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
It Came from Aquarius Records
This is a seated event.Followed by an in-person Q+A and Discussion with Kenneth Thomas (the Director), John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats), and Emil Amos (Grails, Om, Holy Sons).The award-winning, third music documentary in Kenneth Thomas’ trilogy about indie music culture, IT CAME FROM AQUARIUS RECORDS explores the San Francisco-based independent record shop that helped shape the tastes of Bay Area residents and beyond for nearly a half a century.If you are a fan of any independently released music — indie rock, psychedelic, folk, krautrock, weirdo Finnish prog rock, Japanese noise, glitchy black metal, or anything that makes you feel like you’ve discovered a musical diamond in the rough — there’s a chance you directly or indirectly found out about it through Aquarius Records.The idea of walking into a shop and unexpectedly getting your mind blown by something playing on the speakers is something to be treasured — and it’s places like Aquarius Records that made that experience a reality for people who were lucky enough to either walk though their doors or who subscribed to their encyclopaedic bi-weekly email list of new release reviews.The store influenced and enriched countless peoples’ musical tastes with their curated selections — but this film also shows the realities of an indie record store trying to survive in an increasingly difficult market of brick-and-mortar music shops, especially in the ever-changing and price-gouging Mission District of San Francisco. The store closed in 2016 after 47 years of championing underground and experimental sounds and turning the world onto sound and music of limitless varieties, some of which ended up exploding in popularity out of multiple independent music scenes.Over 60 interviews were conducted for this film: all of the store owners dating back to 1970, other record store owners from around the world, musicians, label heads, music journalists, and INTENSE music collectors. A few of these folks include Matt Groening (The Simpsons), Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips), John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats), Emil Amos (Grails, Om, Holy Sons), Ty Segall, Howie Klein, and Liz Harris (Grouper).Six years in the making, the film has a very personal angle, with lots of behind-the-scenes footage (and drama) that shows both the joy and excruciating stress that comes with running — and closing — a store like this.Poster Design by Savage PencilWebsite | Trailer | Instagram | Facebook | First 8 minutes of filmKenneth Thomas is a music documentarian and sound production professor, living in Los Angeles. He has spent most of his spare time from the past 17 years documenting independent music culture that he finds important to include as part of music history.John Darnielle is an American musician, novelist, and actor best known as the primary, and originally sole, member of the American band the Mountain Goats, for which he is the writer, composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist. He has written three novels: Wolf in White Van (2014), Universal Harvester (2017), and Devil House (2022).Emil Amos has made over 50 records on various esteemed labels such as Thrill Jockey, Drag City and Temporary Residence. His podcast, Drifter’s Sympathy, just finished its fifth season and has been widely lauded by outlets from NPR to Wire Magazine. He has written pieces for Dangerous Minds, reviewed records for Ugly Things, and now writes exclusively for Creem Magazine.
Stop Light Observations
Stop Light Observations is a dynamic five-piece hailing from Charleston, South Carolina. Their sound is a unique blend of rock, pop, and indie, infused with electronic beats and soulful vocals. From songs like “2young” to “Trajic Majic,” their music is a true reflection of their unique personalities, and their live shows are a testament to their authenticity and raw talent.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Joy Oladokun: Living Proof Tour
Each ticket includes a $1 Charity Fee for PLUS 1.Joy Oladokun documents her life in songs. For as much as she examines her place in the world as the first-generation daughter of Nigerian immigrants and a proud queer Black person, she also celebrates the little details and the simple pleasures of being alive. Of course, the narrator’s humble demeanor belies the gravity of her extraordinary accomplishments thus far—from captivating audiences on sold out tours and late-night television to finding herself with a guitar in hand on the White House lawn in celebration of equality. After grinding it out for years, she reached critical mass with her 2021 major label debut, in defense of my own happiness. It graced countless year-end lists and led Vanity Fair to declare, “Her name is both prescient and redundant. She oozes energy that shifts a room’s center of gravity and makes you happy for it. It is charisma and she has it in spades. It’s the way she approaches her craft too.” Along the way, she’s delivered unforgettable performances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, PBS’s Austin City Limits and NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert and more and captivated festivalgoers at Bonnaroo, Hangout, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk Festival and Ohana Festival. Not to mention, she’s also appeared on HULU’s Your Attention Please: The Concert and landed prominent syncs on CSI: Vegas, This Is Us, Grey’s Anatomy, And Just Like That and Station 19, to name a few. Plus, she has joined forces with the likes of Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Lucie Silvas, Noah Kahan and Jason Isbell for collaborations. Now, she takes stock of the trip so far on her highly anticipated forthcoming full-length album, Proof of Life [Amigo Records/Verve Forecast/Republic Records].Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
