldn’t do now. I learned how to do this so wrong (laughter). So I feel like it’s a surprise to me as much as it is to you that I made a little horror film.
What brought you to CalArts and what was your time there like?
I graduated in May and it’s been interesting. At the beginning, I was just so keen on making a narrative short, which I hadn’t done yet. I’d only done music videos and little short loops, so it was really like a boot camp. I’m happy that I did it, and I wouldn’t really change anything. That being said, I was really keen on being like, “Okay, I’m going to learn how to animate digitally so that I can get out and make a show or do something on Adult Swim.” It’s weird because my roots are in fine art, meaning more of a studio art practice versus going and working at, say, Cartoon Network. Not that there isn’t a lot of overlap there, but I think that the best work comes out of both. For instance, this guy Ben Jones makes really cool stuff and he does both. I want to make something more commercial, but I also want this hardcore studio practice that feels like I could show my work at a gallery.
It took me a while to actually finish Papertowel Maxipad, which is why it’s coming out now. But then I started working on my thesis film, which actually became a documentary—it’s like a docufiction using found audio from a bunch of archives. It became more like a research project. I then started taking advantage of CalArts’ equipment that you can’t find anywhere else, like the optical printer and the 16mm Oxberry downshooter, which is how they used to capture animation. I actually think that the one they have at CalArts was used for parts of Snow White (1937). It’s basically a film camera that you can move up and down, and it has different ways you can turn it. It’s basically like pre-After Effects compositing, but you’re doing it all by hand so it has the capability to be really exact, but I don’t use it in that way. I mean, not that I’m not exacting, but it’s kind of impossible for one person to make it look like it did in the past with a team of 20. Still, it felt really important to do it by hand.
My music feels like a pretty direct, compulsive version of me, stylistically. And with music, I’m so keen on just being like, “first thought, best thought.” For some reason, that’s so much more difficult for me with visual work. Working on film opened up this world where I could say “first thought, best thought” because I didn’t have any control over it. Whatever the thought is, it’s happening and I can’t take it back, and I was also hand-processing it. Sometimes after the first thought I’d realize, “Fuck, I didn’t process it right. I have to do it again.” And then I just had to really trust it, like, “Okay, I’m doing this again because it’s meant to be redone.”
Was the latest Slippers album, Slippers 08 (2026), made alongside your animation work for school?
Yeah, 100%. I mean, some of it I did over the last two years, but most of it I wrote and recorded in a week and a half last August, so almost a year ago. I think next week it’ll be a year. It was fun because so much of my practice was listening to stuff in the car; CalArts is 45 minutes away from my house, so I spent so much time driving. We brought in Fred Thomas to mix, and I would listen to mixes he sent me going to and from CalArts. I think when this is all happening at the same time, it’s really energizing for me, but it also grounds me because I’m at CalArts and I’m like, “Who am I? What am I doing?” I think it helps to have those two plates spinning. It felt like a lot at the time, but not in a bad way.
I think it’s so easy for me to romanticize doing any kind of work stuff: “I need to be in my studio, and I need to have a candle, and I need to have my little cappuccino,” whatever it is. I used to be so fixated on setting up the perfect circumstances to create, but that just doesn’t exist. So now I’m in my car going 70 miles an hour listening to tapes of old ladies from the South talking about working in factories in the early 1900s, and then getting a text from Fred, and then listening to my song, and then going back to that. Listening in the car, that’s just how it has to be sometimes. And I think I’ve learned to really go with the flow.
Yeah, and I found it interesting how the “first thought, best thought” philosophy connects to the music, because I feel like with a lot of people I’ve interviewed whose music I really liked this year—either on the K/Perennial Records side of things or on the Slumberland side of things—that ethic is consistent throughout their music. And you said you wrote and recorded it all in basically a week.
Well, we did the arrangement. I had written demos, but to get it from demo to actual, “Oh, this is the song,” I have to write lyrics and everything. Part of it is just doing everything at the last minute, to be real.
What does the process look like for you when you’re writing?
Sometimes I’ll be stressed out at home. We have a guitar hanging right near my couch and I usually just reach for it. I don’t want to sound cheesy, but sometimes I have some big feelings that I’m not necessarily trying to sing about, but I have to do something. Sitting down and writing on the guitar distracts me, and then I record that. Usually I have a 4-track that I’ve been working on, which helps; it helps to work with anything that makes me unable to go back and keep editing. That’s what happened with Papertowel Maxipad. I just kept on editing it to the point where I’m like, “What the hell is this? What is this monster I’ve made?”
And that’s not to say that I don’t spend time making stuff. I am exacting about work, but I do think from the genesis of the song when I’m sitting there, I try not to be like, “Oh, well, that sounds too much like this,” or “I wrote a song in D last week.” It’s like, whatever, okay—I think it’s kind of funny. If I made an album and every single song was in D, and I did that by accident, it’s whatever. It’s so weird because I think my inner critic is so “first thought, worst thought.” When I’m toggling between music and animation or music and visual work, it’s so much action that I can’t even sit still and think about it.
How did you end up getting connected with the K/Perennial labels for this release? I feel like everything they’ve put out over the past couple years has been super up my alley.
That’s awesome. They would be happy to hear that. Perennial is Hayes [Waring] and his girlfriend, Jolie [M-A], who is my friend from Brooklyn. We had a band together briefly before COVID happened and we just lost momentum with that project, and Jolie ended up moving to Olympia. But Jolie and I met because her old band and my old band [Yucky Duster] opened for Shopping at Silent Barn. We had some friends in common and immediately vibed. Anyways, when I recorded this record, I was just like, “I’ll send it to my friends,” and she came to mind first. I did that with the first record, too. I didn’t have any guarantee that anybody would put it out or anybody would mix it or that it would get done. It was just kind of “shoot first, think later.” She’s actually managing me now, which is really, really helpful, and she’s doing such a good job. But I think they’re killing it because they’re very boots on the ground and very DIY. I know that’s such a catch-all term, but it’s true. They just really live it, and they’re just cool people. Especially Jolie, she’s my type of gal. I think that might be kind of how they’re negotiating it. It’s like a Jolie litmus test.
Going back to animation, what shows or movies made you fall in love with the medium?
When I was younger we didn’t have a proper television in our house, so I would mainline TV when I would go to my grandma’s house or friends’ houses. Eventually my parents would let us get VHS tapes and then DVDs. My mom didn’t want to have cable because of the commercials, I guess. But then it was like, “Okay… well, we’re still watching TV.” I don’t want to make it sound like I’m from some hippie family, because we definitely had a television and were definitely addicted to watching television. I feel so lucky that I grew up with Cartoon Network and all the cool shows that were on in the ’90s through this program called Cartoon Cartoons. We had Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo... that kind of ’90s/’60s thing was having a moment.
But I think even more so, going back to the VHS tapes, we had a lot of tapes of Betty Boop cartoons, and that was just my shit. And I think it scared me at the same time. I was truly mesmerized by that universe. It’s cute, but it’s dark. The movement is odd, and my little brain isn’t thinking, “Oh, this is made in the ’40s” or whatever. I’m just thinking about Bimbo the Dog or Cat or whatever he is. I don’t want to sound like a basic bitch, but Betty Boop and The Powerpuff Girls are the big ones for me.
Do you feel like your music and animation influence each other? I remember seeing that you did a semi-recent video for of Montreal. They’ve been a longtime favorite band of mine.
I’m so sad, I’m missing them in LA this weekend. I love their new record. I think there’s like an overall sensibility where when I make something, I can be like, “Okay, that feels like me.” I think that’s really just making something that feels perfectly messy and chaotic. I used to think that “messy” meant just, “Ah, whatever, just don’t even think about it.” But there’s such a finesse to that—it’s a hard line to balance on. I really feel very proud when I can reach that, and I think my sensibility carries over. I feel like you put it really well in your review.
How has the tour for this record been?
I’m right on the heels of it. We ended on Sunday. It was so fun. It was honestly just one of the most… I mean, I want to say effortless, but it was lots of effort. It just felt like everybody was helping out in a way that I’ve never really experienced. And maybe that’s because I’m feeling this really awesome thing where I’ve been working my little ass off for three years that I haven’t really gone out in the world and shown or talked about all that much. Having this experience of all this stuff coming out at once just feels really good. It was a long three years in a lot of ways, and it’s been nice to put something out that was very honest. I’m not really trying to put on any kind of veneer over my work; I’m just trying to wear my influences on my sleeve, and the fact that other people recognize that or like that is really cool.
It’s one thing to play shows around LA and my friends are like, “Oh, we like it,” and I’m like, “Thanks, I know you have to like it.” But the most gratifying thing, honestly, was that at several shows, there were really cute parent-daughter pairs. At a lot of shows, it’s a bunch of dudes in their 50s with glasses, which is fine, but that’s not who I make the music for. If they like it, awesome, but it’s really for teenage girls because, man, that’s just a tough time. That was a tough time for me. And music really was the only thing I felt I had for a while when I was that age. I went to shows a lot with my dad, so seeing teen girls liking the aesthetic [of Slippers], I’m just like, “Fuck yeah, this is the best.”
I saw you played with Beth Kaplan at your Rhode Island date. I interviewed her as part of a piece on Salem 66 recently and they might be some of the coolest people I’ve ever talked to.
Yeah, I mean, that was such an honor. She was just so lovely and so excited to play the show. The Providence show was a real highlight for me because it was such a great bill. That was towards the end of the tour, so it felt like we were playing well, and yeah, Beth Kaplan was awesome. I just idolize these women who came before me who are still cool quirky older ladies. I would say that I’m more concerned about quirky older ladies and weirdo cute teens liking my music. If those two categories like it, then I’m like, boom. Because everybody else in between it’s like, whatever you guys, I don’t know. It just feels particularly special because it’s cross-generational, and that feels really cool. The goal for me is to make something that feels kind of timeless. I’m not out to make something hip for the sake of it; I’m just making what I want to make.
You mentioned going to shows with your dad when you were a kid. What kind of shows were you going to?
I think the very first time where I was like, “I want to go to this show,” was seeing Green Day for their American Idiot tour in 2004. Then after that, I grew up blocks away from this pretty sweet, maybe 700-capacity venue in Atlanta called Variety Playhouse. A lot of indie bands would come through and my sweet dad would just buy tickets, even if it was a school night and I was in middle school, and we would go. Sometimes my parents would invite the band to stay over at our house or something. I’d be like, “Mom, don’t!” And of course, now I’m like, “Whoa, those are the best people.” I remember seeing Elvis Perkins and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah with my dad. My dad introduced me to of Montreal. He was like, “I think you would like this,” and I saw them on their Hissing Fauna tour. I went in cold and I was obsessed. I mean, they’re my favorite band now, hands down.
What was it like growing up in Georgia?
I had some family friend connections to a lot of the Elephant 6 stuff and that just made me curious about it. In high school, Deerhunter was around, and Black Lips. I really liked them, but then the Elephant 6 stuff… I remember one of the first times I heard The Apples in Stereo. It’s such a core memory. I have a bad memory from smoking too much weed as a preteen or whatever, and the things that I do remember I’m like, “That must be important because I remember it.” So I remember listening to The Apples in Stereo after soccer practice with my friend’s dad, and the music made me feel really nice. There’s a certain vibe in Atlanta, in Athens, in the ’90s and early aughts when I grew up, and that’s just a part of me. So yeah, Elephant 6 and Circulatory System, I love that. A lot of my family is from around Athens. They’re not like cool music Athens people, but I would go up there sometimes. It’s a special place.
Now that your tour is coming to an end and you’re finished at CalArts, what are you planning on doing next?
I’m just trying to have a moment to catch my breath and follow the breadcrumbs a little bit. I’m really lucky because, fortunately, being an animator and being a musician means I meet a lot of other musicians. It’s fairly realistic, even without an agent, to get a job doing a music video. I can always fall back on that. Ideally, I need to finish my thesis film. I’d like to be a proper working studio artist where I can work on projects for longer while simultaneously picking up freelance work, but I’m going to try to pitch some kids’ shows, too. And I’ve written a kids’ album (laughs). I wrote a pitch deck for an idea for a show, and I’m just trying to ask for a lot of help on that stuff. I used to feel like if I asked for help that it was such a weakness, but now I’m like, “No, that’s all I have.” And what’s the point of living in LA if I’m not meeting up with my friends who can help and give me life? I’m going to record another album in September, which I’ve already written. It’s not going to be all done then, but I’ll at least get it going.
Slippers’ new album, Slippers 08, is out now.
Thank you for reading the 233rd issue of Tone Glow. I’m a fool in your room for you.
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