Ballyhoo!
Through 25 years and eight independent albums, the last four on their own Right Coast Records, Ballyhoo! have earned the exclamation point which marks their name. Starting in the basement of their mom’s Aberdeen, MD, home, rocking out on guitar and drums respectively, practicing every day, brothers Howi and Donald Spangler formed the proto-punk band in the mold of Green Day and Nirvana, with an eye towards the emerging ska genre led by Goldfinger, Sublime, 311 and No Doubt.The group’s eighth and most recent studio album, the breezy, ska-fueled, hook- filled Message to the World, on their own Right Coast Records, finds the self- declared “beach-rockers,” having grown up in public, accepting the responsibilities of adulthood while still hanging on to their dreams of world domination. Stylistically, their music ranges from the hard-edged punk of 2018’s Detonate, which captured the feelings of anger and depression from dealing with personal loss and the exhaustion generated by over a decade on the road to the island reggae beats of the follow-up, Message to the World.“Whatever you want to achieve, just focus on that and work towards it,” explains Howi about the Ballyhoo! ethos. “Don’t worry about followers, views, or even money. Just keep making good stuff. One day it may be possible to finally quit that day job and live your dream full time.”Ballyhoo! is still doing just that, purveying good vibes, positivity and fun live shows meant to take you away from real life…Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify
Whitehall
Whitehall is an indie rock four-piece band based in Brooklyn, NY originally from Charleston, SC. Paddy McKiernan (vocals, guitar), Brennan Clark (bass), Davis Rowe (drums), and Avery Greeson (guitar) met in college, and got their start writing songs in a dorm room. After four years spent in the South Carolina DIY scene playing house shows throughout the state, the band recorded their debut album, Ocean Fiction, and embarked on their first tour on the East coast with a live show that is at once frenetic and introspective. In the years that followed, Whitehall recorded and released their sophomore effort Swordfish Catcher and received praise and playlist placement from national publications like NPR, Alternative Press, and American Songwriter. This album saw their sound shift from bouncy, melody-laden indie, to something grittier, with distorted guitars and imaginative lyricism that more closely resembles acts like Pavement and Car Seat Headrest. After touring extensively between 2021 and 2023 with acts such as Goo Goo Dolls, Arlie, and Carver Commodore, the band released their 3rd LP, Maizy, a collection of tracks written mostly over a period of two weeks in isolation in the Appalachian Mountains. The record came to life with help from legendary producer Kevin Ratterman (My Morning Jacket, White Reaper). Whitehall continues to tour North America and will be in a city near you soon! “I dare you to find a group of guys who has as much fun doing what they love as the members of Whitehall. What really strikes me about the band is that they were completely involved in the environment, bouncing energy off of each other in a way that radiates good vibes. The band does not have a weak member, and somehow they all manage to stand out without ever outshining one another.” – Iman Qatawi, Extra Chill “As the press release notes, it “truly is a Charleston creation” from the recording, the vibe of the song, and the label it’s being released on, Real South Records.” – David Stringer, Scene SC “The mutha f*ckin butt naked truth” – Rod “Incredible” – Luke Waldrop, YouTube Vocals, Guitar / Paddy MckiernanGuitar / Avery GreesonBass / Brennan Clark Drums / Davis RoweWebsite | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify
Luna Li
Luna Li is more than a musical project. It’s a world unto itself, and a kingdom of its creator’s making. For the Korean-Canadian, Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist songwriter, composer, and producer Hannah Bussiere Kim, the universe of Luna Li is hyperlush and inclusive by design. It’s an evolving, musical transmission that takes its cues from nature’s healing properties to explore vulnerability and identity. A blend of indie rock and psych; where experimental neoclassical morphs into pristine pop, Luna Li is the sound of an everyday symphony, crafted from the perspective of the female gaze. When the pandemic started, Li started self-recording instrumental interludes as a radical form of care. By letting others into spontaneous moments of creation, she made her process transparent and communal. Her self-recorded “jams” — video snippets of her constructing beats piecemeal — went viral many times over, racking up over 8 million streams and producing a fiercely loyal following. Its resulting self-titled EP garnered widespread acclaim (“Why aren’t people queuing up to buy beats from this person?,” asked The Needle Drop’s Anthony Fantano.) and led to coverage in Fashion, Paper Magazine, i-D and a slot opening for Japanese Breakfast. In 2021 Li performed on the main stage of 88rising’s “Head In The Clouds” festival, and in 2022 was selected as one of NME’s Top 100 Emerging Artists. Luna Li’s debut record Duality (featuring Jay Som, Dreamer Isioma, and beabadoobee) wrestles intimate, otherworldly questions to the ground in order to better understand the collective. Capable of both detonating an incendiary riff, or slipping into the splendor of celestial strings, the album’s power lies in its most delicate moments. “Each song on the album has some element of light and dark,” Luna Li says. “Where there’s happiness there’s still uncertainty; where there’s anxiety there’s also beauty; and where there’s tension there’s freedom.”Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud | TikTok
Conway The Machine
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Caiola
Jordan Caiola (CAI•OLA) is a songwriter/musician/producer based out of Philadelphia. He founded the indie rock band Mo Lowda & The Humble in 2010 and due to its intense touring schedule, the band became his main priority along with his side project NightSeason (founded 2016)- an indie/electro-pop producer duo. Though he always felt writing folk songs was his true “wheelhouse”, it wasn’t until the nationwide lockdown in early 2020 that he finally put aside the time to record a collection of those songs for his first solo album ‘Only Real When Shared’. Now, Caiola tours year-round with both Mo Lowda and his solo project. His second solo record is set to be released in 2024.Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
French Police
Formed in Chicago, French Police is led by vocalist and guitarist Brian Flores. Their music combines raw energy and introspection, cultivating a dedicated and underground following with their distinctive sound. With the release of their albums “French Police” (2019), “Haunted Castle” (2020), and “BLEU” (2023), they have showcased their artistic growth and have established a sense of identity. French Police has toured in Mexico and North America. Drawing from a variety of influences and inspiration, their music carries a touch of cultural richness, that sets them in a league of their own.Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Washed Out
The music of Washed Out has always levitated over a timeless frontier. You can sense it in his immersive, amorphous vocals, the expansive soundscapes, the wistful storytelling. It’s a sweet spot where, says its creative force, Ernest Greene, “any sort of association or memory from the past can transport you instantly. I love that.”Greene’s transcendent output has earned him the moniker of “Godfather of Chillwave” by Pitchfork and a co-sign from Portlandia, which borrowed his track, “Feel It All Around,” for its utopian theme song. His latest, Notes From a Quiet Life (out June 28, Sub Pop) arrives after delivering more than a decade of distinct and disparate creative re-imaginations at a remarkably high level (five albums, two EPs). Notes is bold in its intuitiveness: Greene has left the treadmill of music-as-a-business, instead letting his artistic interests lead the way. “Each album,” says Green, who also paints and sculpts, “is a world-building exercise.”The Georgia native left Atlanta in 2021 to move back to the countryside he knew growing up. Where escapism once flooded his thoughts, today he is preoccupied with the universe of wonder in the reality around him. He named the former horse farm he moved to “Endymion” (after the pastoral John Keats poem about a lovesick shepherd — its opening line: “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever”), and it has shaped all that he’s created there, from his music to his albums’ creative direction to his planned large scale visual-art experiments.“I’ve read that every five, maybe 10, years, you’re practically a different person — like literally, on a cellular level,” Greene explains. “The things that you’re going through will end up changing you, and you’re kind of a different person. This album is a reflection of that. Experimenting with painting and sculpture helps my music. They influence each other. That was a kind of realization for me. I don’t want to look back on my life one day, and be like, ’Oh, it was all about maximizing productivity,’” he says. “I want to enjoy this.”That purity of vision is what makes Notes From a Quiet Life so potent. It’s the first album Greene wholly self-produced, with some mixing assistance from Nathan Boddy (James Blake, Mura Masa) and David Wrench (Caribou, Florence + the Machine). “Early in my career, I had a lack of technical skill, and there were some things I wasn’t 100% enthusiastic about,” he says, noting Jean-Michel Basquiat’s distinct, self-driven method as an inspiration. “Something that I was looking for was…I didn’t want any illusion of anyone else’s influences. I wanted to see this through to the end. And honestly, that was a big challenge.Illustrating that, Greene’s list of influences for Notes From a Quiet Life are mostly sculpture icons: minimalist legend Donald Judd, abstract expressionist Cy Twombly, and modernists Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Of the latter, he observes, “The majority of his working life was spent on his country estate, and he wasn’t living a cosmopolitan lifestyle. He was focused on just making good work, you know?”Notes from a Quiet Life is Washed Out’s fifth album. Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Healy
Performing under only his last name, Healy embodies cardinal themes of his work like self-discovery and non-dualism. Healy spent the first 25 years of his life in Memphis, steeping in a rich musical history of classic rock, soul, and southern rap. He released his debut album ‘Subluxe’ in 2017 in the wake of his second year of medical school. The album now has 200M+ streams, and its lead single “Reckless” (RIAA certified Gold) became a viral sound on TikTok in 2019, being used in over 1 million videos. After graduating from medical school, Healy moved to Los Angeles where he completed his sophomore album, ‘Tungsten.’ He was featured on the cover of Spotify’s LOREM playlist, and ‘Tungsten’ garnered the support of R&B heavyweights SZA and Khalid. Two years later, Healy returns more confident than ever. He released his first EP, ‘Look at God’ in August of 2023 with collaborations from Cautious Clay and The Imports, whose credits include Beyoncé. Healy is currently in the process of writing and recording his third full length album due to be released Fall 2024.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Kishi Bashi
The latest full-length from Kishi Bashi, Kantos is a work of exquisite duality: a party album about the possible end of humanity as we know it, at turns deeply unsettling and sublimely joyful. In a sonic departure from the symphonic folk of his critically lauded 2019 LP Omoiyari—a career-defining body of work born from his intensive meditation on the mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II—the Seattle-born singer/songwriter/producer’s fifth studio album encompasses everything from Brazilian jazz and ’70s funk to orchestral rock and city pop (a Japanese genre that peaked in the mid-’80s). Informed by an equally kaleidoscopic mix of inspirations—the cult-classic sci-fi novel series Hyperion Cantos, the writings of 18th century enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, a revelatory trip to ancient ruins on the island of Crete—Kantos ultimately serves as an unbridled exaltation of the human spirit and all its wild complexities.Website | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
The Moss
In a musical landscape with fewer boundaries than ever before, THE MOSS’s exuberant brand of alternative rock spans genres, eras, and even oceans. The Utah-via-Hawaii group was born on the shores of Oahu in 2015, as teenage buddies Tyke James (vocals/guitar) and Addison Sharp (guitar) picked up a gig serenading diners at local taco trucks in between surf sessions. Naturally, their songs took shape in the spirit of the island, imbued with the joyfulness and breeziness of reggae culture yet cut with the introspection and communal spirit of mainland indie acts like Pinegrove and Cage the Elephant. By 2018, the duo had grown, enlisting Willie Fowler on drums and Addison’s brother Brierton on bass, and traded in beaches for the Great Salt Lake. They hit the stage at spots like local cornerstone Kilby Court, live-testing their modern-indie-meets-’60s-blues with a wide-eyed exuberance that translated effortlessly into their 2019 self-released debut, Bryology. Colored by the sound of Stratocasters jamming through reverb-cranked Fender amps, all backed by bouncy rhythms, Bryology marked a big step for the still-young quartet – but, true to The Moss’s nature, was still hard-coded with a DIY ethos. “We basically had no budget,” James remembers fondly. “We bought some nice mics and an interface and I ended up learning how to mix while we were recording.” The follow-up, 2021’s Kentucky Derby, brought a more aspirational, blue-sky tilt to the foundation they’d laid on Bryology, expanding the group’s sonic arsenal while keeping the relatable lyrical style and sun-soaked sentiment at the forefront. “I’m really proud of how we’ve evolved as a band over time,” Addison Sharp says. “It feels like we’ve taken every different influence and mashed them all together to create something that feels really special.” “Bryology seemed like a collection of separate songs we put together to make an album, whereas Kentucky Derby is a similar thought and story coming together to collectively make a more cohesive album,” adds Brierton Sharp says, noting the album’s tracks are sneakily arranged in pairs of two that seamlessly flow into one another. “Each song could be listened to on its own, or you could listen to them all and get a broader sense of our intention.” No matter how listeners choose to interact with The Moss’s music, the band just hopes they feel something. It’s that kinetic relationship between band and audience that makes their live performances – including a pitch-perfect recent set for Audiotree – so compelling. “No matter what we do, we want to make sure the songs are fun to play live,” says Fowler. “We pride ourselves on being a band people want to see live.” “There’s something special that happens when you get an immediate reaction to a song,” says James. “Whether it’s during a live show or even just a songwriting session, if there’s a reaction from people in the room, you know you’re on the right track.” XX Website | Instagram | TikTok | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
