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Talkhouse

Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee are two kindred spirits who first met on the banks of the Mississippi while touring the Midwest festival circuit. Born and raised in Arkansas, Winter found herself drawn to the evergreens and damp air of the Pacific Northwest, as well as the boundless music scene of Olympia, Washington. She released three solo records on Olympia-based indie label, K Records, and performed in ramblin’ folk bands and anarchic punk bands before serendipitously meeting Palmer T. Lee in 2013. Lee had built his first banjo when he was 19 from pieces he inherited and began cutting his teeth fronting Minneapolis string bands before convincing Winter that they should form a banjo duo. Now, as The Lowest Pair, they have recorded and released five albums together, relentlessly toured North America, and ventured to the UK twice, playing over 500 live shows over the past five years.
After each releasing solo albums via Conor Oberst’s Team Love Records in 2018, Winter and Lee began working on The Lowest Pair’s forthcoming 10-song set, The Perfect Plan. As a songwriting team, the duo tends to see artistic sparks all around them — in poems, people, ideas, experiences – and throughout the process of writing these new songs, they felt the need to push their creative limits. They turned to producer Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes who took them to ARC Studios in Omaha, Nebraska, and set them in a soundscape backed by a slate of session players that lifts the album from simple folk into spirited Americana and beyond.
(Photo Credit: Sarah Kathryn Wainwright)

The Lowest Pair

Music

Hear First: The Lowest Pair’s The Perfect Plan

When he co-founded the instrumental band Balmorhea over 10 years ago, Rob Lowe (RG Lowe) had no idea that its introspective instrumental music would be heard by millions of people, or that it would offer the opportunity to travel and perform around the world. After years of success in the world of neo-classical music, Lowe took a sharp turn when a casual conversation with a friend in Marfa, TX planted the idea in his head that he should challenge himself to write a pop album. Having spent years in church choirs and musical theater as a kid in West Texas, he knew he could sing, but would have to teach himself how to write the type of pop songs he was interested in creating. This eventually manifested in his 2017 debut, Slow Time, which Stereogum called &ldquo;impossibly smooth.&rdquo; Three years later, Lowe is returning with his sophomore album, Life of the Body, out May 22 via Western Vinyl.&nbsp;
(Photo Credit: Claire Cottrell)

RG Lowe

RG Lowe and Jess Williamson Talk Releasing Albums in the Midst of a Pandemic

CMON is Josh da Costa and Jamen Whitelock, a duo that met in New York where they created the band Regal Degal in 2009. Now based in Los Angeles, they’ve continued their musical partnership recording and performing as CMON. The debut album Confusing Mix Of Nations sprang from time spent combing through old demos and retooling them into spaced-out dance music featuring twangy guitar riffs, analog drum machines, and lush synth textures. Uninhibited by the limitations of a typical rock band, CMON embraces technology to construct a hybrid sound inspired by the past, present, and future. CMON’s music is built for heady crate-diggers and cutting-edge partygoers, perfect for both headphones and the club.
(Photo Credit: Kathryn Vetter Miller)

CMON

Checking In with Ariel Pink and CMON

Las Nubes’ undeniably catchy songs transition from melancholy dream pop to blistering punk rock as easily as their lyrics do from English to Spanish.  Recently named “Best Band” by the Miami New Times, the core trio of Ale Campos (guitar/vocals), Nina Carolina (bass/vocals), and Emile Milgrim (drums), along with rotating live members Steph Taylor (The State Of), Gabriel Duque (Zeta), and Cuci Amador (Afrobeta), have become one of “South Florida’s most beloved bands &#8211; a distinction they’ve earned through hard work and infectious hooks.”
The band’s debut album, SMVT, released via the SRR Label in summer 2019, and has retained constant momentum through rigorous promotion, engaging social media, one-off events, and multiple tours. To date, Las Nubes has shared stages with Shannon And The Clams, Jens Lekman, The Coathangers, Sheer Mag, Mark Sultan, Torche, and more. Most recently, they were invited to perform as Iggy Pop’s backing band for a GUCCI x Snap event celebrating the debut of Harmony Korine’s 3D short film Duck Duck in December 2019 during Miami Art Week.
(Photo Credit: Gabriel Duque)

Las Nubes

Hear First: Las Nubes and Palomino Blond’s Split EP

Mav Karlo is a new project from Menno Versteeg, a Toronto musician and the founder of Royal Mountain Records. His debut full length as Mav Karlo will be released in the summer of 2020.
(Photo Credit: Calm Elliott-Armstrong)

Mav Karlo

Wolf Parade and Menno Versteeg on the Economics of Being a Musician

As former frontwoman of the critically acclaimed New York-based group San Fermin, KAYE (Charlene Kaye) has played network television and has toured with St. Vincent, Arctic Monkeys, alt-J, and others. She recently released &#8220;Closer Than This,&#8221; the first single from her upcoming album, which earned praise from Rolling Stone, NPR, FLOOD Magazine, and more.
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Charlene Kaye

Sister, Sister: Charlene and Liann Kaye Talk Growing Up Creative

Morgan Enos is a musician, essayist and music journalist specializing in classic rock. He records and performs as <a href="https://finalhouse.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://finalhouse.bandcamp.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1567703426703000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE969PQS5H6jwcQaH3Zb_8LZ4WVew">Other Houses</a> and has bylines in Billboard, HuffPost, the Recording Academy, Vinyl Me, Please, TIDAL and more. He is also the co-founder and editor of <a href="https://northoftheinternet.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://northoftheinternet.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1567703426703000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGi0xmSRKyGPRseoPZ41v4L7WkbQw">North of the Internet</a>, a series of conversations with creative people. He can be found at <a href="https://www.morganenos.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.morganenos.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1567703426703000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG79-8vfghEO9sl4msNRI9Ts-3rdQ">his website</a>.
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Morgan Enos

Charles Berry, Jr., Paul Shaffer, and Steve Jordan Think Rock & Roll Will Never Die

Sadie Dupuis is the guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter of rock band Speedy Ortiz. She&#8217;s also the producer &amp; multi-instrumentalist behind pop project Sad13. Sadie heads the record label Wax Nine, has written for outlets including Spin, Nylon, and Playboy, and holds an MFA in poetry from UMass Amherst. Mouthguard, her first book, was published in 2018.
(Photo Credit: Jordan Edwards)

Sadie Dupuis

Polvo Finally Appreciates Their Own Music — Sort Of

EDGESLAYER is a multi disciplinary visual and music artist based in New Orleans.

Edge Slayer

Edge Slayer and Jasmine Infiniti Talk Voices, Vockah Redu, and New Orleans

<div>Person is the debut from NYC&#8217;s P.E., a band born of the city&#8217;s art-punk underground and dedicated to freaky experimentation. Comprising Veronica Torres, Jonathan Campolo, and Benjamin Jaffe (all of the beloved and freshly defunct Pill) alongside Jonathan Schenke and Robert Jones of the electronic/art-rock favorite Eaters, P.E. features some of NYC&#8217;s most notable experimental voices. Early shows were entirely improvisational, allowing the group to develop a collaborative chemistry that led to an equally free-form recording process.</div>
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<div>The resulting LP displays the group’s collective experience writing memorable songs, matched with a dedication to tearing them apart at the seams. Recorded at Schenke&#8217;s Studio Windows, Person holds the spark of P.E.&#8217;s early improvisations in its clattering industrial percussion, zigzagging synths and sax, and colorful dystopian poetry. The group&#8217;s natural language results in a sonic lexicon reflecting the unnatural surroundings of their adopted home in NYC—chaotic yet alluring, gnarly, and fun. Sold and packaged with a tender tone, this is music for fully-formed persons aware of their ideological discrepancies. Turn on the human music of the 21st century.</div>
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<div>(Photo Credit: Andrew Jansen)</div>

P.E.

P.E. Talk Remixes and the Art of Maximalism With Liars’ Angus Andrew

<div>Maggie Nye is a DC-based writer and editor. She is the former Writer-in-Residence at St. Albans School and the current Assistant Editor at the Journal of Palestine Studies. Her fiction and nonfiction is published or forthcoming in Passages North, Hobart, Pleiades, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. Find her online at <a href="http://maggienye.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://maggienye.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1579031276088000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEYXbHZ6kNDSmXHEwu8blhv9EC1WA">maggienye.com</a>.</div>
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Maggie Nye

Sam Goblin currently lives in Tallahassee, FL and plays music with Mister Goblin and Deady. He hopes to never, ever, ever become a music writer.

Sam Goblin

A Conversation with the Bog-Dwelling Mastermind Behind Mister Goblin

Bambara — the Bateh brothers, Reid and Blaze, singer/guitarist and drummer respectively, and bassist William Brookshire — have been evolving their midnight-black noise into something more subtle and expansive ever since the release of their 2013 debut Dreamviolence. Formed in Athens, Georgia the band have consistently expanded their sound and with it an audience marked by a cult-like devotion to the band. With 2018’s Shadow On Everything, a narrative concept album that was their first release on stalwart Brooklyn independent Wharf Cat Records, the band made some major artistic strides. The album drew attention from critics, being dubbed “a mesmerizing western gothic opus” by NPR, and earning praise from likes of VICE, Bandcamp, The Quietus, and Spin, and from Bambara’s growing circle of peers, with ex-tour mates like IDLES’ Joe Talbot and Daughters’ Alexis Marshall highlighting the album as one of the best of the year in interviews. Bambara are currently preparing to release their follow up, Stray, which is due out on Wharf Cat on February 14. It’s an album built on dedication, creative risk taking and an immersive approach to creative expression &#8211; principles and processes that pay off in a release that represents a monumental leap forward for the band.
(Photo Credit: Kevin Condon)

interview