Usually played in crowded basements festooned with Christmas lights, DIY shows are the heart of Boston’s underground music scene — and valuable observation sites for Green Line Records Artists & Repertoire, or A&R, scouts. 

“There’s a huge, thriving scene in Brighton and Allston that hosts concerts in basements, and so a lot of our members are involved with going to shows that way and meeting bands and seeing people and getting a sense for what artists have some buzz around them,” said Dom Pastorelle, a fifth-year business administration and political science combined major and head of the Green Line Records A&R department. 

Many of the artists signed to Green Line were discovered this way, including Boston-based post-punk band Clifford, who is releasing their new single, “Chrysanthemums,” with Green Line Friday. The band’s unique sound and electric stage presence caught the attention of Ashton Triffitt, a second-year game design and music combined major and the A&R lead responsible for signing the group.

“[Triffitt] scouted Clifford because a handful of us in the A&R department had seen them play live and they had a really, really great energy,” Pastorelle said. “We were looking to sign a post-punk act, and it seemed like it made the most sense to work with Clifford because we really enjoyed seeing them play live.”

Clifford formed in 2019, when lead singer Miles Chandler and drummer Ben Curell moved to Boston after graduating from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Then the band was joined by bassist Nate Scaringi and guitar player Danny Edlin, and has been playing house shows across the Northeast ever since. 

The release of “Chrysanthemums” marks a change in Clifford’s artistic process. The band released their emo-infused post-rock debut album “Projections of a Body Electric” in 2021, as well as the softer, folksier EP “Surface Tension” in 2022, but back then their songwriting process was less collaborative than it is now. 

“Up until now, I have been the songwriter, but getting from the point where I’m introducing it to everybody to the point where we’re playing it regularly, it changes so much and everyone brings their own influences and flavor to it,” Chandler said. “Something that’s new, especially with ‘Chrysanthemums,’ is that we’re starting the collaboration earlier in the process. I feel like it’s probably the most honest representation of the sounds we make together.” 

“Chrysanthemums” starts off with the intricate guitar riffs and rapid drums of Clifford’s math rock roots and ends evoking the gentler folk sounds of their more recent work, the perfect song to embody the band’s evolution. Chandler repeats the line, “I’m proud of how you changed,” several times as the song reaches its surprisingly tender conclusion, and although the lyric wasn’t intentionally referring to the band’s journey, Chandler sees the song applying to more than one interpretation.

“It’s been a song about growing pains and deaths and relationships that change over time,” he said. “I think that content definitely stems from personal relationships that each of us had individually, but the process of making art as a group definitionally changes your relationships with those people. So [‘Chrysanthemums’] is both about whatever we’re coming into the song thinking about, but also reflects our changing relationship as a band.” 

After they signed with Green Line last fall, Clifford was also paired with student representatives from Green Line’s Creative Services and Recording departments. As Clifford’s Creative Services lead, second-year political science and international affairs combined major Praagna Kashyap helped to promote the single via a press release and photos, and Recording lead Matt Gurlitz, a third-year business administration major, was there to guide the recording process itself. 

Kashyap is a fan of the band herself and was excited to work with them for the release of “Chrysanthemums.” 

“It’s math rock, so a lot of fun guitar riffs and stuff like that, and I’m definitely a fan of that genre of music,” she said. “It’s right up my alley.” 

Pastorelle echoed Kashyap’s praise, expressing that tracks like “Chrysanthemums” are exactly why Green Line was interested in Clifford in the first place. 

“What we signed Clifford for was just like, their range is crazy,” he said. “In a single song, for example, ‘Chrysanthemums,’ it’s really complex drums and all this cool stuff going on in the first half, and then the second half is a little bit more of a folk breakdown. It’s definitely really good, and I think everyone’s pretty excited about it.” 

Part of Clifford’s appeal is their distinctive, genre-bending sound, and with “Chrysanthemums” they illustrate that the eclectic tastes of each band member still shine through. 

In April, they will go on their first tour of the Northeast with Pittsburgh-based folk singer Merce Lemon, and they look forward to playing both “dear old friends of songs” and new material. 

“There will definitely be some bangers, there will be some beeping songs, there will be some sad bangers,” Chandler said. “There will be the whole spectrum, the whole range of Cliffordisms.”