One of the most pleasingly puzzling indie rock bands of the 2020s, Water From Your Eyes deepened the mystery on their seventh album, 2025’s It’s a Beautiful Place, as Nate Amos and Rachel Brown packed more ideas into 29 minutes than most groups do in their entire lifetime. The pair have officially joined 21st-century luminaries like Animal Collective and Deerhoof in their capacity to make “anything goes” seem positively virtuous, so it follows that their It’s a Beautiful Place companion EP It’s Beautiful is a glimpse into alternate creative pathways. “Born 4” strips the grunge guitars of “Born 2” to reveal cybernetic frissons of tension, and an alternate take on “Nights in Armor” gets an acoustic treatment reminiscent of Brown’s intimate side project thanks for coming. And then there’s the long-fabled “Driving Classics, Playing Cars”, which extends It’s a Beautiful Place’s propulsive centrepiece “Playing Classics” into a 10-minute-plus fantasia where pitched-up vocal lines wage war with the original’s constantly mutating groove. The resulting effect is not unlike peering into the windows of a house party: Even if you can’t quite piece together what they’re up to, you can’t help but want to be a part of the chaos.