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Anyone who has seen the Spice Girls’ 1997 film Spice World<\/em> will remember their incredible tour bus<\/a>.\u00a0The group\u2019s multi-level home-on-wheels was decked out with fire poles and a swing, and personalized nooks for each member that, while varied to match their \u201cSpice\u201d persona, all managed to coordinate to create one of the coolest shared spaces ever put on screen.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Waltzer<\/a>, helmed by singer\/guitarist and lyricist Sophie Sputnik (a.k.a Sophie Pomeranz), and its debut album Time Traveler <\/em>are kind of like the Spice Bus (if you will): a coordination of Sputnik\u2019s selves over the past 10 years, and friends she\u2019s made along the way, travelling across the country to get to the big show on time… and alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Audiofemme<\/em> connects with Sputnik over the phone, she laughs at the comparison. \u201cI think Spice Girls are a huge reason why I do what I do, too,\u201d she says. \u201cI was obsessed with Spice World<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After six years as half of Florida blues-grunge duo Killmama<\/a>, her howling voice emanating from behind a drum kit, Sputnik found herself at a crossroads. She\u2019d been writing her own songs – tracks including \u201cLantern\u201d and \u201cUgly Misfits\u201d – but didn\u2019t know what to do with them; they felt different and her vision stretched beyond the limitations of a two-piece. Billie Holiday and Roy Orbison became mainstays in her record rotation and she dove deep into girl groups of the 1960s, enamored with singer Ronnie Spector after hearing Oakland, California-based outfit Shannon and the Clams<\/a>\u2019 rockabilly-flavored reimagination of the sound at a show in South Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly, Sputnik was itching to move on from the constriction of a scene dominated by garage rock infleunces, and she and her then-bandmate weren’t . \u201cYou can only do the \u2018Ty Segall\u2019 thing for so long,\u201d she says, half-jokingly, noting that relentless touring had driven a wedge between herself and her bandmate. \u201cI knew that we\u2019d kind of hit a wall and I needed to figure out what was next.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the hope of finding inspiration in new surroundings, she moved to Wisconsin with her previously long-distance girlfriend Amanda, who had planned to relocate there for a new job. While one final Killmama tour followed, performing took a backseat, but Sputnik kept writing, penning stories of love, fear, obsession and loneliness, and the disorienting effects that come with each.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n That feeling of personal unease, of teetering on the edge of destruction, dances across Time Traveler<\/em>. It’s a moody rock \u2018n\u2019 roll album pulling from the best of country\u2019s emotional storytelling and complimentary twang, capturing the tension between desire and distraction, the slow spiral of depression, the head-spinning crashes brought on by drinking too much and getting too high, and the catharsis of saying the hard things out loud.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n