Meet DāM-FunK. He’s not just a musician; he’s a Modern Funk trailblazer and style icon, blending music, fashion, and culture. Originating from Pasadena, CA, he roamed the vibrant streets of L.A., always ahead of the curve in the Modern Funk scene.

As a digital trendsetter, he’s redefining the game. DāM-FunK has rocked collaborations with major players like Rockstar: GTA, Apple Music’s Glydezone Radio, Serato, Splice, and Melbourne Instruments. And that’s not all; his extensive list of partnerships also includes Stussy, Born X Raised, Stones Throw Records, and more. Now, he’s spreading his wisdom as a board member at TEC Leimert, a tech and entertainment nonprofit with a mission to create opportunities for local youth and budding entrepreneurs pursuing creative careers.

Mentored by legendary music producer Leon Sylvers III, DāM-FunK learned the art of the game and the secret to everlasting relevance. Beyond making music, he’s been a driving force in shaping a flourishing L.A. music scene. He founded the legendary club nite: Funkmosphere which gave many artists and DJ’s shine, for music goers in the city and surrounding areas.

Celebrate 15 years of Animal Shapes with Geographer! Relive the magic of their iconic album on a special anniversary tour.

It’s an amusing paradox how Parra for Cuva’s new album Juno, containing recordings of the South American ronroco, an Indian flute player, and the hammered dulcimer, an ancient Persian instrument, was almost entirely produced within the four walls of the artist’s studio in Berlin. Back in 2019, the German musician found himself in a sort of pre-pandemic lockdown – his girlfriend was pregnant at the time and the couple’s activities were mostly confined to their home. Still, Nicolas Demuth managed to fit the world into Juno – explorations with new instruments and languages, tracks named after African animals and exotic destinations. Interestingly, the album itself, Juno borrows its name from a child that lay safe inside a womb and hadn’t yet experienced the world at all.
‍
That’s the beauty of the 21st century though, one barely has to leave a room to travel far and wide. Parra for Cuva’s previous highly acclaimed album, Paspatou, titled after the butler of Jule Verne’s “Around The World In 80 Days”, already hinted at the musician’s worldly outlook. It also carved a unique position for Parra for Cuva as an artist, who brought a truly original sound to electronic music by mixing emotional dance floor experimentations with acoustic and ethnic soundscapes. Juno takes this global interaction further with the participation of seven musicians from around the world, many of whom Nicolas met online and worked with remotely. For the artist, music-making isn’t about converging ideologies and world views, rather these multi-cultural collaborations were forged solely on the basis of a mutual love of music.

‍

‍

Video Age make breezy and timeless songs that are so ineffable, they can only be the result of a decades-long friendship and songwriting partnership. Across four albums, Ross Farbe and Ray Micarelli have gleefully worn their influences on their sleeve, writing inviting tunes that reference sounds ranging from disco to pop and indie rock. On their latest LP, Away From The Castle, the New Orleans duo have strayed from nostalgia and instead have honed their own unique musicality, making songs that sound like themselves with a taste of inspiration from classic singer-songwriters of the 60s and 70s. The album is a testament to the possibilities that come from getting out of your comfort zone, the freedom of writing vulnerably and unselfconsciously, and the joys of getting to work with your closest companions.

Loaded guns, space heaters, and big skies. Welcome to the lethal littered landscape of Jim Heath’s imagination. True to his high evangelical calling, Jim is a Revelator, both revealing & reinterpreting the country-blues-rock roots of American music. He’s a time-travelling  space-cowboy on a endless interstellar musical tour, and we are all the richer & “psychobillier” for getting to tag along. Seeing REVEREND HORTON HEAT live is a transformative experience. Flames come off the guitars. Heat singes your skin. There’s nothing like the primal tribal rock& roll transfiguration of a Reverend Horton Heat show.

Black Joe Lewis is the realest motherfucker there is. When Covid sidelined his touring this past year, he started laying concrete to help support his baby mama and his kid. That’s fuckin’ real. When Joe and his band, the Honeybears, popped onto the national stage over a decade ago, many critics embraced him but still, there were some that maintained that they hadn’t paid their dues. Joe’s still here. Still going. Still cashing checks and snapping necks. The dues of hard work; the delirious heights of the industry as well as the disappointments and low hanging fruit. Through this all, Joe’s only honed his mastery over gut bucket blues guitar and his true voice. It’s a vital and distinctly American voice that never anticipated the attention he wound up receiving, never went looking for it either. It just started happening. The garage, the blues, the propulsive and synergistic live performances that inhabit the spaces of James Brown, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and the MC5...those things happened naturally from the very beginning and could only be accurately communicated in the live experience, not a press release or a slick brand campaign. Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley, Cedric Burnside and Lightnin Malcolm, The Dirtbombs, Detroit Cobras, the Strange Boys; these are some of the artists that Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears shared countless bills with; almost a roll call of the most influential soul and garage bands of the last twenty five years. Has the soul blues garage explosion from that era been commodified or worked into the overall template of pop rock? Sure. But the ground floor was a vital space for people that like guitars and grease and at this point Black Joe Lewis is one of the last standing that was there. Last of a dying breed. Or maybe a missing link. Does this make him a throwback? A throwback to a throwback? It’d be tempting and easy for Joe to go along with that but nah, we don’t think so. We know that Joe Lewis is genuinely doing his thing and that he’d do it regardless of what’s coming down the pipe. A stone cold original and a veteran at that. If you like whistling in your music and some floppy hat, quaky kneed dudes cloyingly singing at you, then you might not “get it” but whatever...there are enough intrepid, degenerate weirdos that do. Those are the folks Joe cares about. Not the glad handing set. Not the fair-weather friend set getting down with the flavor of the month. Like the title of his last album says, “the difference between me and you” is Joe defining for himself that there’s the belabored wannabes and then there’s dudes that actually “HAVE the blues”...whatever the hell THAT is! Joe’s concrete pouring boss is gonna miss him.

Punk rock like abuela used to make!

Piñata Protest is a “Tex-Mex punk” band from San Antonio, TX. Their self described sound and attitude arises from the two counter-clashing worlds that the band embraces: punk and Tex-Mex.

Piñata Protest’s unique and catchy sound takes the traditional folk rhythms of Tex-Mex music (conjunto and norteño music that is native to the South-Texas and Nortern-Mexican region they originate from) along with the three-row button accordion and combine that with the fast tempos and attitude of punk rock, ska, and many other genres. Along with the use of traditional instruments and rhythms the band also sings in their regional mix of Spanish and English (or Spanglishas it’s called locally). Their songs lyrics cover a range of topics, from political topics close to the ethno-identities of the band, drinking, love, religion, and racism. Adding to their sonic performances is a lively and energetic live show that ignites crowds to mosh, skank, and twirl their dance partners.

Almost out of necessity, Les Savy Fav’s sixth LP was born in a pocket reality: singer Tim Harrington’s Brooklyn attic. “A freaky barn,” as he calls it, the room was built over the ruins of black mold and plywood, a de facto studio. Different from anywhere they’d ever recorded, the space allowed for a much-needed rebirth for the long-running post-hardcore band. In that in- between, they pieced together what would become their latest evolution, OUI, LSF, growing the album’s title and cover art out of a patch of grass. “The record grew organically — literally and figuratively,” Harrington notes wryly.

It’s impossible to talk about Les Savy Fav without acknowledging that it’s been more than 10 years since the guys released 2010’s Root for Ruin. But it’s not like they had a messy breakup or quit to become bankers. They just had a lot of living to do. “When we finished our last record, there was a sense that if we were going to do more, we wanted to do something more ambitious,” Harrington says. “I think it took us a while to even get in a space where that was possible.” Remember, these five men — Harrington, Seth Jabour, Syd Butler, Harrison Haynes, Andrew Reuland — have been friends and collaborators since 1995, when they attended Rhode Island School of Design. It takes a beat to shake old habits.

Originating in San Francisco in 1965, the FLAMIN' GROOVIES have been touring and performing (in)consistently for nearly six decades, exceeding all expectations, presenting their own unique and infectious style of rock 'n' roll with such cult classics as "Slow Death," "Teenage Head," and of course, "Shake Some Action." The current lineup features Cyril Jordan, Tony Sales on drums, Atom Ellis on bass, and a couple newer, younger members Sean Fitzsimmons and Miki Rogulj on guitars.

Their live show features a repertoire that spans the band’s career, emphasizing both 1971’s “Teenage Head” album (associated with more old time rock 'n' roll, rockabilly, Stones and Yardbirds influences), as well as the power pop period (Beatles and Byrds influenced) more associated with the band's three albums on Sire Records in the late 70s.  Their place in history is well established as one of the all-time greatest bands from San Francisco (and the world) and as progenitors of real rock 'n' roll.

Th’ Losin Streaks story began in 2003, and things happened quickly: their debut record, “Sounds of Violence,” was released in 2004, followed by tours of Europe and the US, and invitations to open for legendary acts like The Zombies. The band and the record collected kudos and built a wide-ranging fanbase that includes The Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra and E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt, who proclaimed the group’s “Your Love, Now” as “The Coolest Song in the World (this week)” in his Billboard column and sent the tune into heavy rotation on Sirius’ Underground Garage radio station.
In 2011, the group went on hiatus, returning to the stage in 2017 following an invitation to open for Iggy Pop at the Burger Boogaloo festival.

“Last House” is the third album from Sacramento’s Th’ Losin Streaks.The album was recorded at Louder Studios in Grass Valley, California, with Tim Green (Nation of Ulysses, Fucking Champs) behind the board. Green played piano on several tracks, and Anton Barbeau – a friend of the band since the beginning – plays organ on some cuts. All of the band members – Tim Foster, Stan Tindall, Mike Farrell and Brian Machado – contributed to the songwriting, and the album also features a cover of The Weeds classic “It’s Your Time.” The album cover and other photos were shot by their pal (and Bay Area punk legend) Al Sobrante.

Like the towering mounds of toxic waste from which it gets its namesake, the music of Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pile is a suffocating, grotesque embodiment of the existential anguish that has defined the 21st Century. It figures that a band with this abrasive, unrelenting, and outlandish of a sound has stuck as strong of a chord as it has. Dread has replaced the American dream, and Chat Pile’s music is a poignant reminder of that shift – a portrait of an American rock band molded by a society defined by its cold and cruel power systems.

Besides being the name of a largely forgotten (and panned) 90s film, Cool World makes for an apt title of Chat Pile’s sophomore full-length record. In the context of a Chat Pile record, the words are steeped in a grim double entendre that not only evokes imagery of a dying planet but a progression from the band’s previous work, moving the scope of its depiction of modern malaise from just “God’s country” to the entirety of humankind. “Cool World covers similar themes to our last album, except now exploded from a micro to macro scale, with thoughts specifically about disasters abroad, at home, and how they affect one another,”says vocalist Raygun Busch.

Though very much on-brand with Chat Pile’s signature flavor of cacophonous, sludgy noise rock, the band’s shift to a global thematic focus on Cool World not only compliments the broader experimentations it employs with their songwriting but also how they dissect the album’s core theme of violence. Melded into the band’s twisted foundational sound are traces of other eclectic genre stylings, with examples of gazy, goth-tinged dirges to abrasive yet anthemic alt/indie-esque hooks and off-kilter metal grooves only scratching the surface of what can be heard in the album’s ten tracks. “While we wanted our follow-up to God’s Country to still capture the immediate, uncompromising essence of Chat Pile, we also knew that with Cool World, we’d want to stretch the definition of our “sound” to reflect our tastes beyond just noise rock territory,” reflects bassist Stin. “Now that we had some form of creative comfort zones in place after hitting that milestone of putting out a full-length record, album #2 felt like the perfect opportunity to challenge those limits.” Besides stylistically stretching the boundaries of the Chat Pile sound, Cool World is also the band’s first record to have someone else handle mixing duties, with Ben Greenberg of Uniform(Algiers, Drab Majesty, Metz) capturing and further amplifying the quartet’s unmistakably outsider and folk-art edge.

Four years into making their fourth album, Frog in Boiling Water, the four members of DIIV needed to talk — not later, but now.

The extended process had been uncertain and sometimes grueling, not only pushing them to up their musicianship but also taxing most every resource and bond they had ever cultivated. During the prior decade, DIIV had helped revitalize dream-pop and shoegaze alike, culminating in 2019's unapologetic genre showcase, Deceiver. But with it, DIIV were now out of contract, proverbial free agents who didn't owe anything to anyone but themselves — that is, to make a record that challenged them, that pushed their sound beyond any previous parameters.

But after all that collective toil, their relationships with one another were fraying badly inside that singular alchemical state of being a band, where dynamics of family, friendship, and finances become entangled in a Gordian knot. There were suspicions and resentments, bruised egos and anxious questions, all fingerprints left by a quest that demanded DIIV grow both together and apart. So on June 1, 2023, just before they began to mix four years of effort, DIIV — Andrew Bailey, Colin Caulfield, Ben Newman, and Zachary Cole Smith — gathered in Echo Park Lake, the scene of so many halcyon hangs in their early days, under vaguely gray skies to air accumulated grievances. They dropped the shields of professionalism that had let them work amid the rancor and allowed themselves to get mad and bummed, real and vulnerable. Really, it could have broken DIIV before Frog in Boiling Water was finished.

Eluding all expectations of the current alternative rock space, Glixen come from Phoenix, Arizona and have taken their sound coast to coast on tour in North America. As influences, lead vocalist/guitarist Aislinn Ritchie cites My Bloody Valentine, No Doubt, and T.A.T.U. In the same breath, also citing heavier acts such as HUM and My Vitriol. Ritchie founded Glixen in 2020 and later added the talents of lead guitarist Esteban Santana, drummer Keire Johnson, and bassist Sonia Garcia.

Glixen released their debut EP She Only Said via Julias War Records on August 11th, 2023. The lead single Splendor sets the tone of the EP by masterfully capturing the swirling ambiance of 90s rock, ethereal pop vocals, and fuzzed out walls of guitar all wrapped up in a lacey white ribbon. She Only Said is a cathartic anthem that feels like glitter and thorns down the listeners spine.

Likened to a soft summer rain, She's Green is a Minneapolis-based dream-inducer composed of vocalist Zofia Smith, guitarists Liam Armstrong and Raines Lucas, bassist Teddy Nordvold, and drummer Kevin Seebeck. The band has played numerous shows throughout the Midwest and East Coast, sharing bills with acts like Hotline TNT, Glixen, Friko, and more. The Star Tribune recommends bringing “earplugs and maybe a tissue for their set.”

Initially gaining recognition with their first two singles, “River” and “Smile Again” — both recorded and mixed at home — the band’s raw emotional intensity shines through their honest and explorative songwriting. Following the release of their debut EP, Wisteria, they were named one of First Avenue’s Best New Bands of 2023.

In April 2024, She’s Green topped the votes from industry professionals in MPR station The Current’s inaugural Scouting Report Poll, celebrating Minnesota's rising artists.

Before everything, there is After. After consists of Graham Epstein and Justine Dorsey. They met on Hinge in Los Angeles, CA, and formed After once they realized they’d probably do better as a band than as a couple. They were both born on August 23, 1995, and this is either coincidence or kismet depending on which of them you ask. With references ranging from Michelle Branch to Portishead, Fountains of Wayne to Enigma, After is the atmospheric Y2K trip-hop pop band you always knew you needed because you once heard it in a dream.

Their new single, “The Element,” produced by Mark Isham protégé Lucas Starbuck, is inspired by ‘90s trance music and the melodies of Frou Frou. While writing lyrics, After saw images of a girl walking alone at night in a dark futuristic city, taking an underground train, a force called The Element pulling her through time and space. The trance solo that features in the song is the “rolling yellow lights” of a tunnel flying past as she stares out the window into nothing... bound for a bright white light. It’s an electronic ballad of mystery and time that you can dance to.

After has recently opened for Erika de Casier and is planning DJ dates around the release, as well as a self-directed music video.

In the early 1970’s in South London, a group of black musicians, who all emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean as children, formed the group. Led by Patrick Patterson (guitars, vocals) and Steve Scipio (bass, vocals) Cymande was so unique and ahead of its time that, not withstanding the success in the States in the early‘ 70s, it hasn’t been until recent years that the general public has truly begun to catch on.

Earlier this year, Cymande’s unique story was told on the on big screen for the first time inthe UK (via BFI) and in cinemas around the world (via Abramorama) with Getting It Back: The Story Of Cymande (directed by award winning director Tim Mackenzie-Smith). This empowering and thought-provoking documentary shows the band’s depth of influence across decades and features interviews with Mark Ronson, Laura Lee and Mark Speer (Khruangbin), DJ Maseo (De La Soul), Jazzie B (Soul II Soul), Cut Chemist, Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Louie Vega, Kool DJ Red Alert, and so many others.The film debuted at SXSW in 2022 and has now travelled the world twice over. It continues to play in cinemas around the world globally.

Since Cymande’s reformation several years ago, they have been quite active touring. Recently they’ve played at We Out Here and All Points East to audiences packed with teens and 20-somethings. “And singing along with the songs!” marvels Steve, “They’re familiar with the material.”

“It’s the hip-hop community loving the music through crate digging,” confirms Patrick. “The response has been fantastic,” Steve continues.“Even far out places like Romania where we played earlier this year was one of the best receptions we had anywhere. Our first tour of Australia also happened this year and we were so surprised that we did ten shows in two weeks and every single one sold out. I don’t know if we could ask for any more than that expression of love.

A headlIne European tour earlieri n 2024 in Europe led to every single show selling out as well. The band will return to the road globally in 2025 to support Renascence. Their success story continues to reach new heights and new audience’s decades into their career.

‍Cymande (sah-man-day). The most important black British group of their generation, a bandso many people have heard,but yet not “heard of."

Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn share a common collaborative ethos, a genuine sense of musical curiosity, and a cosmopolitan eagerness to escape the conventions of genre. That shared vision first brought them together on 2022’s Pigments—icy and warm, stripped-down and grand, familiar and otherworldly—and now it has reunited them for Quiet in a World Full of Noise.

By turns intimate, soul-baring, spectral, and startling, Quiet in a World Full of Noise blends atmospheric and orchestral soundscapes with mellifluous soul, jazz, and journalistic vocalizing—driving it all home with stark, confessional lyricism. The new album finds Richard at her most raw and exposed. This year, Richard’s musician father experienced mini strokes while being diagnosed with cancer; last year, her cousin Cisco was fatally shot seven times in New Orleans. Richard channels the emotional impact of these traumatic experiences of loss into her lyrics and vocal performances, which are left bare and human here, raw and unprocessed across the album. Quiet expands the definitions of what constitutes progressive, avant-garde R&B by rewriting them altogether.

On paper, Richard and Zahn’s audacious, impressionistic musical collaborations feel like a surprising match. Richard, a New Orleans–reared visionary, has had an improbable journey from late 2000s reality television and mainstream pop with girl group Danity Kane to become one of the most prolific, experimental, and visible indie R&B singer-songwriters of the last decade and a half, with seven solo albums under her belt. Zahn is an East Coast–raised multi-instrumentalist and composer working at the intersections of jazz, Americana, classical, and ambient pop. His growing solo discography includes People of the Dawn, Sunday Painter, Pale Horizon, and Statues I & II, as well as the duo’s first release, Pigments. “Pigments was one of the best projects I’ve ever made,” Richard says, “and the furthest I’ve ever been pushed as an artist.” The album was a critical hit, hailed as Best New Music by Pitchfork and receiving praise from Stereogum as Album of the Week, NPR Music, Bandcamp Daily, The Fader, Bitter Southerner, and Edition, among many other publications.

‍

‍

‍

The American Analog Set formed in Fort Worth, TX sometime in 1995 and gained its footing through the nineties and early aughts in Austin, TX. From their humble beginnings recording their mellow rock albums in living rooms and home studios, The American Analog Set went on to release 7 full length albums, a multitude of highly-sought-after 7"s and EPs, and toured the world - from house shows and clubs to headlining tours and festivals- while gathering a loyal global fanbase. Though the band went on hiatus after the release and tour in support of Set Free in 2005, they never truly went away as their music continued to make their way onto playlists while fans patiently waited and hoped for more.

In the meantime, the band’s founder/frontman Andrew Kenny formed a new band, The Wooden Birds, released work as a solo artist, and was a touring member of the Juno Award winning Canadian band Broken Social Scene and Texas-based group Ola Podrida. Kenny also wrote and performed the original score for Alex R. Johnson’s critically acclaimed feature film Two Step which made its world premiere at SXSW Film Festival.

In 2023, The American Analog Set surprised fans with the release of For Forever, their first album in 18 years. It found its way onto the airways and playlists and into the hands of waiting fans and the vinyl sold out within days. Next came New Drifters, a 5xLP boxset of the band’s first 3 albums (The Fun Of Watching Fireworks, From Our Living Room To Yours, The Golden Band), released by Numero Group and named by Pitchfork in their “Best Reissues and Box Sets of 2024” list. The band will see a second boxset in 2025 with the release of their Tiger Style-era releases (Know By Heart, Promise of Love, Set Free) via Numero Group.

Reinvigorated by the release of their 7th full length, For Forever, the Numero Group’s release of the New Drifters boxset and forthcoming Tiger Style reissues boxset, the band decided it was high time to get back on stage once again. In Fall 2024, The American Analog Set announced their first proper shows in nearly 20 years with a very special show called “Magic Hour, an intimate, immersive live show featuring a 90 minute set of thoughtfully selected songs from the band’s first six albums performed by original members. The shows sold out within 24 hours. With “Magic Hour”, The American Analog Set remind us all why, after 25+ years as a band with multiple album releases and world tours, they remain the go-to bedroom-pop band from deep in the heart of Texas.

Through the years, American Analog Set not only gained and maintained a very loyal following of fans around the world, but also the respect and fandom of their fellow musicians and recording enthusiasts. Of The American Analog Set, Ben Gibbard has said, “Death Cab would not be where we are today without the influence of this great Austin band.” And Mark Hoppus of blink-182 said, “Know By Heart is one of the best albums from the greatest band that never got the light it deserved.”

Dublin four-piece Lankum (brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch, Cormac MacDiarmada and RadiePeat) have gained worldwide acclaim for their first three albums and captivating, euphoric live performances.

Their fourth album “False Lankum” has been universally heralded, reaching no.2 in the Official Irish Album Charts on release, receiving a Mercury Prize nomination and significantly eclipsing the success of their previous album, the Choice Award winning, “The Livelong Day”.

The record heralds a new stage in the metamorphosis of the band into a modern day power house, drawing on traditional and primitive methods to create bold and singular music that transcends its folk roots: an entrancing, widescreen sound incorporating experimental overtones and rumbling drones wedded with classic songwriting, close vocal harmonies and timeless narratives.

Their live show has evolved into a deeply moving collective experience, with the band performing together as though they are a single lung: sounds expand and collapse from indistinguishable mouths, lungs, fingers, keys and feet, while a wall of amp stacks push the intensity of the show to new levels.

“This maybe modern Folk Music’s own OK Computer”

MOJO UNCUT ALBUM OF THE YEAR

LOUD AND QUIET ALBUM OF THE YEAR

MOJO ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

Multi talented instrumentalist Mezerg is a pioneer of modern music technology and one of the most creative musicians you’re likely to come across. Hands and feet linked to his instrument, he makes electronic music from unexpected elements, with rhythms that ranged from funk to acid techno, improvising with keyboards, effects pedals and the theremin which has become emblematic of his project. Mezerg merges the electronic with the acoustic to create an impressive and unique live performance that you can’t take your eyes off. Somewhere between house music and an acoustic performance, this nightlife one-man band pays homage to both the jazz bars and the nightclubs of this world with a whirlwind of energy and irresistible sounds.

When most bands get round to releasing album number live their sound, weighed down by expectation or having resorted to formula, has generally ossified. It might still sound good and fans will probably lap it up, but the days of adventure and exploration are quite often long gone.

Warmduscher are not most bands. Rather than closing up shop, on album number five – the magical Too Cold To Hold – they are most determinedly opening up. Taking on board the repetitive and polyrhythmic grooves of gqom (an alluring South African take on house music), adding in a dash of hip hop flavours and even jazz, and then harnessing that to their punk-funk, disco pogo, it’s a spellbinding mix that results in their best and most ambitious album to date. You could say they – the wonderful 12-legged groove machine comprised of Clams Baker Jr., Benjamin Romans Hopcraft, Adam J. Harmer, Marley Mackey, Quinn Whalley, and Bleu Ottis Wright – were, in fact, just getting started.

“I think we’ve realised we can hit the same emotional zone with different influences,” enthuses Ben about the 2024 version of Warmduscher . “We’re experimenting with
different ways of orchestrating the feeling of listening to a Warmduscher song and having the maturity to accept that a lot of the things that we like about ourselves are based on tonality and groove. It’s not just based on having a guitar that sounds fucked up.”

It’s not about forgetting everything you know about Warmduscher, then – they’re still an outfit proudly residing in la-la-land, where chaos reigns and their passionate diatribes and observational absurdities reveal the playful underbelly of modern life – but maybe looking at them from another angle. A diamond might look different in another light, but it’s still a diamond.

Much of this reinterpretation comes from the shock of the new. New influences, new label Strap Originals new goals and a new producer. Previously, the band had worked with outside producers (Dan Carey and Hot Chip’s Al Doyle and Joe Goddard among them) to realise their vision. This time they took it inhouse, trusting Ben, alongside Jamie Neville, to bring their sound alive.

‍

Byron Westbrook’s Shelter Press debut is his most mesmerizing album to date – a set of electroacoustic pieces that advances the rough blueprints laid out by legends like Maryanne Amacher, Bernard Parmegiani and Luc Ferrari.. if you’re at all interested in electroacoustic music, ‘Translucents’ is just about as good as it gets.” (Boomkat)

‍

Like a nocturnal highway stretched out between Midwest cities, Nightosphere exists in an expansive, open realm marked by subtle shifts in landscape and punctuated by sudden bursts of noisy, explosive urgency. This energy is fueled by Brittany and Claire, who trade guitar/vocal and bass duties throughout their live performances, and Hop, who looms powerfully over the drumkit. Through hypnotic compositions, this Kansas City-based trio weaves the structures and sounds of slowcore, post-hardcore, and shoegaze into a vast emotional tapestry.

With their dynamic range and frequent meter changes, Nightosphere has drawn comparisons to a diverse array of acts, including Big Brave, Unwound, Portishead, Wednesday, and Emma Ruth Rundle. Formed in early 2022, the band quickly became a part of the thriving Kansas City scene, touring the Midwest twice that year, in August and October. They released the singles “Foxfire” and “Faim Dévorante” in preparation for these tours.

In February 2023, Nightosphere collaborated with Flooding and Abandoncy to release a 3-Way Split EP. This year also marked the release of their full-length debut, Katabasis, which dropped in April and was featured on Destroy//Exist’s “2023 Albums of the Year” list. Katabasis was also cited by Chat Pile as one of their 10 Favorite Albums of 2023. In September, Nightosphere headlined an East Coast tour and subsequently supported Chat Pile and Nerver on their 2023 U.S. tour.

Nightosphere has also shared stages with acts like They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Explosions in the Sky, Stuck, Knifeplay, and Horse Jumper of Love.

— Nathaniel Perkins

San Francisco-based musician Thomas Dimuzio opens with an immersive surround sound performance featuring the Buchla 200e modular synthesizer, live looping, real-time processing, and field recordings. Thomas Dimuzio is a San Francisco-based musician, composer, improviser, sound designer, mastering engineer, and music technologist. Known for his immersive sonic explorations, Dimuzio creates music that transports listeners to otherworldly soundscapes.

Oakland-based singer, songwriter, and producer Dani Offline has gained a fervent following for her singular aesthetic, blending dreamy melodies and hypnotic grooves with introspective lyrics that feel both personal and universal.

A transplant from Birmingham, Alabama who came to the Bay for graduate studies at UC Berkeley, Offline spent her formative years bouncing between the U.S. and Europe – a time that widened her perspective to embrace inspiration from all areas of music and creative endeavors.

She was, in her words, singing before she was talking, and was steeped in jazz and hip-hop from an early age, citing Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter as major influences. 

Her most recent EP, Mirror, is an evocative collection of tunes that reflect an overarching concept of transition in life, containing the singles “I Believe You,” “Lust for Life,” and “Be My Baby” that were in part inspired by the changes of the seasons.  

She has been performing around the country and in the Bay Area as part of the series produced by Smartbomb, Bandcamp, and White Crate, sharing the stage with artists including The Seshen, Jada Imani, and Madison McFerrin.

Danny Brown

“It’s the downward spiral, got me suicidal/ But too scared to do it so these pills will be the rifle.” That’s how Detroit rap phenom Danny Brown kicked off the second verse of the title track to his breakout 2011 miXtape XXX, and his astounding new album and Warp debut Atrocity EXhibition picks up right where that record left off.

A thematic sequel to XXX’s hairline-trigger hedonism and despair, Atrocity EXhibition finds Brown ruminating on life after greater success—how things changed, how they haven’t, and how the potential of the future is often irreconcilable with the realities of the present. “I couldn’t tell the story of what happened after XXX because I was living,” Brown eXplains. “I had to live life to write about it.”

Brown began work on Atrocity EXhibition in the summer of 2014, linking up with producer and frequent collaborator Paul White on the bulk of the album’s cuts. “Me and him are the same way,” Brown enthuses on the pair’s partnership. “He’s out there, and I’m out there too. We just want to make music...You never heard nobody rapping over this type of production before. This is not regular rap.”

Sophie Allison has always written candidly about her life, making Soccer Mommy one of indie rock’s most interesting and beloved artists of the last decade. Allison has used Soccer Mommy’s songs as a vehicle to sort through the thoughts and encounters that inevitably come with the reality of growing up. After all, Soccer Mommy began as a bedroom-to-Bandcamp exercise with teenage Allison posting her plaintive songs as demos. Over the years, though, she has often enhanced that sound, using the endless production possibilities, newly at her fingertips, to outstrip singer-songwriter stereotypes. The records would start with songwriting’s kernels of truth, and she would then imagine all the unexpected shapes they could take. Every Soccer Mommy record has felt like a surprise. On Soccer Mommy’s fourth album, the tender but resolute Evergreen, Allison is again writing about her life. But that life’s different these days: Since making her previous album, 2022’s Sometimes, Forever, Allison experienced a profound and also very personal loss. New songs emerged from that change, unflinching and sometimes even funny reflections on what she was feeling. (Speaking of funny, this is a Soccer Mommy album, so there’s an ode to Allison’s purple-haired wife in the game Stardew Valley, too.) These songs were, once again, Allison’s way to sort through life, to ground herself. She wanted them to sound that way, too, to feel as true to the demos—raw and relatable, unvarnished and honest—as possible. The songwriting would again lead where the production would follow. Nothing overindulgent, everything real.

Nick Lowe has made his mark as a producer (Elvis Costello-Graham Parker-Pretenders-The Damned), songwriter of at least three songs you know by heart, short-lived career as a pop star, and a lengthy term as a musicians’ musician. But in his current ‘second act’ as a silver-haired, tender-hearted but sharp-tongued singer-songwriter, he has no equal.

Starting with 1995′s ‘The Impossible Bird’ through to 2011′s ‘The Old Magic,’ Nick has turned out a fantastic string of albums, each one devised in his West London home, and recorded with a core of musicians who possess the same veteran savvy. Lowe brings wit and understated excellence to every performance, leading Ben Ratliff of the New York Times to describe his live show as “elegant and nearly devastating.”

Los Straitjackets are the leading practitioners of the lost art of the guitar instrumental. Using the music of the Ventures, The Shadows, and with Link Wray and Dick Dale as a jumping off point, the band has taken their unique, high energy brand of original rock & roll around the world. Clad in their trademark Lucha Libre Mexican wrestling masks, the “Jackets” have delivered their trademark guitar licks to 16 albums, thousands of concerts and dozens of films and TV shows.

Together Nick & The Straitjackets have toured extensively around Europe and the United States, and are releasing an EP of new songs in June 2017.

Since forming in 1989 in Buffalo, New York, Mercury Rev has made a career of boldly exploring the fringes of artistic perception, channeling colors and sounds and visions that always seem just beyond our mortal reach. The Guardian hailed the group as “a rarity in indie rock: a band who have continually evolved their sound, pushing at the boundaries of what rock music actually means over 25 years, borrowing from jazz, funk, doo-wop, techno, folk and more along the way,” while Rolling Stone praised their “majestic chaos,” and the BBC lauded their “shimmering psychedelic pop, immersive indie-rock, [and] spectacularly engrossing passages of sumptuous instrumentation.”

The band’s 1991 debut, ‘Yerself Is Steam,’ landed on Pitchfork’s Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time, and their 1998 breakthrough, ‘Deserter’s Songs’, upon its release was named NME’s Album of the Year, Pitchfork’s 100 Favorite Records of the 1990s (2003),Melody Maker’s All Time Top 100 Albums (2000),Uncut’s 200 Greatest Albums of All Time (2016) and multiple1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die lists. Diverse musical collaborations with legendary artistic luminaries as well as major festival and network television performances around the world have solidified their status as One of America’s most pioneering groups capable of straddling the line between mainstream appeal and progressive musical experimentation…

Ky Newman is a content creator and producer on the podcast Emergency Intercom.

atlgrandma, the artist persona of Liam Hall, is a key figure in Los Angeles’s leftfield pop community, creating pensive, digitally-curdled music that blends rock, rap, pop, and dance in new absurdist ways. As a producer, Hall has helped shape the sounds of artists like Willow, Snow Wife, Dorian Electra, The Hellp, D4ine, Izzy Spears, ericdoa, and Frost Children, frequently collaborating with pop masterminds Lil Aaron and Y2K.

Before moving to Los Angeles, atlgrandma lived in the suburbs of Atlanta, where his family resettled after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina. YouTube became his playground; he learned to play guitar, produce music, shoot videos, and develop basic fine motor skills, all at once.

Hall’s releases, such as 2019’s Even If We Don’t Get It Together and 2022’s Angelhood, explore the “brain rot” of the chronically online and dissect the empty promises of Western culture with a big Cheshire Cat grin. His latest work, Nightmare Blunt Rotation, arriving August 9, perfectly distills atlgrandma’s dementedly sincere worldview. Reminiscent of Odelay-era Beck, the album is a masterful satire on the types of characters one might meet at LA parties. The following single, Reaper, set for release in September, combines the blown-out sound of vintage bloghouse with a surprisingly compassionate encounter with Death himself.

Earlier this year, atlgrandma toured with Dorian Electra and Frost Children and co-produced their triple-billed rave-up “We Invented Love,” which dropped just in time for summer. He has also recently launched a semi-regular warehouse event series with Ky Newman, a fellow provocateur. This event series, which balances between party and performance art, is set to return after Labor Day.

Nightmare Blunt Rotation will be out August 9 on Smartdumb, a new label by producer Nick Sylvester, creative co-founder of godmode (Channel Tres, Yaeji, Pawpaw Rod, etc.).

A staggeringly innovative artist whose music crosses lines of pop, jazz, soul, and the avant-garde, Thai-Swedish vocalist and composerSirintipbrings her bone-deep and ethereal sound to the Joe Henderson Lab as part of the 2025 Noise Pop festival. The child of a Swedish mother and Thai father, Sirintip Phasuk grew up in Bangkok and moved to Sweden at an early age – an early experience that gave her insight into the feeling of othering that was central to her artistic impulse to create connections through music, empathy, and causes that are near and dear to her heart.

The quietest voices can be the most durable.

American Football’s original triumph, on their 1999 self-titled debut, was to reunite two shy siblings: emo and post-rock. It was a pioneering album where lyrical clarity was obscured and complicated by the stealth musical textures surrounding it.

Like Slint’s Spiderland, or Codeine’s The White Birch, even Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock, American Football asked far more questions than it cared to answer. But there wasn’t a band around anymore to explain it, anyway. The three young men who made the album — Mike Kinsella, Steve Holmes, and Steve Lamos — split up pretty much on its release.

Fifteen years later, American Football reunited (now as a four-piece, with the addition of Nate Kinsella). They played far larger shows than in their original incarnation and recorded their long-anticipated second album, 2016’s American Football (LP2). The release was widely praised, but the band members still felt like their best work was yet to come.

‘I feel like the second album was us figuring it out,’ says Nate. ‘For me, it wasn’t quite done. I knew there was still more.’

Enter American Football (LP3). ‘We put a lot of time and a lot of energy into it,’ says Mike. ‘We were all thoughtful about what we wanted to put out there. Last time, it was figuring out how to use all of our different arms. This time, we were like — Ok we have these arms, let’s use them.’ The band used the same producer, Jason Cupp, and recorded the album at the same studio (Arc Studios in Omaha, Nebraska) as its predecessor — yet they approached it in a markedly different way. There was a determination to let the songs breathe, to trust in ideas finding their own pace. The final result is a definite, and deliberate, stretching of the band.

As a result, LP3 is less obviously tethered to the band’s past than the second album. An immediate contrast between LP3 and its two predecessors is its cover. The two previous albums featured the exterior and interior of a residence in the band’s original hometown of Urbana, Illinois (now attracting fans for pilgrimages and photo opportunities), by the photographer Chris Strong. But American Football knew that LP3 was an outside record. Instead of the familiar house, this time the cover photo (again by Strong) features open, rolling fields on Urbana’s borders. It is a sign of the album’s magnitude in sound, and of the band’s boldness in breaking away from home comforts.

American Football also joked that LP3‘s genre was ‘post-house,’ because of this very conscious visual break. But, in a strange way, there are links in LP3 with an actual post-house genre: shoegaze. The more exploratory members of the original British shoegaze scene were inspired by the dreamtime and circularity of house music (ambient house in particular), cherishing its sonic possibilities. That spirit drips into LP3, most obviously on ‘I Can’t Feel You,’ a collaboration with Rachel Goswell of Slowdive.

The album also features Hayley Williams from Paramore on the album’s catchiest moment, ‘Uncomfortably Numb,’ and Elizabeth Powell, of the Québécoise act Land Of Talk. Mike wrote lyrics in French especially for her.

LP3 is contemplative, rich, expressive, yet with a queasy undercurrent. It is heavy with expectancy, revealing its ideas slowly, eliciting the hidden stories people carry around with them. ‘I feel like my lyric writing has changed a lot over the years,’ says Mike. ‘The goal is to be conversational, maybe to state something giant and heavy, but in a very plain way. But, definitely in this record, I keep things a little more vague.’ As on the first album, the lyrics on LP3 may seem confessional and concentrated, but the more you scrutinize them, the further their meaning slinks away. Or, as Mike tellingly sings on ‘I Can’t Feel You”: I’m fluent in subtlety.

‘Somewhere along the way we moved from being a reunion band to just being a band,’ says Steve Holmes. American Football is now a bona fide ongoing focus, and they are making some of the best music of their lives. American Football (LP3) stands with two other rare reunion successes — Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine’s mbv — as a fine example of how a band refinding one another can augment, rather than taint, their legacy.

‘I think that there are those albums, or the music that you heard when you were younger, and they imprint on you,’ says Nate. ‘And no matter where you go, or what you do they’re always there.’ He is talking of Steve Reich — an early and ongoing influence on American Football — but he might as well be reflecting what is said of his own band, and the ardent following they inspire. American Football stands as an enduring symbol of elusive emotional landscapes, where introspection can be as dramatic as confrontation.

Wajatta is the musical duo of comedian/musician Reggie Watts and electronic music artist, DJ, and producer, John Tejada. Pronounced wa-HA-ta — it’s a mash-up of the artists’ last names. Brainfeeder released their latest single “Waiting For The Get Down” in September of 2023. Previous releases include 2020’s Don’t Let Get You Down, and their 2021 EP, Do You Even Care? The duo describe Wajatta's music very broadly as “electronic dance music with its roots in Detroit techno, Chicago house, ‘70s funk and New York hip hop.” The pair has received love from KCRW, The Guardian, Mixmag, Future Music, and DJ Mag among many others.

Reggie Watts is an internationally renowned Musician/Comedian/Writer/Actor who starred as the bandleader on CBS’s The Late Late Show with James Corden. Using his formidable voice, looping pedals, and his vast imagination, Watts blends and blurs the lines between music and comedy, wowing audiences with performances that are 100% improvised. He was the DJ at the 2021 Emmy Awards, and recently released his memoir Great Falls, MT [sites.prh.com]. As a solo performer, Watts brand of musical/comedy fusion has led to sold out headlining tours in the U.S. and Europe, including festivals such as Bonnaroo, SXSW, Bumbershoot, Just For Laughs, Pemberton and more, and he has released specials with Netflix, Comedy Central Records, and Third Man Records.

John Tejada has been at the vanguard of West Coast techno since 1994, releasing a succession of acclaimed albums, singles and EPs for such prestigious labels as Kompakt, Poker Flat, Cocoon, Plug Research, and his own long-running imprint, Palette Recordings (est. 1996).

Hailing from the East Bay town of Hercules,August Lee Stevensis a masterful young singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose work encompasses elements of soul, jazz, and modern folk. Possessed of a velvet-smooth voice and an innate gift for lyrical expression, Stevens is an artist whose profile is destined to rise.She has performed widely around the Bay Area and beyond, sharing the stage with Mara Hruby at Oakland’s New Parish and featured in NPR’s roundup of Tiny Desk Concert submissions.

Earlimart’s Treble & Tremble is a reaction to someone leaving the room without saying a word. It’s a lush,haunting affair informed by loss, but with a determined effort to let go and move on, tying clean knots froma tangle of loose ends. With numerous references to telephones, reports, conversation and music itself,Treble and Tremble is about communication and how we fail to communicate. Yet, amid the white noise,the record is also a celebration of the moments we break through.