Brother Kent, Turquoise Trader, Tupelo Crush
Brother Kent Brother Kent is a Durham-based foursome. Their new album “What They Say Ain’t True” tours the American sonic tradition, as well as the landscape—from the moonshine-slur of small-town melancholy, to the crowded aloneness of the insomniac city, and all the open highways that connect the two. Rock ‘n roll road songs, barnyard stomps, funky folk, and spacey laments. It’s Indie-edged Americana with storytelling always at the heart. Website | FacebookTurquoise Trader Turquoise Trader is a 5 piece band that has been gigging around NC for the last two years, refining our original Americana Psych-Folk in front of audiences from the coast to the triangle. Our music is acoustic guitar driven with mandolin, fiddle, keyboards, electric guitar and pedal steel laid over. Although we love a tight pop hook & harmonies, we also love stretching out in search of those special moments that live music is made for. Website | Instagram Tupelo Crush Tupelo Crush is an “alt-country”/rock n’ roll band from the woods of NC. Inspired by the idea of Buck Owens joining The Replacements…Tupelo Crush is where twang and feedback, thunder and white lightning, pearl snaps and t-shirts and lonesome heartache come together to drown their sorrows. Facebook | Instagram
The Mountain Grass Unit with Big Fat Gap
The Mountain Grass Unit consists of three Birmingham pickers, Drury Anderson (mandolin and vocals), Luke Black (acoustic guitar and banjo), and Sam Wilson (upright bass). The Mountain Grass Unit has played music festivals, private functions and multiple music venues, playing bluegrass tunes and adding a bluegrass touch to country, jazz, funk, rock, and even metal. With the addition of Luke Black and Sam Wilson on harmonies, The Mountain Grass Unit has established the firm foundation to take on not only the vocal harmonies of traditional bluegrass tunes, but also the freedom to adapt songs from various genres to an all-acoustic format. Aside from their original songs, all three are equally comfortable restyling a Tony Rice number, a classic Grateful Dead tune, or covering contemporary acoustic masters like Billy Strings. The youthful exuberance and energy they bring to the stage is always remarkable. Their competency at what they do was best described by Birmingham music promoter Steve Masterson when the boys performed at his Acoustic Café festival: “They don’t just play good for their age, they play good. Period”. Sam, Luke, and Drury are excited to share with their audiences this new and exciting musical chapter.Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Joyce Manor
Joyce Manor is a band who have never relied on gimmicks. Since forming in Torrance, California, in 2008, the band—vocalist/guitarist Barry Johnson, bassist Matt Ebert and guitarist Chase Knobbe—have built-up a feverish fanbase by writing catchy, pop-punk songs that seem straight-forward on the surface but teeming with carefully crafted nuances upon multiple listens. This is undoubtedly true of the band’s sixth studio album 40 oz. To Fresno, an album that has songs that span the last eight years, yet comes together to form a cohesive album that marks the next chapter of Joyce Manor. “This is an interesting record because the final track ‘Secret Sisters’ was actually a B-side from [2014’s] Never Hungover Again and ‘NBTSA’ is actually a reworked version of ‘Secret Sisters’ that barely even resembles the original song,” Johnson explains. Although Joyce Manor were planning on taking a break prior to the pandemic, Johnson soon began writing to keep boredom at bay and much of the remainder of 40 oz. To Fresno came out of that period of focused songwriting.Produced by Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Tokyo Police Club) with Motion City Soundtrack’s Tony Thaxton on drums, the bulk of these songs were recorded in two separate sessions at Mant Sounds in Glassell Park, California. “The whole process was just really easy and it was also fun because as a band we hadn’t hung out very much lately,” Johnson explains. “We spent the last decade just talking, hanging out and drinking beers and then we went months without doing that for the first time in ten years.” Johnson adds that after their previous drummer Pat Ware recently left the band to go to law school, having Thaxton and Schnapf in the studio with them made for a seamless transition. “Tony was amazing to write with and he came up with amazing parts,” Johnson says, “and this was our second time working with Rob [who also produced 2016’s Cody] so there was already a lot of trust when it came to his musical vision. I think he made these songs a lot better.”As its title suggests, 40 oz. To Fresno is an album that indulges in the unorthodox—and correspondingly, the first track is a cover of “Souvenir” by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, which originally appeared on a split 7-inch with Jawbreaker’s Blake Schwarzenbach in 2021. Even though it’s technically a cover, Joyce Manor make the song their own via swirling synths, palm-muted guitars and Johnson’s distinctive croon. This somewhat sonic outlier also perfectly sets the tone for what comes next such as “NBTSA,” which features the band’s signature blend of melodic guitar leads, rock-solid bass and driving drums. However the band aren’t afraid to experiment on the album and “Reason To Believe” features chiming chords and falsetto vocals while “Don’t Try” sees Thaxton integrating inventive drum patterns to the verses, which make the song’s already infectious chorus stand out even more.That said, this is an album that will undoubtedly please fans of Joyce Manor who have been waiting for four years for the follow-up to 2018’s Million Dollars To Kill Me. “One song I’m particularly proud of is ‘Did You Ever Know?’” Johnson explains.Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Glare, Alien Boy
Texas ShoegazeBandcampDreams and Queer Feeling. A slogan, a mission statement; maybe a bit of “don’t say we didn’t warn you”—spray-painted in white on black canvas and hung behind the band during a memorable series of 2018 shows, those four words distill the thrill of an Alien Boy set with a directness that perfectly mirrors their fearlessly sentimental guitar music. Though Sonia Weber is often singing about the insecurities and confusion of love and heartbreak, Alien Boy songs overflow with the confidence of a band that knows exactly what they’re going for, and more importantly, know that they’re nailing it.Alien Boy is guitarist and songwriter Sonia Weber, drummer Derek McNeil, and a rotating cast of Portland, Oregon scene stalwarts. As her band’s Wipers-inspired name might imply, Weber is a PDX lifer, and anyone who’s spent time in the last decade’s DIY circuit will recognize something undeniably West Coast in Alien Boy’s sound: a sharpened, focused take on the heavy guitar pop of the 1980’s, chorus pedals and punishing drums the canvas for bold strokes of recollection and yearning.The band coalesced in 2015 around the recording of that year’s Never Getting Over It, an 8-song pop sprint that boasts an brash debut charm and heartbroken fervor—not to mention an overnight, practice space recording session origin story—that’s shamelessly the stuff of underground rock legend. In fact, Alien Boy is the rare band to have digested decades of guitar music mythos without regurgitating cliche at all. Weber may have called a song “Only Posers Fall In Love,” but many of her most impactful lyrics come packaged as references that feel deeply genuine rather than forced. “Your my Robert, I’m your Patti.” “You said you wanna be adored, but no one does it right.” At a time when many of her peers seem embarrassed by the Strats slung over their shoulders, Weber busies herself writing six-string anthems that new generations of digital crate-diggers will be obsessing over decades from now.2016’s seven-inch Stay Alive built on Alien Boy’s promise, infusing pop hooks with post-punk bite and goth ennui, and offering one of the decade’s best wordless choruses on live favorite “So Three Years Ago.” Two years of captivating audiences in basements and DIY spaces alike culminated in the 2018 release of Sleeping Lessons, a breakout LP that perfectly pulled off the counterintuitive trick of polishing Weber’s pop songwriting credentials by foregrounding the band’s shoegaze bonafides. It’s hard to overstate the sheer power of lead-off track “Somewhere Without Me,” the sort of hit that seasoned pop mercenaries spend decades chasing. This is a song that manifests an audience by sheer force of will. It’s enormous, almost overpowering; the guitars swallow you whole. But it’s also so, so small: “You wanna be/ Somewhere without me,” echoes the chorus, relishing in the crushing feeling of being rendered nearly microscopic under the weight of rejection.That embrace of both the miniscule and the massive perhaps best describes the emotional resonance that lodges Alien Boy songs in your brian for weeks on end. In advance of the record, a glowing profile in local alt rag The Portland Mercury noted how “Alien Boy fosters a radical intimacy with their audience.” No one who’s seen the band live could disagree, and a year and a half on from Sleeping Lessons, Alien Boy seem poised to stretch that intimacy to universal proportions. (Nathan Tucker)Bandcamp
Wilderado
Formed in the California mountains, but originally hailing from Tulsa, OK, Wilderado have been steadily building a passionate fan base and defining who they are since 2015. When they first came together, Maxim Rainer (lead vocals, guitar), Tyler Wimpee (guitar, vocals) and Justin Kila (drums) spent a summer in Latigo Canyon, a secluded part of Malibu, with longtime Sufjan Stevens collaborator James McAlister, immersing themselves in writing and recording. Those songs went on to form early EP releases with tastemaker indie labels IAMSOUND and National Anthem, which garnered more than 150 million streams, but more crucially provided the backbone to years of touring. Following initial recording sessions at their one-time home and creative space named “The Misty Shrub” (the title of the first EP) in Latigo Canyon (the title of the second EP), the band returned Tulsa to base themselves from their hometown. Since then, they’ve crisscrossed the USA a half dozen times playing with artists as diverse as Kings of Leon, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie, Mt. Joy, and Rainbow Kitten Surprise, and have performed on the main stage at such festivals as Lollapalooza, Bottlerock and Austin City Limits. Some time off from the road in 2020 meant that the band were able to focus on completing their debut eponymous LP. Working with producers and friends James McAlister (The National, Sufjan Stevens, Taylor Swift), Chad Copelin (Broncho, LANY) and Angelo Petraglia (Kings of Leon) the debut record was released in the fall of 2021 via Bright Antenna Records. Single ‘Head Right’ shows the ambition and intent of a band on the up. With this single and their TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and then a performance on CBS Saturday Morning, the band achieved their first Top 10 hit at Alternative Radio, reaching the mark after an incredible 26 weeks on the chart. 2022 saw the return to the road, with over 150 shows played, multiple sold out headline dates, support to Mt. Joy in iconic venues and the band’s first UK and Irish dates with alt-J. The second single “Surefire” is set to be the band’s breakout hit, with over 40 million streams and heading for the Top 10 at Alternative Radio.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Spotify
Clem Snide
“The last ten years have been a rollercoaster of deep despair and amazing opportunities that somehow present themselves at the last possible second,” says Eef Barzelay. “That this record even exists, as far as I’m concerned, is a genuine miracle.”Indeed, the road to ‘Forever Just Beyond,’ Barzelay’s stunning new album under the Clem Snide moniker, was an unlikely one, to say the least. Produced by Scott Avett of The Avett Brothers, the record is a work of exquisite beauty and profound questioning, a reckoning with faith and reality that rushes headlong into the unknown and the unknowable. The songs here grapple with hope and depression, identity and perception, God and the afterlife, all captured through Barzelay’s uniquely off-kilter lens and rendered with an intimate, understated air that suggests the tender comfort of a late-night conversation between old friends. Avett’s production is similarly warm and inviting, and the careful, spacious arrangement of gentle guitars and spare percussion carves a wide path for Barzelay’s insightful lyrics and idiosyncratic delivery. Listening to the album now, Avett and Barzelay sound like an obvious pairing, but the truth is that there was nothing obvious about the survival of Clem Snide, and the series of cosmic coincidences that led to ‘Forever Just Beyond’ remains inexplicable even to Barzelay himself.“About ten years ago, everything just seemed to fall apart,” he explains. “The band bottomed out, I lost my house, and I had to declare bankruptcy. That started this process of ego death for me, where I realized the only way to survive would be to transcend myself and to try to find some kind of deeper, spiritual relationship with life and with being. Once I committed myself to that, miraculous things started to happen.”Some miracles were financial (a superfan in Spain, for instance, sent Barzelay an unsolicited thank-you-for-the-music donation that covered the exact amount he desperately owed his bankruptcy lawyer); other miracles were more intangible. Roughly four or five years ago, as Barzelay struggled with how and if to carry on, a fan sent him a video of Scott Avett singing a Clem Snide song in front of a massive audience. Shortly after that, another fan sent an interview in which Avett raved about Clem Snide’s music. It seemed like a sign from the universe.“I had just hit this low point where I realized I couldn’t do it alone anymore,” says Barzelay. “I passed along a little message and a new song I wrote to The Avett Brothers’ manager, and Scott wrote me right back to say what a fan he was.”Avett was far from alone in his love for Clem Snide. Named for a William S. Borroughs character, the project first emerged from Boston as a three-piece in the early 1990’s and would go on to become a cult and critical favorite, picking up high profile fans from Bon Iver to Ben Folds over the course of three decades and more than a dozen albums. NPR highlighted the Israeli-born Barzelay as “the most underrated songwriter in the business today, with a sneakily firm grasp on poignancy and humor,” while Rolling Stone hailed his songwriting as “soulful and incisive,” and The New Yorker praised the music’s “soothing melodies and candid wit.”Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
waveform*, They Are Gutting A Body of Water, Teethe
On Last Room, the third album from the Connecticut-based waveform*,, there’s a purposeful hollowness. It’s a record you can fall into, a collection of music that’s unafraid to venture into emotion, exploring the gaping distance that develops in some relationships, the constant confusion that accompanies self-discovery, and the darkness that accompanies abandonment.Nothing is said outright on Last Room. There’s no declaration of material certainty that allows you to fully discover every secret or moment of meaning on this recording, but the duo comprised of Jarett Denner and Dan Poppa intended it to be that way. They want you to step into their cavernous auditory journey, to lose yourself in a state of wandering as you find your own story, creating a personal narrative gleaned from their collection of mysteries.Recorded on a laptop in Jarett’s bedroom, the album comes with a discernible feeling of intimacy. Despite their close proximity to one another, Jarett and Dan chose to complete much of the album apart, exchanging ideas and finishing bits of music through email. They traded off responsibilities, one focusing on a song’s structure, while another considered the emotional details and coloring.”Hello Goodbye” is the only of the album’s singles that waveform* considers to be collaborative, as the two worked on it together before it was recorded. It’s also among the record’s most poignant and reflective, a back-and-forth of admitted unease placed between continued pleas for someone to stay are set against lush, light guitar. Its final moments are one of admittance, as a repetition lyrical confession (“I can’t relax at all”) is left to linger.That same rare moment of confession is also etched within the charge of “Blue Disaster.” It’s a track that sways between two energies, trading out an electric beginning and a calamitous conclusion for the occasional quiet that punctuates devastatingly honest lyrics: “I was on a tightrope all the time/had a blue disaster but it’s fine/there was something i was reaching for/but that’s no more.”Formed while still in high school, waveform* was created out of the pair’s mutual appreciation for music. Over the last few years, waveform* has continued to grow, attributing an increasing interest in fans to an era dominated by Internet discovery and streaming. A sound comparable to Melania Kol, Alex G., Title Fight, Have a Nice Life, and Teen Suicide, the band has also performed live with Strange Ranger, Beach Bunny, Pince Daddy and the Hyena, and Lomelda. Their previous releases — Shooting Star and Library — were released in 2018 and 2019. Last Room, released in 2020, is being rereleased through Run for Cover Records.Website | Instagram | Twitter | FacebookThey Are Gutting A Body of WaterFrom the pits of heaven.Bandcamp | Instagram | SpotifyTeetheBandcamp | Instagram
Altin Gün
Hailing from Amsterdam but coming from various backgrounds, Altın Gün has captured the world’s imagination with an indelible fusion, for over five years now. The band combines psychedelic rock, deep funk, synthpop, cosmic reggae, and more with the rich and incredibly diverse traditions of Anatolian and Turkish folk music. Debut album On (2018) quickly captured the world’s attention and a year later the band earned a prestigious GRAMMY® Award nomination for “Best World Album” with it’s sophomore LP Gece (2019). “This much raw virtuoso – without any sign of showing off – gets the audience going immediately” – 3voor12 vpro (freely translated from Dutch)After two years of recording separately from home during the pandemic and releasing Âlem and Yol (2021) as a result, the band members of Altın Gün now recorded a live album in the studio again, called Aşk. This album sees Altın Gün swinging away from the electronic, synth-drenched sound of their home-recorded albums, to capture all the infectious power and urgency of the band’s famously, propulsive live performances. Aşk (2023) therefore marks a new start for the band, that is ready to tour the world again. Recorded using vintage equipment and techniques, the ten groundbreaking tracks on Aşk all represent visionary new readings of traditional Turkish folk tunes, revealing how these ancient songs remain eternally resonant and ripe for reinterpretation. This results in an exuberant return to the 70s Anatolian folk-rock sound that has characterized Altın Gün’s first two albums.“Much like Gorillaz, Altın Gün concoct their improbable musical fusions in the service of pop music’s joys, rather than eat-your-greens musical worth” – Pitchfork Renowned for their dizzyingly hypnotic live performances, Altın Gün has been lighting up stages all around the world, including sold out headline tours in North America, Europe, and the UK, along with show-stopping sets at top international festivals like Coachella (US), Lowlands (NL), Primavera Sound (SP), Fuji Rock (JP) and Iceland Airwaves (IS), to name but a few.“Altın Gün delighted us with its Anatolian sounds, transporting us to other destinations that probably have the same heat as was felt on the dance floor” – Grapevine ISAltın Gün is: Merve Daşdemir (vocals and keyboards), Erdinç Ecevit (vocals and keyboards), Thijs Elzinga (guitar), Jasper Verhulst (bass), Daniel Smienk (drums), Chris Bruining (percussion).Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Spotify
Bell Witch
Nothing’s bigger than life. All vastnesses — expanding space, infinite time — crouch inside of consciousness. On a historical scale, to say nothing of a cosmic one, the individual human life vanishes, and yet it’s the only aperture any of us get into reality. It’s barely there, and it’s all there is.That’s the paradox Bell Witch drives at. For more than a decade, the Pacific Northwestern doom metal band has sent tides surging over the seawalls of the song form, unraveling conventional expectations about the ways music stations itself in time to absorb a listener’s attention. Rather than seek catharsis, the duo’s songs heave themselves through time at a glacial pace, staving off resolution in favor of a trancelike capsule eternity. Invoking both boundlessness and claustrophobia in the same charged gesture, Bell Witch cultivates a sense of time outside of time, an oasis inside an increasingly frenetic media culture.For their new album, The Clandestine Gate, bassist Dylan Desmond and drummer Jesse Shreibman exploded Bell Witch’s bounds. Like 2017’s lauded Mirror Reaper, The Clandestine Gate is a single 83-minute track — a composition that pulses and breathes on a filmic timeframe. It constitutes the first chapter in a planned triptych of longform albums, collectively called Future’s Shadow.Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
GEEKED, Kal Marks, Cor de Lux, Tongues of Fire
GEEKEDInstagram | Bandcamp | Facebook | YouTubeCOR DE LUX grew out of the music scene of North Carolina’s Outer Banks in 2018. The band found each other over a by chance conversation about a love of music between its two founding members (guitarist Tim Lusk, and guitarist and vocalist, Dawn Moraga) while Moraga waited for a phone repair in Tim’s shop. This turned out to be the catalyst for their band’s formation, with John Bliven quickly added on bass and Thomas McNeely stepping in for founding member and drummer Dana Quinn in early 2022. Their music (a mixture of post-punk, goth-tinged pop and shoegaze) has earned the tongue-in-cheek nickname ‘Shoe-Gazi’ by friends.The past year has seen COR DE LUX steadily tour the eastern US coast, fitting DIY and club shows in-between opening slots for Archers of Loaf, LA Witch, COLA (Ex-Ought), Hammered Hulls (Dischord), Sweeping Promises, Bass Drum of Death, and Deserta.Instagram | Bandcamp
