BALTHVS
BALTHVS has grown in six years to become one of the most unique psychedelic groove acts in the world. With over 100 million streams, four albums, and twelve EPs, the band has established itself in the global touring circuit, performing across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. They have played in 26 countries and 94 cities worldwide, appearing at major events including Jam Cruise, SXSW, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Outside Lands, Electric Forest, Lightning in a Bottle, Montreal Jazz Festival, SXSW Sydney, and Jazz Cafe Festival. The band has also made notable appearances on KEXP, Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Cafe, and the BBC. Website · Spotify · Instagram · Bandcamp · YouTube
Fruit Bats
The midwest, particularly the part of the midwest Eric D. Johnson hails from, is a largely flat expanse. Zipping through it on the highway, you’ll see cities and towns rise up in the distance, but blink and you’ll miss other man-made rejoinders to horizontal living dotting the landscape, hill after hill, built from the refuse of the past: landfills. Some of these hills make for great sledding spots, parks, and trails. Others turn organic waste into compost. The Landfill, Fruit Bats’ June 12, 2026 album from Merge Records, is something else entirely: a mountain dominating the landscape of Johnson’s heart. This being a Fruit Bats record, one scales that mountain to take in the view, to see the future spread out as wide and endless as the midwestern plains. “But the mountain that gives us this vantage point,” Johnson says, “is made out of the trash that we’ve created, the collective weight of the past and where it’s taken us.” When he details that view on title track and lead single “The Landfill” — “a holy vision / of what could be / and couldn’t be / and could have been” — it’s thrilling to hear him sent soaring by a full complement of instruments. But what’s truly stunning is how, in his recontouring from could to couldn’t to could have been, he has lost none of the vulnerability that was brought to the foreground of his songwriting by 2025’s solo outing, Baby Man. Over the course of his now 25-year career under the moniker, most of Eric D. Johnson’s output as Fruit Bats has been the product of patience and fine-tuning. His songs, to borrow a phrase, are slow growers, given life on albums that encompass long stretches of time and memory. Baby Man changed that — he disallowed himself from referring to material he’d been working on before laying the album down, utilizing the morning pages technique of stream-of-consciousness, observational songwriting which flowed directly into his afternoon recording sessions. It was both a breathtaking document of Johnson’s skill as a singer-songwriter and an unvarnished account of the two weeks in which he recorded the album. Baby Man’s closeness to Johnson’s heart and the close attention to his voice and instrument its minimalist-maximalist ethos required uncorked something in him as he wrote towards a new full band effort. “That session was over,” he explains, “but there was way more to explore. I liked the immediacy of it, and I wanted to see how that would translate into a full-band Fruit Bats record.” Within weeks, he was back in a studio, this time with his band — David Dawda (bass), Josh Mease (guitars, synth), Frank LoCrasto (piano, synth), and Kosta Galanopoulos (drums) — with whom Johnson has spent over a decade building Fruit Bats into one of the most in-demand live acts in indie rock. Listening to The Landfill, it’s not hard to understand why: simply put, this band smokes. Producing the initial recording sessions in Washington’s Bear Creek Studios, Johnson set out to capture “the sound of this band I constantly marvel at, the feeling of being in a room with musicians you love and trust enough to let them cook.” They laid most of it down on the floor — no click tracks, no comped vocals, and minimal overdubs, with frequent collaborator Thom Monahan returning to provide additional production and The Landfill’s final mix. Website · Instagram · Facebook · Spotify
Cole Chaney and Kyova
When it comes to his latest album, In the Shadow of the Mountain, 25-year-old singer-songwriter Cole Chaney is pretty candid and blunt about who he is and what kind of music he wants to make—the result of which is this stunning offering from an artist wise beyond his age. “There’s a yin to every yang,” Chaney says. “I want nothing more than for people to be creatively fulfilled, and to do what they want. But, for me to preach that? I have to practice it.” That attitude resides at the core of the record, where the trajectory of the songs seemingly—more so purposely—shoot off in the opposite direction of many of his contemporaries in the Americana, country and folk music scenes. In truth? Chaney is summoning his rock roots. “I’m not concerned with being labeled as ‘country.’ There’s not a lot of music being released right now that is doing anything for me. I made something that I would want to listen to.” Pointing to his lifelong admiration for 1990s rock—specifically Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots—as a vital influence on the sonic landscape of the album, Chaney aimed to find a melodic balance between that raw and real rock sound and the bluegrass and folk music of his native Kentucky. “I wanted to make something that sounded like Ralph Stanley went in and got backed up by Soundgarden,” Chaney jokes. “I write what I listen to. And whatever I listen to is going to come out in my music.” In the Shadow of the Mountain was captured by famed producer Duane Lundy at his legendary studio in Lexington, Kentucky. While talking at length about the possible collaboration, Lundy spoke of his love for Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots. “I know plenty of bluegrass guys that could have recorded this for me,” Chaney says. “But, I wanted to take that string band and folk sound and bring it to a rock producer, to bring that big sound out of these acoustic instruments—[Duane] was able to do that.” The album was also co-produced by guitarist Zachary Hamilton, a close friend of Chaney, who is also the brother and bandmate of rising Lexington singer-songwriter Abby Hamilton. “[Zach] has that ability to fill a room with his guitar, his voicings, and all the choices he goes for down the neck of the guitar,” Chaney says. “When Abby was opening for us, I got to sit there and watch him play every night. I knew when I was going to do another album, he needed to be involved in some capacity.” Heading into the recording sessions, Chaney brought along his band, which included Ella Webster (fiddle), Kyle Kleinman (mandolin), Joel Murtaugh (upright bass) and James Gooding (drums). Acclaimed Kentucky musician (and former bandmate) Aaron Bibelhauser also makes an appearance. With this pivot in his tone and intent compared to his 2021 debut album, Mercy, Chaney sees this current path as more in tune with what he’s not only wanted to do all along, but has slowly shifted towards in recent years amid endless touring and performing. “I was green [while recording Mercy]. I didn’t really know what I was doing,” Chaney admits. “And, by the grace of so many people around me, we were able to get some really great string band music on [that album].” Website · Facebook · Instagram · YouTube
Lynn Blakey: A Celebration of Her Life and Music
Lynn Blakey: A Celebration of Her Life and MusicFeaturing Chatham County Line, Tift Merritt, Skylar Gudasz, Caitlin Cary, Tonya Lamm, Sara Bell, John Howie Jr., Linda Hopper, Jeffrey Dean Foster, Caroline Mamoulides, Anne-Claire Cleaver, Rachel Kiel, Mary Johnson Rockers & MoreBacked by an All-Star Tarheel Band: John Chumbris, Doug Davis, Wes Lachot, Will Rigby & Robert Sledge Lynn Blakey, one of the most beloved singers North Carolina ever produced, died February 6. Those who knew Blakey speak of her kindness, beauty, and optimism, and the way she lit up any room she was in. All true. She was like a sun that never set, and a tireless warrior—an activist with North Carolina Music Love Army, and an unofficial advisor to friends trying to negotiate the intricacies of the Affordable Care Act. A spectacular vocalist and terrific songwriter, Blakey played in North Carolina and Athens, Ga., bands including Oh Ok (with Lynda Stipe), Let’s Active (with Mitch Easter), Holiday (with Linda Hopper), Glory Fountain (with John Chumbris), Tres Chicas (with Caitlin Cary and Tonya Lamm), and most recently, the indie-rock supergroup Salt Collective (including tracks with Mike Mills and Matthew Caws). Her Christmas shows with her husband, violinist Ecki Heins, were treasured local events as well. She was our scene’s Emmylou Harris, blessing scores of other friends’ recordings with her voice for the ages. Yep Roc Records is releasing Dreams Are Lovers: A Retrospective, a collection of some of her marvelous songs, on May 29, and the concert is both a celebration of her life and a record-release performance for this release. “Anybody Lynn ever met immediately realized what a bright shining star she was,” said her Tres Chicas bandmate Lamm. “Not like a rock or movie star, but a brilliant light of kindness, happiness, and depth. A living angel. I can still hear her laugh and will hold that in my heart forever.” Blakey’s musical life began four decades ago at UNC-Greensboro, where she was a college radio deejay and avid concert-goer. When R.E.M. played Friday’s in Greensboro for the first time in 1981, she was one of perhaps 20 people in the room. Inspired, she began playing in bands herself, among them Broken Crayons and, later, Holiday with Linda Hopper. In 1983, she left school and toured with Let’s Active, eventually landing back in Chapel Hill and fronting a series of great bands over the years. “All I ever had to do was put a mic in front of her,” said Chris Stamey, who frequently recorded Blakey, “and the first take would always have magic in it. To us, she was family, even singing some of the Tres Chicas album with everyone around one mic while holding our young daughter, Julia, in her arms.” The May 30 concert will benefit Ecki Heins’s ongoing cancer treatment expenses, and sales from the Yep Roc release will benefit the NC Musicians Mental Health Alliance, a partnership between Be Good To Yourself, the SIMS Foundation, and Backline that provides grants up to $1,000 to help cover the cost of mental health care for North Carolina-based music industry professionals and their family members. Apply here: https://backline.care/case-management – excerpted from an article in INDYWEEK by David Menconi
MC Chris
It was twenty-five years ago that most fans first came across mc chris when Adult Swim premiered September 2nd, 2001. The first album was free for download on a website most OG fans found in the credits of a random Sealab episode. After five years of working for Cartoon Network during the day and making mc chris music at night, mc took a chance, quit his job and headed out on the road. He found packed venues filled with nerdy kids who knew all the words. Twenty years later he’s still at it, playing the same venues, singing along with the same kids, who are now in their thirties. The only difference is now they’ve either brought their kids or given themselves a much-needed night off. This year mc celebrates 25 years in existence and a new Marvel inspired album, King in Black. mc chris is most widely known for his reoccurring character MC P Pants on Adult Swim’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force where he was also an animator and writer. He’s been featured in the Aqua Teen movie, the video game and most recently on a series of You Tube videos called Aqua Donk Side Pieces. He’s also starred on several Adult Swim series including The Brak Show and Sealab 2021. A pioneer of the hip hop subgenre Nerdcore, mc chris has worked with Talib Kweli, Andrew WK, and Donald Glover. His fans include the likes of Gerard Way, Post Malone and T-Pain and he was even sampled by Run the Jewels for the latest Aqua Teen movie Plantasm. He’s toured with Reggie and Full Effect, and Ninja Sex Party, performed on the Warped Tour and The Gathering of the Juggalos, appeared on a GWAR album, and even had his own Honda commercial. You truly never know where he’s going to pop up. He’s a full-time single father to his son, Tony, and lives in Los Angeles.
2nd Annual Study Hall Music Fest
EIGHT standout UNC bands playing on multiple stages, + more to be announced. Bands:JuniperBill Moore (and his Secret Admirers)Davie CircleThe Carolina JunebugsRed KanooHorizonThe Band PollenThe Wallabies+ MC Spencer Whittman
Larry.
Larry. On their new album Changing Size, produced by Casey Proctor of Verity Den, the Durham, NC band Larry. (@larry.theband) blends immersive atmospheric effects, distorted guitars, driving complex rhythms and cutting vocals. From slower reverb-soaked ballads to fast-paced pop-influenced diss tracks, the band weaves across tempos and style influences, bringing together straightforward, fuzz-laden indie rock and layered dreamlike bubblegaze. Songwriter Emma Bouck delivers hyperbolic and bratty lyrics that sneak vulnerability and heartbreak into undeniably infectious melodies. At a Larry show, only two things are certain – Larry is everyone, and we are all Larry. Bandcamp · Instagram Jupiter 2 Jupiter 2 is the collaboration of Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based multi-instrumentalists Nicholas Cirone and Ian Campbell. The duo weaves their discography into hazy, starry-eyed, and hypnotic live performances – balancing an inclination toward sweet, psychedelic pop melodies and jangly guitars with thumping drum machines and blissed out layers of synthesizers, noise, and samples fit for a DJ mix. dreamscent dreamscent is a band from Raleigh that blurs shoegaze with indie rock. FFO: Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, Ringo Deathstarr, Wishy
of Montreal
Led by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Barnes, of Montreal have spent nearly three decades redefining pop, with their kaleidoscopic blend of glam rock, psychedelia, funk, and synth-driven indie rock. Emerging from the Elephant 6 Recording Company in the late ’90s, the band quickly built a cult following for their inventive songwriting and wildly theatrical live performances. From the breakthrough brilliance of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? to a steady run of boundary-pushing releases, of Montreal have remained fearless sonic shapeshifters—equally at home crafting hook-laden anthems as they are exploring surreal, experimental textures. The band’s prolific output has led to 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. On stage, they transform concerts into immersive spectacles of color, costume, and cathartic energy. The band has performed across the globe, gracing festival stages at Coachella, Primavera, Lollapalooza, Vive Latino among dozens of others and headlining countless marquee venues, while also amassing hundreds of millions of streams worldwide. With a new tour on the horizon, of Montreal continue to celebrate their legacy while pushing boldly forward—delivering a live experience that is as unpredictable and electrifying as ever. Website · Instagram · Facebook · Spotify · YouTube · TikTok
An evening with Lucinda Williams and her band
“My dad, as a poet, always told me to never censor myself – that’s one of his cardinal rules of creative writing,” says multiple-Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams. “That became my motto which I’ve stuck by all these years.” Miller Williams’ advice clearly is born out on Lucinda’s powerful eighteenth studio album, the provocative World’s Gone Wrong. “I felt a sense of urgency in making this record,” she adds. Filled with gut-wrenching topical songs, the album’s ten tracks were written and recorded in a blast of collaborative creativity as Lucinda and her cowriters – primarily husband/manager/co-producer Tom Overby and guitarist Doug Pettibone – grappled with events transpiring during the spring of 2025. A whole other album had been in the works, but that “urgency” to address our current cataclysmic situation motivated Lucinda and company to cut World’s Gone Wrong in direct response. “Music is a powerful weapon,” she points out. “I want this record to make people aware, wake them up. I like to push people’s buttons.” Lucinda, Pettibone, and Overby returned to co-producer Ray Kennedy’s Room & Board Studio in Nashville to cut the tracks with her newly configured band: guitarist Marc Ford (Black Crowes), drummer Brady Blade (Emmylou Harris), and her longtime bassist David Sutton. On the gripping title track, they’re joined by guest vocalist Brittney Spencer and keyboardist Rob Burger on Hammond B3. Its title inspired by the 1931 Mississippi Sheiks song (repurposed by Dylan in ’93), the lyrics give voice to the lives of baffled everyday Americans: a nurse and a car salesman “workin’ long hours” and “lookin’ for comfort in a song.” Throughout the album, Lucinda is at her most direct, not mincing words via those distinctive, one-of-a-kind vocals. The ominous “Something’s Gotta Give” (also featuring Spencer) is punctuated by Pettibone’s and Ford’s fiery two-guitar interplay – a clarion call that “evil has come to play/you can feel it everywhere.” On the country-blues “Lowlife,” Mickey Raphael’s dulcet harmonica livens up this ode to a juke joint where weary souls find relief. Lucinda and her band played the song onstage with Raphael during Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Fest, and “audiences really responded to that one,” Lucinda recalls. After their August 2 tour stop in Saratoga Springs, they reconvened with Raphael at New York’s iconic Electric Lady Studio to cut the vibrant track. The blues-rockin’ “Sing Unburied Sing,” inspired by Jesmyn Ward’s 2017 award-winning novel of a haunted South, offers soaring background vocals by Maureen Murphy and Siobhan Kennedy. A gutbucket blues, “Black Tears” features Reese Wynans’ Hammond B3 accenting a down-and-dirty dual guitar attack. Accompanied by a serpentine slide guitar, “Punchline” eviscerates “false gods and deceivers/playin’ on our deepest fears” and “people being taught to hate.” Personifying the voice of liberty itself, in “Freedom Speaks” Lucinda reminds us that “apathy will blind you,” urging us to “stand up and fight.” The punk-blues “How Much Did You Get for Your Soul?” is a sequel of sorts to the piercing “Man Without a Soul,” from Lucinda’s critically acclaimed Good Souls Better Angels (2020). Backed by Murphy’s churchy vocals, Lucinda paraphrases biblical scripture, delivering a bit of fire-and-brimstone that’s sorely needed. Website
Dua Saleh
LA-based Sudanese-American artist Dua Saleh continues their ascent with Of Earth & Wires, a resolutely warm, spiritual, and frenetic follow-up exploring notions of home, humanity, and renewal. Executive produced by Billy Lemos (SZA, Paris Texas, Tinashe), the album features contributions from Bon Iver, aja monet, Gaidaa, and others. Saleh threads and deconstructs indie, R&B, and electronic pop with flashes of Sudanese folk, UK dance, and baile funk, sounds intrinsic to their story, all held together by ambitious, future-facing production and clear-eyed lyricism. Saleh’s soulful, gritty, shape-shifting style has found fans from The New York Times to NME, alongside their breakout role in the Netflix series Sex Education, making 2024’s Ghostly International debut, I SHOULD CALL THEM, a proper arrival. The highly anticipated Of Earth & Wires responds to the moment as both a watershed in their career and an urgent dialogue with struggles faced on a universal level. Beyond mythological references and planetary narratives, with their strongest, most immediate material to date, Saleh makes the case for love above progress and greed, for divine beauty and the enduring flame of the human spirit.
