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Talkhouse

Jerry David DeCicca’s most recent album is The Unlikely Optimist and His Domestic Adventures, featuring Augie Meyers from Sir Douglas Quintet. DeCicca is also the producer of albums by singer-songwriters, Larry Jon Wilson, Ed Askew, Will Beeley, Chris Gantry and others. He works in social services in San Antonio, Texas.

Jerry David DeCicca

Music

In Conversation: Jerry David DeCicca and Sylvie Simmons

Jake Luppen is the frontman of Hippo Campus and records solo as Lupin.
(Photo Credit: Graham Tolbert)

Jake Luppen

In Conversation: Naeem (Spank Rock) and Jake Luppen (Lupin, Hippo Campus)

MOZIAH, aka Marcus Guerrier, is a New York City-based pop artist. His EP sweetboy is out now.

MOZIAH

MOZIAH and Camrus Johnson on the Politics of Black Mental Health

Since 2015’s GUYD The Phoenix Foundation have been writing, recording, touring with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, creating the acclaimed soundtrack for Hunt For The Wilderpeople, building shrines to light, creating scores for VR, producing other artists and baking sourdough. Now they are ready to release some more music into the swirling oblivion that is 2020.

The Phoenix Foundation

Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) Talks Music and Comedy with Phoenix Foundation

Melody Caudill is a 16 year old singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California. Coming from a musical family, and learning how to play piano at the ripe age of four, she’s been immersed in the creative world of songwriting since before she was in kindergarten. After picking up the ukulele at 13, learning guitar became the natural next step. With inspirations from artists like Priscilla Ahn, Phoebe Bridgers, and Elliott Smith, Caudill writes with a certain sense of vulnerability and confidence. At 13, she recorded and released her first EP, Thirteen . Thirteen chronicles the life of a pre-teen navigating new life changes. Now 16, Melody has written her second EP, Teachers Pet. Teachers Pet captures the essence of what it’s like to be in high school dealing with issues of self-confidence and finding a sense of belonging. However, Melody isn’t to be boiled down to another angst-driven teen. Her songwriting touches the core of the emotional turmoil we all go through. Whether that’s feeling smaller than your peers or being afraid to show your true self, there are just some inner-struggles we never grow out of.  &#8220;Teacher&#8217;s Pet&#8221; is out now on Lauren Records, along with a brand new single, &#8220;Mosquito Bites (Acoustic).&#8221;
(Photo Credit: Holly Gable)

Melody

The Way Forward: Melody Caudill

Eric D. Johnson records and performs as the Fruit Bats. His latest album under the name is Gold Past Life. In 2020, he started the supergroup Bonny Light Horseman with Anais Mitchell and Josh Kaufman, and their self-titled debut was nominated for two Grammy Awards.
(Photo Credit: Annie Beedy)

Fruit Bats

Two Erics, in Conversation: Blitzen Trapper’s Earley and Fruit Bats’ Johnson

Alex Edkins is the guitarist and vocalist of the Toronto-based punk band METZ. Their fourth album Atlas Vending is out now via Sub Pop.
(Photo Credit: Norman Wong)

Alex Edkins

Iain Reid (I’m Thinking of Ending Things) and Alex Edkins (METZ) Talk Art, Dedication, and Slash

Dominic Angelella is a songwriter and musician born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He currently plays bass for Lucy Dacus, has toured with Natalie Prass and MewithoutYou, and has played on records by Kendrick Lamar, Juicy J, Mac Miller, Hop Along, and more. In addition to his resumé as a touring and recording musician he releases records under his own name, most recently God Loves A Scammer.
(Photo Credit: Josh Pelta-Heller)

Dominic Angelella

Frances Quinlan and Dominic Angelella Talk Freshman Year, 15 Years Later

Teenanger — the Toronto DIY scene innovators, who count among their members the founders and operators of the increasingly influential record label Telephone Explosion — released their sprawling, diverse and pseudo-self-titled album Teenager in 2017.
Their latest album, Good Time, is Teenanger boiled down to its very essence. A lean and muscular eight-song album that is the sound of a band who simultaneously has everything and nothing to prove. It’s what happens when seasoned songwriters flex their chops in an environment that fosters boundless creativity.  It is also Teenanger’s most fun album. Choruses soar to previously unattained heights, descending to a rhythmically fertile ground to pull earworms that will stick inside listeners’ heads for days. If its songs were citizens, they would reside in a diplomatically neutral city-state, melting pots of art rock, pop, dub, post-punk and new wave. 
The music of Good Time certainly elicits pleasure, but lyrically things are more weighty. The band does not shy away from its commentary on contemporary issues. There are calls to reject societal norms, ruminations on humanity’s obsession with technology and warnings about our impact on the environment. Teenanger never gets too earnest, delivering everything with an irreverence that has been there since day one.
Mixed by Sandro Perri, Good Time is out now via Telephone Explosion.

Teenanger

Talkin’ Tim Hortons with Teenanger and Holy Fuck

The seeds of Girl Friday were first planted when guitarist Vera Ellen walked into a friend&#8217;s house at UCLA and saw Libby Hsieh playing bass on the couch. Drawn by her unique playing style, Ellen introduced herself, and the two musicians immediately bonded. After a year of playing together, they decided to grow their collaboration into a full band. Drummer Virginia Pettis and guitarist Sierra Scott caught wind of the project from friends of friends, and quickly jumped on board. The fledgling group&#8217;s chemistry was undeniable; writing and playing together felt generative and thrilling.
Burning deep in Girl Friday&#8217;s music is an unquenchable will to survive. The band doesn&#8217;t blunt the impact of the themes they work through in their ferocious, knotty rock songs, but they don&#8217;t let the more harrowing aspects of being alive and young in the 21st century daunt them, either. Taking full advantage of the dystopian shades of post-punk and noise rock palettes on their arresting debut LP, Androgynous Mary, Girl Friday nevertheless suffuse their music with abundant optimism. The world is a hellscape, but the four of them are in it together.
(Photo Credit: Al Kalyk)

Girl Friday

Liz Stokes (The Beths) and Vera Ellen (Girl Friday) on Promoting Records During the Pandemic

The inception of Wax Chattels occurred rather rapidly. Several years after completing jazz school together, Peter Ruddell and Amanda Cheng reconnected at a Preoccupations show in 2016 at Auckland’s legendary Kings Arms Tavern. The pair quickly decided that they wanted to create some noise together, and wrote a few demos before enlisting drummer Tom Leggett. It wasn’t long before Wax Chattels were up and positively running, becoming a fixture at local haunts and dive bars with their punishingly abrasive, yet polished, live set.
The band were a week shy of embarking on their 2017 DIY tour of Japan, China and Taiwan when they played a set at Auckland’s independent festival The Others Way. Captured Tracks founder, Mike Sniper, happened to be in the room for just two songs of Wax Chattels’ set, before he had to rush off to another venue. As it turns out, those two songs were proof enough for Mike Sniper and Ben Howe to co-sign Wax Chattels to Captured Tracks and Flying Nun Records on the spot. The band played an unscheduled set at an industry showcase the following night, which allowed Mike to fully comprehend what he’d got himself into. As the band have since said, “We want to play shows that make people feel uncomfortable. The goal is to leave the audience feeling slightly altered, like they have experienced — not just heard or seen — something.”
It is universally agreed that Wax Chattels are a must-see live act and their eponymous debut album captured this perfectly. Their hypnotically sinister debut was released in May 2018 and was supported by six months of relentless touring: a NZ tour, two tours of Australia, a stint in the UK and two major North American tours. The album reached #7 on the Official New Zealand Album Charts, and album release week saw the title feature as #1 in Rough Trade’s ‘Top 20 New Releases’ and AV Club’s “most anticipated album”. The album’s success at home and abroad led to the well-deserved nomination of Best Alternative Artist at the 2018 New Zealand Music Awards, as well as the band’s inclusion in the coveted shortlist of finalists for the Taite Music Prize and Auckland Live Best Independent Debut Award. After a knock-out debut, the anticipation that surrounds their sophomore album, Clot, is immense.

Wax Chattels

The Way Forward: Wax Chattels

It’s been said that it takes a village to raise a child, so why not let everyone in to help raise Okey Dokey? Their third studio album Once Upon One Time does just that by allowing anyone to send in audio that is featured throughout the record, using submitted videos as promo, adding a third member (Jeremy Clark) and for the first time ever allowing other bands to decide the overall sound of the new album by having six different mixers from six different bands. Once Upon Once Time features behind-the-boards contributions from Dave Harrington (Darkside), Grizzly Bear‘s Chris Taylor, and members of My Morning Jacket and the Shins. The new album finds Johny Fisher and Aaron Martin expanding their swinging rock music to encapsulate cosmic orchestral pop, squishy funk, swelling folk rock, and everything in between — shattering any boundaries they’d previously set for themselves.

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