Yaeji
Yaeji is NYC-via-Seoul producer, DJ, and vocalist, whose introspective, dancefloor-ready tracks have made her a global icon occupying a space all her own. After breaking out with her 2017 debut EPs that featured singles “Raingurl” and “Drink I’m Sippin On,” the multifaceted artist featured on Charli XCX’s 2019 album Charli, has gone onto produce remixes for Dua Lipa and Robyn, collaborate with the beloved Seoul-based polymath OHHYUK, sell out two headlining worldwide tours, and launch her bespoke lifestyle webstore JI-MART.Born in Flushing, Queens in 1993, she has roots in Seoul, Tokyo, Atlanta, and New York City, all serving as the backdrop for her singular, hybrid-sound that synthesizes influences of Korean indie rock and electronica, late ‘90s and early 2000s hip hop and R&B, and leftfield bass and techno. With her critically-acclaimed 2020 mixtape WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던, she sharpened her vision as a musician who is creatively unbounded by language and geography, leading to partnerships with PAC-MAN and Heaven by Marc Jacobs. Named by Pitchfork as one of the “25 Artists Shaping the Future of Music” in 2022, she’s also graced the cover of Crack, The FADER, MixMag, and Burdock, among others, and has been featured in programming at the V&A Museum, Serpentine Gallery, and MoMA PS1. Her highly anticipated debut album,With A Hammer, arriving April 7, 2023 via XL Recordings, sees Yaeji excavating her inner world with full force, resulting in her most thrilling and personal work yet.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | TikTok
Destroyer (solo)
Destroyer’s latest album, LABYRINTHITIS, brims with mystic and intoxicating terrain, the threads of Dan Bejar’s notes woven through by a trove of allusions at once eerily familiar and intimately perplexing. The record circuitously draws ever inward, each turn offering giddy surprise, anxious esoterica, and thumping emotionality at equal odds. “Do you remember the mythic beast?” Bejar asks at the outset of “Tintoretto, It’s for You,” the album’s first single, casting torchlight over the labyrinth’s corridors. “Tintoretto, it’s for you/ The ceiling’s on fire and the contract is binding.” Delivered in a Marlene Dietrich smolder, Bejar’s lyrical menace seeps like smoke through the brazen march’s woozy synths and dizzied guitar. “There’s some character here that feels new to me, a low drawl, an evening gown draped over a piano,” Bejar says of the song. Throughout, LABYRINTHITIS insists that everything’s not all right, but that even isolation and dissolution can be a source of joy— stepping into the sunlight at the other end of the maze in your ear, Bejar strolling alongside like a wild-maned, leisure- suited minotaur.More than an arcane puzzle for the listener, LABYRINTHITIS warps and winds through unfamiliar territory for Bejar as well. Written largely in 2020 and recorded the following spring, the album most often finds Bejar and frequent collaborator John Collins seeking the mythic artifacts buried somewhere under the dance floor, from the glitzy spiral of “It Takes a Thief” to the Books-ian collage bliss of the title track. Initial song ideas ventured forth from disco, Art of Noise, and New Order, Bejar and Collins championing the over-the-top madcappery. “John is in his 50s, and I’m almostthere, but we used to go to clubs,” Bejar laughs. “Our version may have been punk clubs, but our touchstones for the album were more true to disco.”Bejar and Collins conducted their questing in the height of isolation, Collins on the remote Galiano Island and Bejar in nearby Vancouver, sending ideas back and forth when restrictions didn’t allow them to meet. “From the vocal manipulation to the layered electronics, making this record pushed us to a new place, and reaching that place felt stressful,” Bejar recalls. “But I trust that that stress is a good feeling.” That cuddly anxiety excels in tracks like “Eat the Wine, Drink the Bread,” Joshua Wells’ percussion and Collins’ drum programming pushing Bejar’s voice forward. “The whole world’s a stage/ That I don’t know/ I am going through,” he sighs, before reaching the frustrated religious imagery of the title.Lyrically, LABYRINTHITIS embraces a widescreen maximalism, blocks of text dotted with subversions and hedges. Building from the koans of Have We Met, Bejar continues to carve his words precisely, toying with expectations and staid symbols, while Collins’ production reconstructs the pieces into a unified whole. “Even though everyone recorded in their own isolated corners, this is the most band record that we’ve done in the last few years,” Bejar says.Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
High Vis
Though the band were all alumni of some of the UK hardcore scene’s most celebrated groups, High Vis’s 2019 debut, No Sense No Feeling, was a record that opened its viewfinder beyond the parameters of any genre or scene. Sure, the intensity and passion of hardcore were stoking the fires, but in its intense post-punk inspired textures and moods lay a sonic adventurousness which suggested the members of High Vis were never going to be confined by any notion of what they should or shouldn’t be playing.“Hardcore is the best. When you’re young and you’re feeling pissed off, there’s a framework there where you think, ‘Fuck it, I’ll just do that…’ and it’s brilliant. You dive on each other’s heads and feel a part of something,” says frontman Graham Sayle. “Hardcore presents itself as this forward-thinking thing, but it’s fucking conservative. It can be like: ‘No! You can’t do that! That’s not like ’88 New York hardcore!”The washes of chorus FX and spectral synths lines of 2020 EP Society Exists was further evidence that the group were never going to be easily pigeonholed or restrained, but High Vis’ second album Blended displays a musical and emotional scope that anyone who’d seen The Smear, Dirty Money, DiE or even Sayle and drummer Ed ‘Ski’ Harper’s pre-High Vis outfit Tremors back in the day could never have imagined.From the anthemic sweep of opener Talk For Hours, through the title track’s psychedelic swirl and Fever Dream’s almost baggy groove, it’s an album that shows High Vis’s sound blossoming into something with an unlimited richness. The hazy drift of Shame or the melodic jangle of Trauma Bonds may take them until uncharted waters, but they still have all the power and bite that made No Sense No Feeling so remarkable.“A lot of it is because Martin has come into the band,” says Harper of the role new guitarist Martin MacNamara has played. “Martin’s influences and mine weaved in together have created a whole new palette.”“I loved the band before I even joined them,” adds MacNamara, “so if I had other influences it was always going to slot into what they were already playing.”Knowing that MacNamara was already a dyed in the wool High Vis fan should assure anyone worrying at this point that the band might have thrown the punk baby out with the bathwater. It’s still recognizably them – see the way Rob Moss’ bass grinds and growls against MacNamara’s skyscraping guitar collage on Trauma Bonds or how Sayle snarls about the working class being “as good as dead” over the cement mixer churn of 0151As the title might suggest, Blending is about bringing all these new strands and elements into what the band are about at their core to forge something entirely new.“I really enjoyed getting back into music again when lockdown happened. Because there were no gigs and we had started writing tunes I was listening to things like Flock Of Seagulls and Echo And The Bunnymen and all the old Manchester stuff,” says Moss of the records the band were buzzing off as they made the album. “I started getting really excited because we were playing all this stuff like a punk band but it was this new sound, it was a blend of what we’re all into.”Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook
Phoneboy
Phoneboy[fohn • boi] noun1 someone consumed with their phone, unable to tear themselves away from a distraction2 Gen-Z’s newest indie-pop trio spinning off shimmering licks over toe-tapping beats so danceable it’ll make you put your phone downFresh out of school and poised on the verge of adulthood, Phoneboy’s sophomore entry accentuates the power-pop elements of their earlier releases while honing in on a drum-tight enthusiasm that’s defined their signature sound. The appropriately named Moving Out collects a wise-beyond-their-years bittersweet Gen-Z sensibility of a generation forced to contend with not just typical adolescent grievance, but a world continually inundated with ephemeral fame, transient praise, hollow accolades, oh yeah and a global pandemic. Yet as dour as the circumstance, Phoneboy astounds with yet another record chock full of undeniable toe-tappers and bittersweet bangers determined to fuel get-togethers from blowouts to dormroom dance parties.In an age of hyper-stimulated doom-scrolling and over-polished social media stars, humble New Jersey three-piece Phoneboy are all about putting down the phone and living in the moment.. Singer/guitarist Wyn Barnum and Ricky Dana met at a technical college without much of an indie scene and pulled in Wyn’s childhood friend, bassist James Fusco. While in undergrad the three college boys bonded over a love of midwest emo and first built their band to soundtrack the semester’s keggers.As students at a small technical school where indie bands aren’t so common, the ‘Boys don’t distinguish between their friends and their fans. “We respect artists who want to make music just for themselves, and it’s not like we don’t, but we trust our friends the most. If they like the song, we know it’s good.” And it’s not just their friends who like it. Phoneboy’s early efforts quickly earned a following on social media. Serving as a de facto street team, classmates shared the band’s breakout, ACID GIRL far and wide. Before they knew it these floppy haired crooners had racked up over a million streams across the web. It’s the kind of word-of-mouth buzz that makes you think the internet wasn’t such a bad idea. “There’s definitely a tension there,” says Wyn, speaking to social media. “There’s all this distraction, all this fake fun everybody’s pretending to have, but at the same time the discovery potential is insane.”More sonically articulate than their pop-punk predecessors, these fresh-faced friends mix in more mature influences like the Arctic Monkeys, the Strokes, Frank Ocean, M83, Carseat Headrest, Megan Thee Stallion, and even Billy Joel– studying pop music with maybe more enthusiasm than their majors, they polish their influences into a new collection of all killer no filler super catchy party bops road tested on vaulted stages like Mercury Lounge and House of Independence.The latest single FERRARI introduces our protagonist with a thousand faces, a youth on the verge of adulthood. Faced with the responsibilities of adulthood they yearn for those carefree highschool days, singing “I just wanna make a couple hundred thousand/ Put all my friends in one big house and/ Party like we’re never gonna see tomorrow/…Honestly I’m hoping that I see tomorrow.”Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
Skyblew
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Speed Stick
The Carrboro, NC supergroup Speed Stick is an ever-evolving project among a group of friends—Ash Bowie (Polvo), Charles Chace (The Paul Swest), Laura King (Bat Fangs), and Thomas Simpson (The Love Language)—whose musical achievements reach back as far as the 1990s. But as its live shows attest, the band does not want to rehearse old accomplishments. On stage, Speed Stick wants to shatter epochs. Step into a world of thunder where lighting strikes rewire nervous systems. Ride waves with peaks that precede disquieting calms. Float in spaces where dark and light collide to set blood afire. To participate in a Speed Stick show is to enter a space of bodily and psychological endurance. Off-kilter guitar riffs shadow the raging intensity of drums; blistering drum beats dance to the feedback of guitars.The songs for Volume One were created in unusual fashion over the course of a year. Initially, Speed Stick only consisted of two drummers. They distributed nine studio tracks and a single live track to select musicians. The musicians’ task was simple: draw inspiration from the beats in order to create music that spreads laterally and horizontally like a rhizome. Indeed, Volume One has utterly discarded the yoke of genre by instead tethering intricate, interlocking drums to myriad creative personalities: Mac McCaughan (Superchunk), Kelley Deal (The Breeders, R. Ring), Mike Montgomery (R. Ring), Stuart McLamb (The Love Language). But no one can stop with just the album. Your ears will yearn to see the shapes of sound and your eyes will beg to taste color. For what Volume One heralds is that the supergroup Speed Stick is the super show of shows.Bandcamp | Facebook
Lemon Sparks, Brett Harris
Hailing from Raleigh, North Carolina, Lemon Sparks is an original ‘roots pop’ band blending sophisticated psychedelia, power pop, timeless folk, and jazz. The band supported the release of their 2015 self-titled debut touring clubs and regional festivals, headlining locally and opening for international acts.Lemon Sparks proudly present their new album Raincloud In the Sun. Band members Jeff Carroll (guitar) Rick Lassiter (bass) and Greg Tourian (drums) pulled double duty providing a variety of instrumentation and production on each of Raincloud in the Sun’s ten original songs.Guest musicians on the album include Peter Holsapple (dBs, REM, Continental Drifters), Todd Montgomery (Big Chief), and Don Kerr (Ron Sexsmith, Rheostatics, Bahamas).Lemon Sparks’ winsome, sturdy songs build upon a rich balance of melody and dissonance. The band skillfully glides across multiple golden eras of guitar pop with masterful playing and considerable attention to sonic detail.Website | Facebook | YouTubeBrett Harris is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Durham, NC. In 2010 his debut LP Man of Few Words was featured by Paste Magazine’s “Best of What’s Next”, NPR’s “All Songs Considered: Second Stage”, and made several “Best of” lists, drawing comparisons to the work of Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Harry Nilsson, and Emitt Rhodes. Additionally, Brett has participated as a core band member in live performances of Big Star’s Third, playing throughout the US in addition to the UK, Spain, and Australia. He has also served as a touring member of Jangle Pop progenitors The dB’s. Noted critic Bill Kopp, in a review of his 2016 release Up in the Air, said the album “will have lovers of classic pop reaching for the ‘repeat’ button.”Website | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
The Mountain Goats
Maybe you are just like John Darnielle: In the depths of the pandemic winter at the end of 2020, the Mountain Goats frontman passed the time trapped at home in North Carolina watching pulpy action movies, finding comfort in familiar tropes and sofabound escapism. But you are not really like John Darnielle, unless the action movies you found comfort in included French thrillers like 2008’s Mesrine, vintage Italian poliziotteschi, or the 1974 Donald Pleasence mad-scientist vehicle The Freakmaker. Or unless watching them brought you back to your formative days as an artist, when watching films fueled and soundtracked your songwriting jags and bare-bones home recordings and in turn inspired your 20th album to be a song cycle about the allure—and futility—of vengeance. But there’s no shame in not being like John Darnielle; few people are.“On earlier tapes you’ll find these sound samples,” Darnielle says. “‘Oh, where’s this sample from?’ It’s from whatever movie I was watching while I was sitting around on the couch with a guitar. I watch a movie, somebody’d say something that I like the sound of and I’ll write that phrase down. And then I would pause the VHS, write the song, record the song on a boombox, and go back to watching my movie. I got into doing that again; I just kept watching action movies and taking notes on what they’re about and on what the governing plots and tropes and styles are. It was very much like an immersion method acting technique.”The resulting performance is Bleed Out, a cinematic experience unto itself. One song about preparing to exact bloody revenge begat another song about the act of exacting bloody revenge and then more songs about and the causes and the aftermath of being driven to exact bloody revenge, each delivered with the urgency and desperation deserving of their narrators and circumstances.Just as Getting Into Knives and Dark in Here—recorded in Memphis and Muscle Shoals, respectively, in the first two weeks of March 2020, just before such a thing would become impossible—were heavily informed and influenced by their historic settings, Bleed Out is all pent-up energy and explosion, executed by a bunch of friends who were mainly happy to be in a room together making loud noises. In January 2021, just weeks after Darnielle had started writing, his bandmates Peter Hughes, Matt Douglas, and Jon Wurster joined him at a studio in the woods near his home in Chapel Hill. Everything was finished inside a week.“We often make a record and then bring in some guests who flesh out the textures,” Darnielle says. “And for this one, it was very much like a pack mentality. That sort of seemed to proceed from the songs.” One new face was that of Bully’s Alicia Bognanno, recommended to Darnielle by his manager as a producer who could help nurture the rougher-edged sound these songs requested. “We met up and hit it off. She’s a great guitarist. It was kind of just a lark, to see what would happen, and it was totally great.”That abandon is on full display from the opening track, “Training Montage,” which lovingly documents the getting-ready-for-battle scene in any action movie regardless of provenance and loudly declares its intentions: “I’m doing this for revenge.” This and the next song, “Mark on You,” were the first two Darnielle wrote, and they set the tone for everything that follows on Bleed Out.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Colby Acuff
Brought to you from the mountains of North Idaho is an independent country artist with an old soul. Acuff’s blend of old-school storytelling and powerful voice takes you to an unfamiliar place of honest country music. Acuff grew up listening to country music of all kinds. From bluegrass to outlaw country. His inspirations from a young age were Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Ricky Skaggs, and many more.Acuff had drawn inspiration for his songs throughout his life, songs like “Moscow Drinking Team” talks about the days when he was attending the University of Idaho, as well as “Dying Breed” which conveys his life when he was a fly fishing guide on the Coeur d’ Alene river.Acuff dropped “Life of a Rolling Stone” in January of 2020 but everything got put on hold due to COVID-19. he had lost everything, but instead of giving up he doubled down on his dream and one year later he dropped his independent sophomore album “If I were the Devil” which put him on the map. In the first 6 months, the album has done over 6 million total streams and has been featured on over 50 media outlets including Whiskey Riff, and CMT.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Jervis Campbell
Jervis Campbell is a Nashville based artist known for his introspective lyrics, signature vocals, and unique production – all packaged into intimate and authentic songs that he has played across the country. With only one album and an EP out he has found a strong following in both the physical and digital world. So far he has amassed over 70 million streams on streaming platforms and that number continues to grow.In November 2021, Campbell released the self-written “Onward & Upward” – his debut full-length album packed with the lyrical and emotional depth of a life that has learned through experience and come out the other side. “I wanted to push myself and try to make this album as authentic as I could so I made these songs to come to life by my own hands” says Campbell, who produced the whole record on his own in his home studio.With the success and reception of “Onward & Upward”, Campbell has started moving forward with his next album, called the “Hopeful Hearts Club”. It will be released as singles monthly throughout 2023 and he will be touring with his band on his “Hopeful Hearts Tour”. The band will be playing songs from his past record as well as the new ones from this one. “ I was in a dry season of life for a long time and felt like there was no way out – slowly but surely though I started to feel this sliver of hope and realized how important it was to me. I started writing again and realized that all of my songs were about hope. I guess a little bit of hope can go a long way.”With the Hopeful Hearts Tour ahead as well as his sophomore album, there is a lot of excitement from fans around the country. The spring holds 20 shows up the East Coast, around the Midwest, and down through Texas. He will have his full band and they will be playing the full show with lights and full production. The momentum is in full swing and things seem to only look brighter from here.Website | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
