of Montreal
On of Montreal’s seminal album The Sunlandic Twins, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Barnes followed up their 2004 Polyvinyl debut, Satanic Panic in the Attic, with what became the band’s most commercially successful album to date. Originally released in April 2005, The Sunlandic Twins marked a significant turning point for of Montreal, showcasing Barnes’ evolving songwriting and a shift towards a more electronic and dance-oriented sound. The album’s vibrant blend of synth-pop and psych rock helped cement its status as a fan favorite and a defining moment in the band’s career. Iconic tracks like “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games” and “The Party’s Crashing Us” became some of the most beloved songs in the band’s extensive catalog. The Sunlandic Twins set Kevin Barnes on a path to becoming one of the most influential songwriters in independent pop music. The album’s success paved the way for more critically acclaimed releases, numerous late-night TV appearances—including The Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon—and brilliant collaborations with artists such as Solange, Janelle Monáe, and Jon Brion. of Montreal went on to perform across the globe, gracing festival stages at Coachella, Sasquatch!, Pitchfork Music Festival, and beyond, while also amassing hundreds of millions of streams worldwide. In celebration of 20yrs since the release of The Sunlandic Twins, of Montreal returns to Carrboro for a special performance of the record from start to finish. ❤️🔥 Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
Anxious
Somewhere in the blur of endless touring, Anxious vocalist Grady Allen was sitting in a hotel room and stumbled upon a name typed into a long-forgotten memo on his phone: Bambi. “We should have named the band Bambi,” he recalls admitting to his bandmates. The tenor of the conversation is likely familiar to anyone of a certain age, when you reflect on choices that a younger version of yourself made and reckon with how things could be different if you’d chosen a different path. Bambi stuck with the band after that night and eventually it evolved from a “what-if” into the name of Anxious’ second full-length album. Bambi is a record of remarkable growth, depth, ambition, and energy. It takes all the unsolvable and unavoidable problems of exiting adolescence and makes them resonate in urgent and authentic new ways. The album has deep roots in the storied lineage of Northeast tri-state hardcore and emo, but it also fully embraces the widescreen alternative rock songwriting at which Anxious have previously only hinted. It’s a statement of purpose, the kind of album that comes from a band reconciling where they’ve been with where they want to go. Bambi is the sound of Anxious putting everything on the line–and coming out on the other side better than ever. In 2022, Anxious (Allen, guitarist/co-vocalist Dante Melucci, drummer Jonny Camner, bassist Sam Allen, and guitarist Tommy Harte) released their debut album, Little Green House, winning over fans and critics alike, and kicking off what would become two entire years of touring. It’s a tale as old as time: a young band forms with modest ambitions, spends several years organically developing their sound and writing their first record, then releases that album to acclaim and new opportunities, and the band finds their wildest dreams materializing alongside an incredibly unstable new life on the road. Guided by the spirits of a thousand acts that burned themselves out on the same grueling cross-country support tours, the band gamely takes on the challenge. Soon there are interests outside of their own dictating what they need to do in order to keep this coveted momentum going. The goalposts move, the novelty wears off, the missteps become less cute–oh and they need to cut two songs from the set tonight because the venue has a hard curfew to accommodate the dance night starting after the show. Don’t let any of this get in the way of writing a follow-up album, though. As thoughts of LP2 loomed, Allen began to have questions about what being in a band for the long haul really looks like. “I started exploring what it would look like to finish college,” he explains. “I looked at the whole thing through this very binary lens: I could either do the band or go back to school. So when I unveiled everything to the guys I think everyone perceived it as ‘Well, Grady is just leaving.’ I think I probably thought about it that way, too. It caused this massive rift between me and everyone else. I think there was very much a sense of ‘Huh, the band may break up or maybe Grady just won’t be in the band anymore.’” A round of touring in Asia and the States proved surprisingly reinvigorating, and school began to seem like something that could coexist in balance with the band–but Allen’s faith needed repairing along with his relationship to his bandmates. Website | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube
Alan Sparhawk (of Low)
Alan Sparhawk has always been a prolific, protean musician. A restless soul eager to explore unfamiliar sonic and psychic terrain. Though he’s obviously (and justifiably) best-known for his thirty years as frontman of the legendary band Low, a look at Sparhawk’s many side projects across that same span of time shows him experimenting with everything from punk and funk to production work and improvisation. Low itself never settled for a set sound or approach. The band was always a collaboration—a conversation, a romance—between Sparhawk and his wife, Mimi Parker, who was the band’s co-founder, drummer, co-lead vocalist, and its blazing irreplaceable heart. To take the journey from Low’s hushed early work, through the tremendous melodies of their middle period, all the way to the late lush chaos of their final albums, is to witness heads, hearts, and spirits in an act of perpetual becoming. Parker passed away in 2022 after a long battle with cancer, and there is no question that WHITE ROSES, MY GOD is a record borne of grief. You can hear it in the title, as well as tracks such as “Heaven”, in which Sparhawk describes the afterlife, wrenchingly, as “a lonely place if you’re alone.” You can sense it too in Sparhawk’s decision to create this thing entirely on his own: every note, every lyric, every programmed beat. It would be reductive, even foolish, to see grief as the sole source or the final limit of this taut, brilliant, provocative, thrilling album, whose bold experimentation is powered by profound lyrics and propulsive beats. Website | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify
DELIA-H
Delia-h and the Male Gaze is a local band in Carrboro. From a young age, Delia-h has used songwriting as a way to mark the chapters of her life; if she doesn’t write a song about it, it’s almost like it didn’t happen. She prides herself in protecting her own sacred, private relationship with creativity, and hopes to inspire others in her community to do the same. However, she also really likes it when people clap for her. So you do the math. Her band The Male Gaze, made up of her brothers, boyfriend, and hot blonde roommate, helps arrange her original music, typically over alcoholic ciders in an old, creature-ridden cabin. The band’s genre is quite fluid; songs in a Male Gaze set range from cheeky punk to soulful funk to pensive folk. But Delia-h’s lyricism and melodic instincts act as the glue, connecting all of the tunes with authentic themes of love, guilt, anger and introspection. Instagram | Spotify
Penelope Road
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Chase Petra
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Cheekface
Cheekface is an indie rock trio, more precisely a talk-singing band, from Los Angeles. The story starts in 2017. Things were getting pretty crappy on Earth. Indie rock lifers Greg and Mandy got together to write out the anxiety, despair and the bleak humor of it all. They sentthe demos to Echo and, voila, a band. It wasn’t a project that started with much ambition: the idea was to drop a record on Bandcamp and call it a day. But in 2018, the band’s second single “Dry Heat/Nice Town,” aplayful pub rock tune about leftist protest culture, started to snowball online. A word-of-mouth cult started to form, and it intensified with Cheekface’s community-minded singalongshows. Fans dubbed themselves “Cheek Freaks.” The band chased their 2019 debut LP “Therapy Island” with 2021’s “Emphatically No,” which bowed as Bandcamp’s top-selling alternative album. Their 3rd LP “Too Much to Ask” in 2022was a watershed moment: it shot to #2 on the non-commercial radio chart, and The Needle Drop proclaimed it one of the year’s best albums. Cheekface’s 4th album “It’s Sorted” cameout January 22, 2024. Touring to support “It’s Sorted,” the band sold out shows across the US, Canada and the UK. Bandcamp | Instagram | Spotify
Tyler Ramsey
Tyler Ramsey is an introspective singer-songwriter and unique fingerstyle guitar player who has built a rich catalog rooted in folk and melodic indie rock. Ramsey refined his sound while living in the western mountainous region of North Carolina, where he studied local styles of folk and drew inspiration from country-blues musicians who used to travel through the area. He has released highlights like 2008’s “A Long Dream About Swimming Across the Sea” and 2011’s “The Valley Wind”, all while being the lead guitarist and songwriter of Band of Horses for 10 years. Since striking back out on his own, he put out the rustic-toned “For The Morning” in 2019 and his latest album, “New Lost Ages,” in February 2024, which was captured in Seattle, Washington, by storied producer Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty). The 10-song LP is an ongoing sonic quest — meticulously wandering across the musical landscape, this undulating tone of indie and folk stylings. The new album is about peeling back the layers of oneself, to locate and open up the dusty boxes of your past from the back of the closet of your mind. It’s memories and mistakes, lessons and lifelines bringing the present moment into focus — the future bright with possibility and purpose, so long as you never forget the road to the here and now. Everything Ramsey has absorbed in his travels — onstage and on the road — is continually channeled through the lens of his words, unique tunings and guitar chords. It’s a whirlwind of sound and scope, all radiating from one human being with guitar in-hand, a silent room of curious souls awaiting the next number of beauty and grace conjured by Ramsey with such ease. Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | Soundcloud
Liz Longley
Liz Longley is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter celebrated for her stop-you-in-your-tracks voice and deeply emotional music. Known for her distinctive blend of folk, pop, and Americana, Liz has earned accolades from prestigious songwriting competitions, including the BMI John Lennon Songwriting Scholarship Competition. Her self-titled debut album was praised as “stunning” (HuffPost) and marked by “cleverness and wit” (Dallas Morning News). The follow-up, Weightless (2016), was lauded as “a thing of beauty” by Pop Dose. Liz’s sixth album, Funeral For My Past, became a notable success after her fans raised over $150,000 on Kickstarter to fund its independent release, making her the #4 most funded solo female musician in Kickstarter history. The album received widespread acclaim, with Forbes calling it “stunning” and Billboard highlighting its diverse range from Americana to shimmering pop anthems. Becoming a mother in 2022 profoundly impacted Liz’s songwriting, infusing her music with greater depth and perspective. Her upcoming album reflects this new chapter in her life, showcasing both her personal growth and her continued evolution as an artist. Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Lowertown
New York/Atlanta based band Lowertown consists of Olivia O. (Olive Osby) and Avsha (Avshalom Weinberg). First meeting in math class their sophomore year of high school, the two became friends over their shared taste in music. Since Olive and Avsha were both already writing, recording, and releasing songs under their respective solo projects, they decided the summer going into their junior year they were to form a band of just the two of them. That following school year, they released their debut project, which was written, recorded, performed and produced entirely in Avsha’s basement. The two went on to sign to Dirty Hit in their senior year of high school and released three subsequent projects under the label and began touring with bands such as Wet Leg, Beabadoobee, and Porches. It’s hard to pin down Lowertown as one brand or idea, because their sound ranges from delicate and sentimental piano and guitar ballads to dirty and dejected punk tracks. They have retaine their dedicated, longtime fanbase and captivated new listeners through their eccentric and energetic live performances, ever-evolving sound, and aesthetic. Lowertown aims to leave the listener with a refreshing feeling of excitement and connection to their raw emotions and the question of “What’s next?” Instagram | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
