Militarie Gun
Militarie Gun’s new album, God Save The Gun, starts with a confession. “I’ve been slipping up” frontman Ian Shelton roars on the opening cut “B A D I D E A.” It’s real vulnerability tucked amongst distorted bass and blown-out drums, and the perfect introduction to one of the most exciting records of the year. This isn’t just a sonically daring, massive swing of a rock album, it’s also a very human document of being at your worst when you should be on top of the world – an absurdist guide to the intersection of self-destruction and self-belief. “I’m well aware that being this vulnerable turns my personal trauma into a marketing hook for this album,” Shelton says. “But I’m fine with it, if not provoking it. Over the past couple years, as I spoke about addiction from the perspective of someone affected by it, I became the one struggling with it. There’s a farcical logic to entering a situation, fully knowing the consequences, and doing it anyway–but that’s where my head was when I started leaning on drinking.” Militarie Gun’s 2023 debut album, Life Under The Gun was centered around lifelong cycles of hurt, with the singer looking back at growing up with family members struggling with addiction, and while God Save The Gun is still tethered to that history, this time, he’s not the witness—he’s the protagonist. It wasn’t until the band was scheduled to enter the studio in early 2025 that Shelton realized he was the one who needed to hear God Save The Gun’s message. “I thought I was playing a character, but it was becoming my reality,” he explains. “Right before recording, it hit me that I was really losing control and needed to do something about it. I looked at the record as a whole and could see that it was a note to myself – when I read back those lyrics, I could clearly see they’re saying ‘yeah man, you’re fucking up.’” Despite all of the inner turmoil leading to God Save The Gun, Shelton and his bandmates – guitarists William Acuña and Kevin Kiley, bassist Waylon Trim, and drummer David Stalsworth – more than rose to the challenge of following up Militarie Gun’s acclaimed debut. Stalsworth, Trim, and Kiley all joined during Life Under The Gun’s extensive touring cycle after a series of member shakeups that would hobble most bands, but only made Militarie Gun stronger. “It took us a long time to find the right people to be in this band but it feels like all the pieces have finally fallen into place,” Shelton says. “It’s like we’ve had a fast car for a while but we just now figured out how to drive it. We wrote for three years consistently because our intention was to make a classic record—full stop. The songs need to be as emotional as possible but the music needs to fully hit too. Big ideas need big songs.” God Save The Gun certainly lives up to that credo, and to do it, the band recruited a village of new and old collaborators. Shelton continued his creative relationship with songsmith Phillip Odom, co-wrote with longtime conspirator and frequent harmonizer James Goodson of Dazy, and newly tapped Nick Panella of MSPAINT, among others. “Phil really taught me how to sing, he knows my voice better than anyone,” says Shelton. “Or sometimes it’s about bringing in a fresh perspective – I call someone like James or Nick because those guys write songs in a totally different way than I do.” Bandcamp · Instagram
AJ Lee & Blue Summit
AJ Lee & Blue Summit are an award-winning energetic, charming, and technically jaw-dropping band quickly rising on the national roots music scene. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the group met as teenagers, picking and jamming together as kids at local music festivals and jams until one day, they decided they would be a band. “Our roots go really deep,” explains de facto band leader Lee. “We met when we were young kids… We definitely decided to choose each other as a chosen family band later on in life, but in a lot of ways it was naturally just like that in the beginning.” “It was like one of those late at night things,” she continued. “We were sitting on a trailer at Grass Valley” at the annual Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival held in the Sierra Nevada foothills – “Someone said, ‘All of us right here, we’re a band now.’ We kind of didn’t take it seriously, but we were like, okay, we’ll be a band!” Website · Facebook · Instagram · YouTube · TikTok
Sawyer Hill
Sawyer Hill began playing bars as a teenager, sneaking through the back door so he wouldn’t be carded by bouncers. Eventually, he’d graduate to national stages, thanks in large part to his breakthrough single “Look at the Time.” He has since racked up over 130 million streams and nearly a quarter billion video views, and left Arkansas for the first time to bring his music across the United States and Europe. Those gigs, including sold out stops at LA’s Troubadour and NYC’s Bowery Ballroom, and an extensive tour supporting Yungblud informed the way his new LP, Everybody’s Home, Nobody’s Happy, sounds. He was also moved by a revelation he wasn’t expecting: Every time he left Arkansas for a California writing session or string of tour dates, he found himself longing for home. To hone in on the sonic and lyrical identity of the album, Hill worked with a few different collaborators throughout Los Angeles, like Mike Crossey [The 1975, Arctic Monkeys], Chris Greatti [Poppy, Yungblud], and Ryan Linville [Olivia Rodrigo, Dermot Kennedy]. He quickly began to triangulate the philosophy of the record, using these peers and role models as sounding boards. It’s part of the reason Hill sounds more assured than ever on the new album. With Everybody’s Home, Nobody’s Happy, Sawyer Hill wants to be that guiding presence that his favorite rockstars were for him when he was sitting in his childhood bedroom, teaching himself chords. He wants to be a voice for the loners and the doubters, the Southern kid who doesn’t understand why he’s meant to shut up about his feelings. Website · Instagram · Facebook · TikTok · YouTube · Soundcloud · Spotify
Kevin Atwater – Blush Red Tour
Kevin Atwater is a Chicago-born singer-songwriter based in New York City. Kevin started posting his music online in early 2022 and quickly built a fanbase drawn to his uniquely honest and intimate songwriting. A video of him performing his single “star tripping” was posted to TikTok in July 2022 and went viral, accumulating over 2.1 million views. Kevin continued posting his demos in full, each receiving at minimum hundreds of thousands of views and gaining the attention and support of notable artists like MUNA, Lizzy McAlpine, and Noah Kahan. Kevin released his debut EP Downers Grove on April 26, 2023, which has since garnered over 15 million streams across platforms. His follow-up single “why did you invite me to your wedding” gained significant demand from his audience on social media after several videos on TikTok reached over 3 million views collectively and has streamed over half a million times across platforms. During this time, he also spent time on the road supporting Jeremy Zucker, Leith Ross, and Searows on their tours. In 2025, Kevin released his debut album Achilles, which garnered more than 10 million streams across all DSPs, sold out his debut headline North American tour, and premiered a short film inspired by his viral song “why did you invite me to your wedding” in New York City. 2026 is poised to be a breakout year for Kevin as he works on his second full-length project, Blush Red, coming July 10th. Website · Spotify · TikTok · Instagram · YouTube
Margaret Glaspy – The I Am Both Tour
In an era of excess and endless distraction, the New York-based singer/songwriter Margaret Glaspy rejects the noise in favor of something far more essential. On the self-possessed title track for her new album I Am Both, Glaspy offers an ardent refusal of any outside pressure to compromise her multidimensionality. “I wrote ‘I Am Both’ a while ago; the story is based on a female character that I look up to deeply—a woman who contains multitudes while seeing reality very clearly,” says Glaspy. “It can feel safer to try to fit myself into a category, but I find that embracing my own complexity is much healthier for me.” That embrace of complexity runs throughout the album’s eleven tracks. In the making of I Am Both, Glaspy stepped away from social media and soon discovered a clarity of mind she hadn’t experienced in years, followed by a sustained burst of creative momentum. As she penned her lyrics in longhand and then polished them up on a typewriter, Glaspy assembled a selection of songs that span from fictional vignettes to unguarded self-revelation to empathetic observation of the troubled world around her. Produced by Joe Henry (the three-time Grammy-winning singer/songwriter/producer known for his work with luminaries like Aimee Mann and Joan Baez), I Am Both ultimately stands as a striking new statement from one of the modern music canon’s most formidable songwriters. “When I started writing for this record I had a goal of getting my practice back—to walk the walk in terms of how I envision myself as a songwriter,” says Glaspy, a Northern California-bred artist who made her debut with 2016’s lavishly acclaimed Emotions and Math. “At first it was really hard to break that addiction to social media, but after a while something shifted. It felt like I’d gotten back to original thought instead of being under the influence of so many outside opinions. It was life-changing.” Her fourth full-length album, I Am Both, emerged from three days of sessions at New York City’s Reservoir Studios, where Glaspy recorded live with drummer/percussionist Jay Bellerose (Bonnie Raitt, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss), keyboardist Patrick Warren (Tracy Chapman, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen), and bassist Ross Gallagher (Paula Cole, Grails). “I always think of myself as more of a photographer than a sculptor in the studio—it’s about capturing the moment rather than layering and building things up over time, and Joe has a similar mentality when it comes to recording,” says Glaspy, who first connected with Henry at a T Bone Burnett-curated tribute to Bob Dylan at New York’s Town Hall in 2022. “There was an incredible chemistry with the band and the whole process felt electric, so a lot of what you hear on the album is the first take.” The follow-up to 2023’s Echo the Diamond (hailed by Uncut as “songs that glint like shards of glass yet brim with love, grief, courage, existential doubt and all the stuff that makes us human”), I Am Both brings Glaspy’s disarmingly direct vocals and eloquent guitar work to a cathartic form of folk-leaning indie-rock. In a potent introduction to the LP’s luminous immediacy, the album opens on “Michigan”—a lush and lacerating piece of storytelling that imagines a post-breakup escape to the Midwest. “I was in Michigan a couple years back and had a really beautiful time, and thought about how New Yorkers sometimes fantasize about the countryside as a retreat from the intensity of the city,” Glaspy says. “It turned into a song about someone going through a bad breakup, and then deciding to just leave the city behind.” Website
The Afghan Whigs
Website · Instagram · Facebook · Spotify · YouTube
Dana and Alden
Jazz duo Dana & Alden have always had a wanderlust, something they credit to their maternal grandfather. Affectionately known as Papa, he was the kind of person others naturally gravitate towards. It was a photograph from one of his trips to Asia that inspired the Eugene, OR duo’s new album Papa’s Boat. In the image Papa is looking out across the horizon and stood next to his boat Sŵn y Môr (Welsh for “Sound of the Sea.”) “I think so much of what Alden and I are doing comes from just watching him live his own unique life,” says Dana. Alden agrees. “His emboldened, passionate personality gave us permission to be our own selves, to be unconventional and draw outside of the box.” Recorded with Malcolm Catto in London in March 2025, Papa’s Boat combines all their childhood love and global experience to create an ecstatic sound built on Dana’s saxophone and Alden’s drums. Recorded with the duo’s backing band, Ebba Dankel (vocals and keys), Andrew Mitchell (bass), Eli Torgersen (vocals and guitar) and Salim Charvet (sax and synths), Papa’s Boat is rooted in jazz but pulling influence from indie, pop, rap, bossa nova, and beyond. A hypnotic combination of sax and buzzing synths on “Lighthouse” sets the tone for an album that uses water as both a reflective surface and a body to get lost in. Elsewhere there are collaborations with Mei Semones, Melanie Charles, and legendary Brazilian songwriter Marcos Valle, a hero figure to the band who appears on “El Gaucho” and “Friendship Is A Boat.” Throughout its runtime Papa’s Boat sails purposefully between memories of the past and visions of a brighter future. It doesn’t just commemorate their Papa as a beloved character, but shares him with the world. Website · Instagram · YouTube · TikTok
Evening Elephants
Facebook · Instagram · Spotify
Circle Jerks & Municipal Waste
Circle Jerks emerged from the punk underbelly of LA’s South Bay in 1979. After serving as a co-founder and lead vocalist of Black Flag during the recording of its essential Nervous Breakdown EP, Keith Morris joined forces with former Redd Kross guitarist Greg Hetson to form what would become Circle Jerks, along with bassist Roger Rogerson and jazz drummer Lucky Lehrer. Unlike much of the unapologetic hardcore that seeped through the cracks of American suburbia, the music of the Circle Jerks was thoughtfully steadfast, yet relentless and ferocious in nature. Bringing together a potent, articulate rhythm section with earnest yet oftentimes derisive lyrics and themes, the band was thereafter heralded as a leader of the pack – and a force to be reckoned with. Plowing forward with a relentless, tooth-cutting work ethic and a rousing stage presence, the band would soon find itself headlining shows at LA’s 5,000-capacity Olympic Auditorium and emblazoned in cult video classics like Decline of Western Civilization, Repo Man, New Wave Theatre, and The Slog Movie. Over the decades, Circle Jerks would release six studio albums, including the acclaimed Group Sex (1980) Wild in the Streets (1982), Golden Shower of Hits (1983), Wonderful (1985), and IV (1987), where they would become a major headliner during the alternative music explosion of the 80’s and 90’s. During hiatuses, Morris fronted bands like OFF! and FLAG, while Hetson played guitar in Bad Religion. Bassist Zander Schloss (The Weirdos, Joe Strummer) has been a member since the 1980’s and veteran drummer Joey Castillo (The Bronx, QOTSA, Danzig, BL’AST!, Wasted Youth) completes the lineup as its newest member. Website · Instagram · Facebook · Spotify Municipal Waste Website · Instagram · Facebook
Julia Jacklin
Julia Jacklin is celebrated for her emotionally direct lyricism, captivating performances, and commanding voice. Since the release of her acclaimed debut Don’t Let The Kids Win (2016), Jacklin has become one of the most respected artists in contemporary independent music, with follow-up albums Crushing (2019) and PRE PLEASURE (2022) — the latter debuting at #2 on the ARIA Charts. Across her career, she has earned two ARIA Awards and had thirteen nominations and widespread international critical acclaim, with both Crushing and PRE PLEASURE landing on numerous year-end best-of lists and receiving universal praise from outlets including Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NME, MOJO, and Uncut. A formidable live performer, Jacklin has built a substantial global touring audience through sold out headline shows at venues including London’s Roundhouse, Melbourne’s Forum, and Brooklyn Steel in New York, alongside appearances at major festivals such as Glastonbury, Primavera Sound, Austin City Limits, Pitchfork Music Festival, and Laneway. In addition to extensive headline touring, she has shared stages with artists including Mitski, Lana Del Rey, Courtney Barnett, and Faye Webster, with whom she has also collaborated musically. Following previous partnerships with Polyvinyl, Transgressive, and Liberation Records, Jacklin recently signed her first-ever global record deal with 4AD, marking a new chapter for one of Australia’s most internationally celebrated songwriters. Website · Instagram · Facebook · Spotify