Creative

Footer Legal

Main

NavBar

Sections

Topics

Become a subscriber today to get unlimited access

Thanks for reading!

Register to continue

Talkhouse

There&#8217;s a difficult to describe, yet timeless quality to certain songs that transcends genre or era. It&#8217;s something that you can&#8217;t fake or contrive and it&#8217;s what lies at the core of Skating Polly&#8216;s music. The multi-instrumentalist duo of Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse started their band in Oklahoma in 2009. They recorded their debut album Taking Over The World in 2010 and achieved instant acclaim from underground music icons like X&#8216;s Exene Cervenka (who produced 2013&#8217;s Lost Wonderfuls) and Beat Happening&#8216;s Calvin Johnson (who produced 2014&#8217;s Fuzz Steliacoom). After the release of 2016&#8217;s The Big Fit, Veruca Salt&#8216;s co-frontwomen Louise Post and Nina Gordon reached out and said they wanted to write with the band. What started as a writing session ultimately became 2017’s New Trick EP. Then, armed with a third member — Kelli’s brother Kurtis Mayo — the trio released their latest full length, The Make It All Show in 2018.
&nbsp;
The band&#8217;s latest record, Chaos County Line, is out now.

Skating Polly

Music

Introducing: Skating Polly’s “Classless Act”

Marco Benevento has built his career out of musical fearlessness. He was dubbed “one of the most talented keys players of our time” by CBS News. His seventh album, Let It Slide, comes out September 20 on Royal Potato Family.

Marco Benevento

Introducing: Marco Benevento’s “Send it on a Rocket”

Jail Weddings are much more than a just a band — they are a bona-fide gang, a swaying precarious study into the extremes of human behavior, a walking, wailing “musical” happening in real time. Their third full-length album Wilted Eden is out September 2019.
(Photo Credit: Lisa Johnson)

Jail Weddings

Introducing: Jail Weddings’ “(I Can’t Wait to Get to) Nowhere”

The heart of An Horse’s magic is rubbery and elastic. Rows of slinky, hypnotic spirals, widening middle-out. They’ve never spun to more vibrant and dynamic impact than on their third album Modern Air.
Loosely from wherever-you’re-seeing-them-play-tonight-by-way-of-Brisbane-to-Montreal-and-New-York, Kate &amp; Damon woke up from a six-year nap to make their best, broadest and most accomplished album, doubling-down on and clarifying their strongest strengths while casually developing and showcasing a career’s-worth of new ones.
Before their 6 year break, An Horse were two albums into their career and touring non-stop with the likes of Tegan and Sara, Death Cab for Cutie, Silversun Pickups, Nada Surf, Cage the Elephant, and Brand New when a series of distracting life events forced them into a hiatus of sorts. That hiatus led to an extended break from touring and recording that’s finally ending with their 2019 album Modern Air, out May 3 on Lame-O Records.
The songs on their new record manage to be both propulsive and loping, lean mission statements about negotiating modern living easter-egged with intelligence and humor, melodic and percussive ear candy, heart and teeth, hope and anger.
They sound like themselves, two-headed and singularly focused, a particularly effective evolutionary step in a long tradition of of guitar-based indie-rock, angular in spaces, jangly in others, sometimes both at the same time. They take a familiar vocabulary and teach it new words, one sugary harmony barbed-wired to unflinching insight at a time.
Modern Air is An Horse at their most realized, and it’s right on time. Some naps are worth taking.
(Photo Credit: Amelia Shaw)

An Horse

Introducing: An Horse’s “Started A Fire”

It had been 16 years since John Dragonetti had called himself Jack Drag when he dusted off the largely solo entity to release the aptly titled album 2018 last year. The Submarines singer and co-founder had released four full-length albums under the moniker from 1995 to 2002, based out of Boston. The return was a welcome one&#8230; both for Dragonetti himself and for fans, with lead single, “Little Lies [feat. Aimee Mann and Dylan Gardner], racking up over two million streams, airplay on KCRW and guest appearances from Belle &amp; Sebastian’s Sarah Martin on vocals and Mike Sawitzke of The Eels/Dispatch assisting with horn arrangements and mixing.
After The Submarines released their 2011 album, Love Notes/Letter Bombs, Dragonetti turned his focus to composing for film and TV, including the 2018 comedy All About Nina, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Common. It’s still where Dragonetti focuses most of his attentions.
A new Jack Drag EP, Summer of Cuts and Bruises, is set to drop August 30 on Burger Records, to be preceded by lead single, &#8220;It&#8217;s Something&#8221; on August 9, with an animated video by Cult Of Dang. The title-track, which Dragonetti stated is about “standing tall in the face of romantic sabotage,” features Morgan Kibby (M83/White Sea) on guest vocals, with bass and cello from Gabe Noel.

Jack Drag

Introducing: Jack Drag’s “It’s Something”

How far does our sentimental strength go? When do we turn to the other without any resistance? What is the breaking point? By showing emotional connections we become vulnerable. Existing together, we cannot conceive without the other. &#8220;I am another you&#8221; is a Mayan thought that blurs the limits of personal bonds, extending individuality to any being that we choose to look in the eyes, allowing us to find something shared in each others stare.
Entre Los Dos is the follow up to critically acclaimed Mujeres (NPR, Pitchfork, Billboard), Y La Bamba&#8216;s most recently released full-length album (February 2019). This EP comes as a collection of portraits, affinities, and new visions birthed during Luz Elena Mendoza&#8216;s frequent stays in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. These are songs and powerful prayers, created with their purpose being to protect the land and its people, recognize the ancestry that burns in our hearts, and treasure wisdom weaving healthy bonds that reflect self-love with dignity.
Through the veins of front person Mendoza, runs Purepecha blood. Adapting to new environments over and over again, she has become someone who constantly questions and empowers through music: her great teacher and tireless companion.
The creative flow of Entre Los Dos moves without stopping, without resisting its own form. It adapts, migrates, and fuses with its environment and receptors. The adrenaline of a new beginning moves us, but also leaves a fragile space where the fear of being cornered and devoured may exist. When you float in foreign waters, you can not do more than surrender to doubt and become one with the death. The world is dangerous, and even more so when it comes to surrendering blindly to love.
(Photo Credit: Nadev Benjamin)

Y La Bamba

Introducing: Y La Bamba’s “Rios Sueltos”

Ganser combines post-punk workmanship with aesthetic noise rock tendencies, inspired by cinematic visuals and imagist language. Composed of keyboardist/vocalist Nadia Garofalo, bassist/vocalist Alicia Gaines, drummer Brian Cundiff, and guitarist Charlie Landsman, equal parts Space Odyssey and Ghost World, this Chicago-based band channels anxiety’s heightened state to absurd ends.
Their debut, Odd Talk, was released in 2018 on No Trend Records to favorable coverage from The New York Times, Billboard, Stereogum, and other publications. Building on their dissociative disorder namesake, their music is sometimes frenzied (&#8220;PSY OPS&#8221;), but sometimes contemplative (&#8220;Revel&#8221;), probing on questions of anxiety, intimacy, and avoidance.
(Photo Credit: Kirsten Miccoli)

Ganser

Introducing: Ganser’s “Bad Form”

Adam Green is an artistic polymath — a songwriter, filmmaker, visual artist, and poet. As part of New York’s downtown antifolk scene at the end of the nineties, Green made up one half of The Moldy Peaches, who later enjoyed mainstream success via the 2007 Grammy-winning Juno soundtrack. As a solo artist, Green has recorded 10 albums, many of which have become cult hits. His songs have been performed by artists as diverse as The Libertines, Carla Bruni, Kelly Willis, Dean &amp; Britta, and Will Oldham. His 2005 record Gemstones went Gold in Europe.
Green’s paintings and sculptures have been the subject of exhibitions in America, Asia, and Europe, including a 2016 solo-show at the prestigious Fondation Beyeler Museum in Basel, Switzerland. Green first combined his visual aesthetic, psychedelic writings and musical compositions in the The Wrong Ferarri (2010), the first feature film shot entirely on an iPhone. The “screwball tragedy” was described by Rolling Stone magazine as “Fellini on Ketamine” and went on to feature in the curriculum of NYU’s Tisch Film School.
His second feature film, Adam Green’s Aladdin (2016) — an immersive fantasy film starring Macaulay Culkin, Natasha Lyonne, Alia Shawkat, Jack Dishel, and Francesco Clemente and shot entirely on papier-mache sets — was described by Buzzfeed as “the trippiest movie ever made,” while RogerEbert.com called Aladdin “a movie that belongs inside a museum.” An instant cult hit, the movie was screened theatrically in a midnight movie context, at over a hundred of Green’s concerts around the world, as well as the Andy Warhol Museum in Philadelphia.
After first publishing a bilingual volume of his poetry with Suhrkamp Verlag, Green’s newest book War and Paradise is a graphic novel that combines his lyrical and visual vocabulary. The satirical war epic is about the clash of humans with machines, the meeting of spirituality with singularity, and the bidirectional relationship between life and the afterlife. Green’s 10th solo album, Engine of Paradise, is a musical exploration of these same themes. Recorded in Brooklyn, New York, by Loren Humphrey, the forthcoming album reimagines the baroque orchestral style of his early 2000s era records and features performances by James Richardson (MGMT), Florence Welch (Florence + the Machine) and Jonathan Rado (Foxygen).

Adam Green

Introducing: Adam Green’s “Cheating on a Stranger”

Led by Curt Kiser, Carriers is Cincinnati’s best-kept secret, blending heartland rock with dreamy, introspective Americana. With a devoted local following and support from indie heavyweights, Carriers is ready to take the national stage. Their latest record, Every Time I Feel Afraid, is out now on Brassland.
(Photo Credit: Liddy Hade)

Carriers

Introducing: Carriers’ “Make It Right”

New York&rsquo;s B Boys (Andrew Kerr, Brendon Avalos, Britton Walker) find inspiration in the chaos that surrounds them: the aggressive attitude and sonic lawlessness of the city they live, work, and breathe in every day. Their raw, yet meticulous style is characterized by rhythmic complexity, commanding riffs, and introspective lyrics that are as playful and self-aware as they are cutting.
Across two acclaimed releases on Captured Tracks &mdash; 2016&rsquo;s No Worry No Mind EP and 2017&rsquo;s debut full-length Dada &mdash; B Boys explore solitude and self-reflection through sharp, high-energy shouts and melodic mediations. Now, the sprightly sarcasm and acerbic commentary continues on the band&rsquo;s highly anticipated sophomore LP, Dudu. Recorded by Gabe Wax (Deerhunter, Ought, Crumb) at Outlier Inn and mixed by Andy Chugg (Pill, Pop. 1280, Bambara) to be released on July 26, 2019.

B Boys

Introducing: B Boys’ “Instant Pace”

History and homeland are central to Humeysha, the brainchild of Zain Alam, an American artist and musician of Indian-Pakistani origin. Described as “a unique intersection, merging the cinematic formality of Bollywood and geometric repetition of Islamic art,” Humeysha began during Alam’s travels through his ancestral India and Pakistan where he worked as an oral historian for the 1947 Partition Archive. He was the first in decades from his family to visit both sides of the militarized border by virtue of birthright American citizenship. The fourteen-track debut LP he wrote there began from a question appropriate for loud, sweaty Indian cities: What does it mean to find a unity between the mess of divergent sounds one grows up with as a first-generation immigrant living in diaspora?
Born in Queens, NYC and raised in Kennesaw, Georgia, Alam soundtracks a personal vocabulary through Humeysha that draws on Islamic art and South Asian music to expand the range of sound and experience available to his communities. Field recordings of Pakistani cities; the distinct dialect of an his ailing grandmother’s reminisces; quick rhythmic loops from favorite childhood Bollywood songs — all of these sounds find their way into Humeysha, regardless of their traditional “musicality.” Shoegazing guitars fit alongside meditation bells played underneath Urdu poetry as if they always belonged together.
Alongside expanding Humeysha into a live quartet, Alam has collaborated with visual artists and composed music at residencies including Bruce High Quality Foundation, the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), and the Science, Religion, and Culture program at Harvard University. Uniting all of his projects is a passion for sampling, borrowing, and assembling fragments from one’s own history and memory — for how a personal mosaic of sound can empower minorities and the marginalized to engage in self-creation, on their own terms.
Alam is currently an artist-in-residence at SAADA for their Revolution Remix project, composing soundtracks for neighborhoods with long immigrant histories in Philadelphia. Humeysha is preparing their next release, Nusrat on the Beach, for this summer and to embark on a regional tour thereafter.

Humeysha

Introducing: Humeysha’s “Nusrat on the Beach”

Inspired by the honest writing and timeless melodies of American greats such as Hank Williams Sr. and Joni Mitchell, Esther Rose’s songwriting has been called “The happiest saddest music.” Her 2017 debut, This Time Last Night, caught fire as her listeners tuned-in to a storied chronology of this soulful, heart-worn artist. Her latest record, Safe to Run, is out April 21, 2023 on New West Records.
(Photo Credit: Rett Rogers)

introducing