Runnner
For the last five years, Los Angeles-based musician Noah Weinman has been Runnner, and for much of those five years, Runnner has been working. Working on his 2021 collection album, Always Repeating; working as a producer on the Skullcrusher records; and, of course, working towards his debut full-length, Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out. From LA to Ohio and the Northeast and back, he’s been deep in the craft of sound. This is music made at home, using anything and everything: cell phones and handheld tape recorders, the hum of an a/c unit, voicemails from friends. Rubbing cardboard together, stretching acoustic sounds out to near liquid, or stacking delay pedals at random to scramble the smoothness of a song can make something known into something unknown — something ordinary into something cosmic. These are songs where the edges have been left deliberately rough because perfection invites predictability, and imperfection imbalances, and those imbalances ask the listener to listen again, and again. And in that listening, the sound can become earnest, can ask a question, can hold a conversation.”I was sifting through my demos trying to decide what songs would go on the album, and I sort of started to notice this theme about the limits of language,” explains Weinman. “You’re trying to articulate something to someone, and it either doesn’t come out right or you end up not saying anything at all. It’s a pattern I see in my life, just having a hard time expressing myself to the people I’m close with.” So it’s no surprise that from a young age, Noah was drawn to other modes of expression: first studying trumpet and jazz, then falling into guitars, banjo, pianos and synths, and along with them discovering a love for stitching together songs and recordings. “It wasn’t until I got out of the studio environment and started recording at home that it became something I really love doing,” he says.Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out is the result of years of writing, recording, and tinkering in Weinman’s home, a lovingly crafted patchwork of organic instrumentation and otherworldly digital manipulation. The unexpected sounds and lush production elevate Weinman’s already impressive skill for melody and warm vocals, always pivoting between sparse intimacy and sweeping grandeur at the right moments. “I think I just want to try to make sounds that are a little original, that you couldn’t easily identify,” he explains. “But I get there by keeping my options pretty limited. I only have one input, so I don’t record things in stereo; I only have about three microphones and a few instruments, and I try not to use MIDI. I keep the ingredient list short, but that pushes me to be more creative in the genesis of certain sounds.”This musical approach is reflected in Runnner’s lyrics as well, where the familiar is made unfamiliar, and then familiar again. With humor and heart, Weinman sifts through isolation and anxiety in the everyday: ruining the rice, buying shampoo, the way boredom and loneliness are tangled up together. And from these fragments, he makes something new, but also something already known and felt at once. “A lot of the songs have this narrative arc of rising tension that just leads to me not saying or doing anything,” he says.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Built To Spill
Built to Spill is an indie rock band from Boise, ID, formed in 1992 by guitarist/vocalist Doug Martsch.In September 2022 they released their most recent album, through SubPop – “When the Wind Forgets Your Name.” Known as well for its rotating line up, the band currently counts with Melanie Radford on bass and Teresa Esguerra on drums.Website | Facebook | Twitter
Curtis Waters
At only twenty-two years old, Curtis Waters has already established himself as a talented musical triple threat: writer, producer, and performer, and he doesn’t miss the opportunity to flex his creative muscles on the violent delight that is “STAR KILLER”. Sonically addictive, the relentless and unflinching production serves only to increase the power behind Waters’ stark lyricism. At its core “STAR KILLER” is a personal commentary for Waters, who is navigating new success whilst also staying true to his identity as a first generation immigrant from Nepal. Following one billion streams on his debut album ‘Pity Party,’ Curtis Waters followed up with the electrifying post-punk single ‘MANIC MAN’ – a brutally honest reflection on identity, insecurity, and mental health. The 22-year old singer, songwriter, & producer has earned over 150K YouTube subscribers, 60K IG followers, and 138K on Tik-Tok – earning him over 100M views across platforms. After the growth of his viral hit ‘Stunnin,’ the Nepali-born creative was covered by the likes of Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Pigeons & Planes. He quickly launched himself into collaborations with acts like renforshort, Kim Petras, and Brevin Kim alongside serving as the ambassador for major brands including MCM, Mercedes, and Haagen Dazs. After experiencing rapid online success, the multi-hyphenate spent time re-imagining his creative identity & sound, working with artists like TiaCorine, Shrimp, and greek as he built a new world. His forthcoming album is a true immigrant story, a reflection on a young, brown creative being thrown into the mainstream overnight, while navigating deep issues of self-doubt & cultural identity along the way.Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube |TikTok
Kathleen Edwards
If you ask Kathleen Edwards, the best thing she ever did was quit.By 2014, the singer-songwriter had released four studio albums and amassed widespread critical acclaim. She had been touring since the release of her 2012 album, Voyageur, and the prospect of returning home—only to start writing her way toward another album, and another tour—felt impossibly daunting. She put her guitar away, at least for awhile: she moved back to her hometown of Ottawa and settled down in Stittsville, an old village on the western edge of town. A running inside joke with bandmate Jim Bryson about opening a coffee shop and naming it “Quitters” became reality. For years, the only new music she heard was playing in the background while she served her regulars at the shop, where she slowly started to fall in love with music again.“I had no desire to write, no desire to play,” she says of what she refers to as her “working sabbatical.” “It allowed me all the time and space I needed to even just enjoy listening to music again. There were so many times where, if I was thinking about my own writing or playing, my heart just wasn’t in it. Opening a cafe gave me such a clean break from the weight of what I was carrying, I worked my ass off building a shop, I didn’t have to be ‘just a singer’ anymore.”But in 2018, she received an unexpected phone call that changed that. Maren Morris, a longtime fan, invited her to Nashville for a songwriting session. Edwards accepted, and “Good Woman,” their collaboration, wound up on Morris’ 2019 album, GIRL. “It reminded me that writing and creating music is entirely my wheelhouse, and it was so easy to just jump back in and do that,” she says of her fortuitous time in Nashville. “Funny enough, the third person in the room for those two days was Ian Fitchuk, and [we] ended up starting the process of producing a record.”Edwards will make her long-anticipated return to music with Total Freedom, her fifth studio album out August 14th via Dualtone Records. Written and recorded in Canada and Nashville with longtime collaborator/guitarist, Jim Bryson, and Grammy-winning songwriter/producer, Fitchuk, Total Freedom is both a return to form and a “hard reset,” one that empowered Edwards to write and perform entirely on her terms.“I didn’t want to write songs that were going to keep me in a dark place on stage every night,” she says. “I didn’t have to carry a lot of the pressure of whatever course I was on previously… There’s a pressure sometimes to keep that ball rolling, and that’s what was so freeing about stopping altogether. I have this whole other experience now that grounded me and helped me rebuild my relationship with myself, and writing music. I’m entirely in control and deciding what my course of action is.”For inspiration, she turned to Bob Seger, whose “Against the Wind” struck a chord with her: “The song just reveals itself in such an effortless way. I was like, ‘That’s how I want to feel on these songs being written: that’s how I want it to feel when I play it start to finish.’”Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Igorrr
With 2017’s Savage Sinusoid, Igorrr more than proved to be a truly unique musical force – and 2020’s Spirituality And Distortion cements that well-earned reputation. Slamming together disparate musical styles ranging from death and black metal to breakcore, Balkan, baroque and classical music in a manner that is as unconventional and unpredictable as it is thrilling, Igorrr are unlike any other act, and Spirituality And Distortion displays just as broad a range of emotions as sounds. “Getting stuck in only one emotion is very boring to me; life is a wide range of emotions – sometimes you’re happy, sometimes you’re sad, angry, pissed off, nostalgic or blown away,” states mastermind Gautier Serre. “Life is not only one color. These 14 tracks are a journey through different states of mind I’ve been through.”Admitting that upon starting work on the record he lacked confidence in realizing it – “I was not sure at all of what I was doing, where it was gonna lead, or if I would be able to make an album with it or not, I was just following my instinct and seeing where it might reach” – one influence pushed through and is a prominent part of Spirituality And Distortion: traditional eastern music. “No idea where it comes from, but the colors of those sounds inspired me a lot. It’s something I’ve been extremely attracted to. Those sounds have a real deepness in the emotional range, and combined with heavy music, it’s something which took me very deep into myself, and which pushed me into doing tracks like ‘Downgrade Desert’, ‘Camel Dancefloor’, ‘Himalaya Massive Ritual’ or ‘Overweight Poesy’.” At no stage was there any plan, embracing the freedom offered in the wake of achieving Savage Sinusoid and going wherever ideas took him, embracing a small army of specialist musicians to help him attain his vision. Importantly, like its predecessor, this is not a predominantly electronic record. “The organization part has been more complicated as we had to fly traditional instrumentalists to our studio, so, lots of planes, trains and cars were involved to make it happen, but all the acoustic instruments have been recorded traditionally, with no help of the computer.” These included violinist Timba Harris, bassist Mike Leon, pianist Matt Lebofsky, Oud player Mehdi Haddab, accordion player Pierre Mussi, Kanoun player Fotini Kokkala and harpsichordist Benjamin Bardiaux, among others. Vocally, the most prominent performer is Laure Le Prunenec, whose operatic strains are a longtime part of the Igorrr mix, while regular collaborator Laurent Lunoir also appears on a few tracks.Igorrr: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | SpotifyMelt-Banana: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | SpotifyOtto von Schirach: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Spotify
The Criticals
The Criticals are a Nashville based rock band formed by Parker Forbes and Cole Shugart. In November 2019, they released their first EP, “Mimosa Hygienem” starting their journey. When covid hit in early 2020, the band focused on writing, recording and releasing music and music videos. Their first music video for Treat Ya Better became popular online, leading many diehard fans to their music. Their sophomore EP, “Sour Grapes” was released in October 2020, along with several singles in ’21 and ’22. In addition to the organic traction on Spotify, along with their music videos, the band has built a loyal and growing audience eager to see them live.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTubeHailing from their new hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, dynamic songwriting duo Bird and Byron are steadily growing a loyal fan base from around the world. With their popular “One Take Tuesday” series, they have been sharing original music weekly. With influences from contemporary rock, retro soul, and world music, the duo bring a refreshing energy to the music industry.Website | Instagram | TikTok | Spotify | YouTube
Mellow Swells, The Back Pocket
Links: Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook
Matt Heckler
MATT HECKLER is a solo multi-instrumentalist that barely fits into any ordinary musical category. He tends to keep to the darker side of Appalachian mountain music and early bluegrass but listen long enough and you’ll soon be transported to the mountains of Eastern Europe or a dimly lit bar in Ireland where they honor those who have passed with a gently swaying a cappella ballad.After touring almost nonstop for years in support of bands like Devil Makes Three, Lost Dog Street Band, Flogging Molly, and others, HECKLER, like the rest of us, got sidelined by the ongoing global pandemic. With the newfound time off, he set to pushing creative boundaries in his home recording studio as far as his mind would allow. Each fiddle, banjo, and guitar track carefully put in place all the while retaining the grit and energy reflected in his live shows. Paired perfectly as the sequel to After The Flood, the Blood, Water, Coal album is a defining release in his career.Blood, Water, Coal was performed and recorded by MATT HECKLER with upright bass and backing vocals provided by Jeff Loops (Lost Dog Street Band). While recording Blood, Water, Coal, MATT HECKLER released The Magnolia Sessions outdoor live set – the maiden release for the now popular series – which made it to #9 on the Bluegrass Billboard Charts. The Magnolia Sessions was still charting upon the release of Blood, Water, Coal, which debuted at #3, leaving HECKLER with two albums running on the Billboard Charts simultaneously.HECKLER writes, “I started working on this album over a year ago in my home. Ran into a lot of snags and problems inherent in self-recording, but being alone, just a mic and my instruments, was the only way to capture the raw emotions this collection of songs holds for me. Some of these tunes were written over a decade ago, most of them in more recent years. Others took years to write. But now that it’s done, I can confidently say this album is the perfect sequel to After The Flood.”Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify
Cheekface
When we last left the arguably interesting adventures of Cheekface, they’d released the minor phenomenon “Emphatically No.” The band’s sophomore album bowed at #1 on Bandcamp’s alternative and vinyl sales charts, became a college radio staple, and propelled the L.A. talk-singing trio into packed houses of Cheek Freaks across the US. So I guess now is a good time for Cheekface to return with their third LP, “Too Much to Ask.”You might say “Too Much to Ask” builds on the strengths of the first two Cheekface albums, but also refines and evolves their sound a little, and why would I argue with you? The band’s songwriting battery of guitarist/singer Greg Katz and bassist Amanda Tannen show their lyrical trademark, a strangely inviting sad and sideways wit, right from the jump — “life hands you problems, make problem-ade,” they announce in the almost-unglued 1-minute-25-second album opener “When Life Hands You Problems” — and then across the record’s 11 tracks, the band proceeds to make hay out of many of life’s mysteries.There’s the problematic popularity of quinoa (the what-if-Stephen-Malkmus-fronted-Television headnodder “Pledge Drive”), the boundless desires of American imperialists and the political complacency that enables them (the relentlessly hooky and bleak “You Always Want to Bomb the Middle East”), the physical toll of daily routine (“I would get so much done if I didn’t have to sleep anymore, but then I would be tired,” they observe on The Cars-via-Rosenstock “I Feel So Weird”), the questionable marketing of a certain quacky soap bottle doctor (beach-blanket strummer “Election Day,” which features a guest verse from kindred spirit Sidney Gish), and the seemingly sabotaged pointlessness of it all — pick any track really, but I like “coffee from the bank / Fritos isn’t free / I only want to be with other people like me” from “We Need a Bigger Dumpster,” a singalong single that exposes Cheekface’s most fundamental components as clear as a deep-sea fish: a simple drum beat, a nasty bassline, a neatly catchy guitar riff, a suprisingly memorable chorus, and a funny fatalistic wisdom that unites it all.Cheekface — comprising Katz, Tannen, and drummer Mark “Echo” Edwards — often stick close to the blend of post-punk and power pop they first explored on 2019 debut “Therapy Island” and honed across 2021’s “Emphatically No.” But new to this album, the chatty indie rock outfit lets the music do the talking at times, like in the winding dance break of LCDesque “Featured Singer,” the explosion of guitarmonies on “You Always Want to Bomb the Middle East,” and the majestic Moog melody of album closer “Vegan Water.” These excursions give more space to the band’s best punchlines and lighten the weight of their darker thoughts. Meanwhile, pianos and Casio keyboards and cowbells poke their heads in here and there; there are some cut and paste samples sprinkled around; some flotsam and jetsam are used as percussion, like a staple gun, a stainless steel ashtray, an old vinyl suitcase and a clanky folding chair. They also fit their first ballad on this record, “Election Day,” next to a screaming 57-second mantra about instant noodles.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Spotify | YouTube
Maddie Wiener
This is a seated show.At 23 years old, Maddie Wiener has opened for Dave Attell, Nikki Glaser, Rich Vos, Tim Dillon, Robert Kelly, Joe List, Drew Michael, Jared Freid, Andrew Santino, and others. She was selected as a New Face at the 2021 Just for Laughs Festival, and recently taped a stand up set for Comedy Central. She has also appeared on You Up w/ Nikki Glaser on Comedy Central’s Sirius XM channel, and PAUSE with Sam Jay on HBO. She is a regular at The Stand in New York City, Goodnights Comedy Club in her home state of North Carolina, and some weird bars in between.Website
