Luna Li
Luna Li is more than a musical project. It’s a world unto itself, and a kingdom of its creator’s making. For the Korean-Canadian, Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist songwriter, composer, and producer Hannah Bussiere Kim, the universe of Luna Li is hyperlush and inclusive by design. It’s an evolving, musical transmission that takes its cues from nature’s healing properties to explore vulnerability and identity. A blend of indie rock and psych; where experimental neoclassical morphs into pristine pop, Luna Li is the sound of an everyday symphony, crafted from the perspective of the female gaze. When the pandemic started, Li started self-recording instrumental interludes as a radical form of care. By letting others into spontaneous moments of creation, she made her process transparent and communal. Her self-recorded “jams” — video snippets of her constructing beats piecemeal — went viral many times over, racking up over 8 million streams and producing a fiercely loyal following. Its resulting self-titled EP garnered widespread acclaim (“Why aren’t people queuing up to buy beats from this person?,” asked The Needle Drop’s Anthony Fantano.) and led to coverage in Fashion, Paper Magazine, i-D and a slot opening for Japanese Breakfast. In 2021 Li performed on the main stage of 88rising’s “Head In The Clouds” festival, and in 2022 was selected as one of NME’s Top 100 Emerging Artists. Luna Li’s debut record Duality (featuring Jay Som, Dreamer Isioma, and beabadoobee) wrestles intimate, otherworldly questions to the ground in order to better understand the collective. Capable of both detonating an incendiary riff, or slipping into the splendor of celestial strings, the album’s power lies in its most delicate moments. “Each song on the album has some element of light and dark,” Luna Li says. “Where there’s happiness there’s still uncertainty; where there’s anxiety there’s also beauty; and where there’s tension there’s freedom.”Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud | TikTok
Conway The Machine
Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Caiola
Jordan Caiola (CAI•OLA) is a songwriter/musician/producer based out of Philadelphia. He founded the indie rock band Mo Lowda & The Humble in 2010 and due to its intense touring schedule, the band became his main priority along with his side project NightSeason (founded 2016)- an indie/electro-pop producer duo. Though he always felt writing folk songs was his true “wheelhouse”, it wasn’t until the nationwide lockdown in early 2020 that he finally put aside the time to record a collection of those songs for his first solo album ‘Only Real When Shared’. Now, Caiola tours year-round with both Mo Lowda and his solo project. His second solo record is set to be released in 2024.Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
French Police
Formed in Chicago, French Police is led by vocalist and guitarist Brian Flores. Their music combines raw energy and introspection, cultivating a dedicated and underground following with their distinctive sound. With the release of their albums “French Police” (2019), “Haunted Castle” (2020), and “BLEU” (2023), they have showcased their artistic growth and have established a sense of identity. French Police has toured in Mexico and North America. Drawing from a variety of influences and inspiration, their music carries a touch of cultural richness, that sets them in a league of their own.Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Washed Out
The music of Washed Out has always levitated over a timeless frontier. You can sense it in his immersive, amorphous vocals, the expansive soundscapes, the wistful storytelling. It’s a sweet spot where, says its creative force, Ernest Greene, “any sort of association or memory from the past can transport you instantly. I love that.”Greene’s transcendent output has earned him the moniker of “Godfather of Chillwave” by Pitchfork and a co-sign from Portlandia, which borrowed his track, “Feel It All Around,” for its utopian theme song. His latest, Notes From a Quiet Life (out June 28, Sub Pop) arrives after delivering more than a decade of distinct and disparate creative re-imaginations at a remarkably high level (five albums, two EPs). Notes is bold in its intuitiveness: Greene has left the treadmill of music-as-a-business, instead letting his artistic interests lead the way. “Each album,” says Green, who also paints and sculpts, “is a world-building exercise.”The Georgia native left Atlanta in 2021 to move back to the countryside he knew growing up. Where escapism once flooded his thoughts, today he is preoccupied with the universe of wonder in the reality around him. He named the former horse farm he moved to “Endymion” (after the pastoral John Keats poem about a lovesick shepherd — its opening line: “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever”), and it has shaped all that he’s created there, from his music to his albums’ creative direction to his planned large scale visual-art experiments.“I’ve read that every five, maybe 10, years, you’re practically a different person — like literally, on a cellular level,” Greene explains. “The things that you’re going through will end up changing you, and you’re kind of a different person. This album is a reflection of that. Experimenting with painting and sculpture helps my music. They influence each other. That was a kind of realization for me. I don’t want to look back on my life one day, and be like, ’Oh, it was all about maximizing productivity,’” he says. “I want to enjoy this.”That purity of vision is what makes Notes From a Quiet Life so potent. It’s the first album Greene wholly self-produced, with some mixing assistance from Nathan Boddy (James Blake, Mura Masa) and David Wrench (Caribou, Florence + the Machine). “Early in my career, I had a lack of technical skill, and there were some things I wasn’t 100% enthusiastic about,” he says, noting Jean-Michel Basquiat’s distinct, self-driven method as an inspiration. “Something that I was looking for was…I didn’t want any illusion of anyone else’s influences. I wanted to see this through to the end. And honestly, that was a big challenge.Illustrating that, Greene’s list of influences for Notes From a Quiet Life are mostly sculpture icons: minimalist legend Donald Judd, abstract expressionist Cy Twombly, and modernists Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Of the latter, he observes, “The majority of his working life was spent on his country estate, and he wasn’t living a cosmopolitan lifestyle. He was focused on just making good work, you know?”Notes from a Quiet Life is Washed Out’s fifth album. Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Healy
Performing under only his last name, Healy embodies cardinal themes of his work like self-discovery and non-dualism. Healy spent the first 25 years of his life in Memphis, steeping in a rich musical history of classic rock, soul, and southern rap. He released his debut album ‘Subluxe’ in 2017 in the wake of his second year of medical school. The album now has 200M+ streams, and its lead single “Reckless” (RIAA certified Gold) became a viral sound on TikTok in 2019, being used in over 1 million videos. After graduating from medical school, Healy moved to Los Angeles where he completed his sophomore album, ‘Tungsten.’ He was featured on the cover of Spotify’s LOREM playlist, and ‘Tungsten’ garnered the support of R&B heavyweights SZA and Khalid. Two years later, Healy returns more confident than ever. He released his first EP, ‘Look at God’ in August of 2023 with collaborations from Cautious Clay and The Imports, whose credits include Beyoncé. Healy is currently in the process of writing and recording his third full length album due to be released Fall 2024.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Kishi Bashi
The latest full-length from Kishi Bashi, Kantos is a work of exquisite duality: a party album about the possible end of humanity as we know it, at turns deeply unsettling and sublimely joyful. In a sonic departure from the symphonic folk of his critically lauded 2019 LP Omoiyari—a career-defining body of work born from his intensive meditation on the mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II—the Seattle-born singer/songwriter/producer’s fifth studio album encompasses everything from Brazilian jazz and ’70s funk to orchestral rock and city pop (a Japanese genre that peaked in the mid-’80s). Informed by an equally kaleidoscopic mix of inspirations—the cult-classic sci-fi novel series Hyperion Cantos, the writings of 18th century enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, a revelatory trip to ancient ruins on the island of Crete—Kantos ultimately serves as an unbridled exaltation of the human spirit and all its wild complexities.Website | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
The Moss
In a musical landscape with fewer boundaries than ever before, THE MOSS’s exuberant brand of alternative rock spans genres, eras, and even oceans. The Utah-via-Hawaii group was born on the shores of Oahu in 2015, as teenage buddies Tyke James (vocals/guitar) and Addison Sharp (guitar) picked up a gig serenading diners at local taco trucks in between surf sessions. Naturally, their songs took shape in the spirit of the island, imbued with the joyfulness and breeziness of reggae culture yet cut with the introspection and communal spirit of mainland indie acts like Pinegrove and Cage the Elephant. By 2018, the duo had grown, enlisting Willie Fowler on drums and Addison’s brother Brierton on bass, and traded in beaches for the Great Salt Lake. They hit the stage at spots like local cornerstone Kilby Court, live-testing their modern-indie-meets-’60s-blues with a wide-eyed exuberance that translated effortlessly into their 2019 self-released debut, Bryology. Colored by the sound of Stratocasters jamming through reverb-cranked Fender amps, all backed by bouncy rhythms, Bryology marked a big step for the still-young quartet – but, true to The Moss’s nature, was still hard-coded with a DIY ethos. “We basically had no budget,” James remembers fondly. “We bought some nice mics and an interface and I ended up learning how to mix while we were recording.” The follow-up, 2021’s Kentucky Derby, brought a more aspirational, blue-sky tilt to the foundation they’d laid on Bryology, expanding the group’s sonic arsenal while keeping the relatable lyrical style and sun-soaked sentiment at the forefront. “I’m really proud of how we’ve evolved as a band over time,” Addison Sharp says. “It feels like we’ve taken every different influence and mashed them all together to create something that feels really special.” “Bryology seemed like a collection of separate songs we put together to make an album, whereas Kentucky Derby is a similar thought and story coming together to collectively make a more cohesive album,” adds Brierton Sharp says, noting the album’s tracks are sneakily arranged in pairs of two that seamlessly flow into one another. “Each song could be listened to on its own, or you could listen to them all and get a broader sense of our intention.” No matter how listeners choose to interact with The Moss’s music, the band just hopes they feel something. It’s that kinetic relationship between band and audience that makes their live performances – including a pitch-perfect recent set for Audiotree – so compelling. “No matter what we do, we want to make sure the songs are fun to play live,” says Fowler. “We pride ourselves on being a band people want to see live.” “There’s something special that happens when you get an immediate reaction to a song,” says James. “Whether it’s during a live show or even just a songwriting session, if there’s a reaction from people in the room, you know you’re on the right track.” XX Website | Instagram | TikTok | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Nilüfer Yanya – CANCELLED
“What you looking for? Shut up and raise your glass if you’re not sure.” From its very first line, Nilüfer Yanya’s third album, [record name] asks questions with no easy answers. It is a supple, expansive body of work that peers into the crevices of life, exploring them with comforting strings, skittering beats, soul-tinged melodies and swooning harmonies. It asks, who are we? Why do we follow the paths we follow? What is at the heart of it all?A singer-songwriter from London, Yanya grew up in a creative family – both her parents are visual artists – and has always channelled her emotions and questions about life into music. Her first album “Miss Universe” and its 2022 follow-up “Painless” cemented her as one of the UK’s most interesting and thoughtful songwriters, lauded by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Since her debut, she has performed on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Stephen Colbert, Later with Jools Holland and NPR’s legendary Tiny Desk, opened for artists as varied as Adele, the XX and Mitski, and sold out her own headlining shows across Europe, Australia, Japan and the USA.As someone who understands the enormous value of creative expression, Nilüfer is also the founding member of the community project Artists In Transit, which offers creative workshops and other support to displaced communities. AIT began by offering workshops at a refugee camp in Greece in 2015, and since then has offered over 100 artistic experiences to children and young people experiencing the immigration system in Europe. During Covid-19, it also provided over 500 lockdown art packages to children living across London.With this wealth of experience under her belt, Nilüfer retreated into the studio with her creative partner, Will Archer. She had toured her second album, Painless, for a year and entered a period of transition, between albums, between record companies, between homes. [Record name] deals a lot with the idea of movement from one part of life and into another. Even before she began thinking about writing, Yanya was questioning her own impulses. “You know, you want to give yourself some time,” she recalls thinking when she finished the Painless cycle, “But then you’re like, how much is the right amount of time before you should start the next thing?”The seeds of [Record name] were planted in early 2023, but it wasn’t until the spring of that year that shoots began to appear. As songs started to form, Yanya and Archer squirrelled themselves away from the world. “This is the most intense album, in that respect,” Yanya says. “Because it’s only been us two. We didn’t let anyone else into the bubble.” They wrote and recorded in small sessions, spread across London, Wales and Eastbourne.The bubble was a safe space. No expectations, no feedback, just the freedom to follow their own creative impulses in whatever direction they took them. Archer brought the music to the table while Nilüfer wrote melodies and lyrics that sometimes float over the top, sometimes slalom through beats and always delve into the biggest questions. You can feel this cocooning of creative energy in the atmosphere of the record: it envelopes you entirely in cinematic sweeps while feeling intimate, finally inviting you into the little world they created and offering up its secrets.“The only intention we set was let’s just do this together, just us two.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road
Rapidly rising on the bluegrass scene, Billboard-charting artists Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road perform internationally and stateside winning both industry awards and the hearts of fans who turn out to see them at some of the industry’s most iconic venues. Growing up just down the road from Doc Watson, Liam Purcell leads Cane Mill Road as they rock the traditional bluegrass standards they were raised on, yet boldly write original music with roots in the fertile grounds of bluegrass, old-time, and Americana. Their powerful arrangements and dynamic stage presence have landed them main stage slots at legendary festivals across the country. Named Momentum Band of the Year by IBMA in 2019, Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road have been recognized as one of the fastest growing bands in the industry. Their latest release “Roots” debuted at #6 on the Billboard Bluegrass Album Charts, joining their three previous albums for a total of 12 weeks in the Top 10. In 2022, bandleader Liam Purcell turned heads by sweeping the Rockygrass Instrumental Championships on Guitar, Mandolin, and Banjo, becoming the first person in history to do so. You’ve seen Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road on national TV with PBS appearances on David Holt’s State of Music and Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour. Other performance highlights include Merlefest, Grey Fox, The Berklee Performance Center, and Wide Open Bluegrass. “The future of bluegrass…” No Depression “Their skill is clearly unquestionable” Bluegrass Today “Deeply rooted in traditional bluegrass, their songs boldly and progressively interpret classic songs” The Bluegrass Standard “Making their mark on bluegrass and fueling the future” Bluegrass Unlimited“Cane Mill Road, based less than six miles from Deep Gap, North Carolina, the home of Doc Watson, draws its inspiration from the late singer/guitarist whose musical imagination gathered inspiration from the deepest Appalachian roots while courageously finding connections to almost all elements of American music…the band has quickly ignited a spark that has led to a recording contract with Patuxent Music and early recognition from the International Bluegrass Music Association” No Depression The band is sponsored by D’Addario Strings, Deering Banjos, Shubb Capos, Sorensen Mandolin & Guitar Company, Kogut Violins, NS Design, and Fishman Amplification.Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
