Creative

Footer Legal

Main

NavBar

Sections

Topics

Become a subscriber today to get unlimited access

Thanks for reading!

Register to continue

Talkhouse

In music, there’s often a tendency to focus on personal pain. It’s a useful shorthand for understanding how an artist got to where they are now, but sometimes that heaviness doesn’t leave enough room for nuance and change. In his solo work, the Indiana musician Kevin Krauter doesn’t flinch when staring down his past, but he doesn’t get too obsessed with the dark stuff either.
In 2018, Krauter released Toss Up, a quiet album that was built on intricate guitar riffs that looped back on themselves to create a feeling of sunlit calm. Krauter’s sophomore follow up, Full Hand, dives further into the world he’s created — one where songs are evocative of late afternoon light, or dust settling on a creaky floorboard, but with lyrics that probe Krauter’s personal life, grappling with sexuality and religion, while exploring what it means to grow up, grow more critical, and, in turn, more self-confident.
Full Hand is out now via Bayonet Records.
(Photo Credit: Hana Mendel)

Kevin Krauter

Music

Three Great Things: Kevin Krauter

Illiterate Light is a Virginia duo made up of Jeff Gorman and Jake Cochran. Their self-titled debut album came out late in 2019 on Atlantic Records, and 2020 will find them on a big headlining tour as well as playing festivals like Osheaga and Firefly.

Illiterate Light

Three Great Things: Illiterate Light

Born in Horn, Austria, in 1985, Severin Fiala studied directing and screenwriting at the Film Academy Vienna. Veronika Franz was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1965. Originally a film journalist for the Viennese daily newspaper Kurier, since 1997 she has accompanied director Ulrich Seidl as an artistic collaborator. The internationally award-winning documentary Kern, which premiered at Festival del film Locarno, marked both Franz’s debut as a director and the first film she made with Severin Fiala. It was followed by the pair’s first joint fiction feature, Goodnight Mommy (2014), which had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival. Franz and Fiala’s latest film, <a href="https://www.thelodgemov.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Lodge</a>, a horror film starring Riley Keough and Jaeden Martell, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and is in theaters through Neon from February 7.

Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz

Film

Three Great Things: Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz

Cathy Yan is a filmmaker known for her distinct aesthetic, darkly humorous tone and love for subverting typical genre rules and telling unconventional stories. Her debut film, Dead Pigs, which she wrote and directed, won the Special Jury Prize for ensemble acting at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, among several other accolades. Her latest film is <a href="https://www.birdsofpreymovie.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn</a>, which is now in theaters through Warner Bros.; she is the first Asian woman to direct a superhero genre film. Next, she is slated to direct and produce a film adaptation of Sour Hearts, a collection of short stories by Jenny Zhang, which she will co-write with Zhang. Yan studied at Princeton, where she earned her BA, and NYU, where she received a dual MFA and MBA in film. Previously, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York, Hong Kong and China, and brings her sharp, journalistic instincts to her filmmaking. Yan was born in China and is currently based in New York. (Picture by Tim P. Whitby, courtesy of Warner Bros.)

Cathy Yan

Three Great Things: Cathy Yan

Allen Stone is a singer-songwriter from Chewelah, Washington. He has released four albums, the latest of which is Building Balance.

Allen Stone

Three Great Things: Allen Stone

Jenny Owen Youngs is a singer-songwriter whose latest EP Night Shift includes an ode to the state fair staple The Gravitron. She also hosts the popular Buffy The Vampire Slayer podcast Buffering The Vampire Slayer.
(Photo Credit: Tucker Leary)

Jenny Owen Youngs

Three Great Things: Jenny Owen Youngs

Varsity came to fruition one night in 2013 when several Chicago musicians gathered for a &#8220;salon night&#8221; where friends shared stories and songs. Singer-keyboardist Stephanie Smith was set to perform solo, but was quickly drawn to the sound of guitarists Dylan Weschler and Pat Stanton and asked them to join her. Shortly after their first performance as a trio, they recruited Jake Stolz on drums and his brother, Paul Stolz, on bass to fully round out their sound and become the quintet that they are today. Varsity played shows in the Chicago area the following year and spent one weekend at Chicago&#8217;s Public House Studio to record their debut self-titled LP released in March 2015.
Varsity has since found success in the growing indie-pop space. The powerful driving vocals of singer/keyboardist Stephanie Smith over infectious guitar melodies and exciting rhythm has them frequently sharing bills with artists including American Wrestlers, Alvvays, Courtney Barnett, The Hold Steady, and Car Seat Headrest. The band has further explored and developed their sound across a variety of digital releases—often two complementary singles at a time —that have earned rave reviews and a growing audience with millions of plays on YouTube and Spotify.
(Photo Credit: Alexa Viscius)

Varsity

Three Great Things: Varsity

Todd Haynes is an acclaimed American independent film director and screenwriter. From his Sundance-winning debut Poison and its follow-up, the indie classic Safe, through to his most recent works – his HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce, the hugely acclaimed Carol, the period coming-of-age movie Wonderstruck – he has been one of the most distinctive and original voices in American cinema. Some of his most celebrated work, such as his 2002 film Far From Heaven, have centered on female characters, while music and musicians have also been a persistent focus, from his short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story through the glam-era drama Velvet Goldmine and his unconventional Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There. His latest film, <a href="https://www.focusfeatures.com/dark-waters" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dark Waters</a>, a real-life legal drama starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway, is in theaters now through Focus Features.

Todd Haynes

Three Great Things: Todd Haynes

Fatima Al Qadiri is a New York-based artist, musician and composer.
(Photo Credit: Dom Smith)

Fatima Al Qadiri

Three Great Things: Fatima Al Qadiri

Dessa is a rapper, writer, and public speaker whose extraordinary career spans many genres. As a writer, she has contributed to the New York Times, the Star Tribune, the hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale, and literary journals around the country. She’s hosted radio and TV events, delivered keynote speeches around the country, contributed to The Hamilton Mixtape, and tried every dessert that was ever offered to her. Dessa has toured North America, Europe, Australia, China, and South Africa, both as a solo artist and as a proud member of the Doomtree hip-hop collective.
In August of 2019, <a class="c-link" href="https://slack-redir.net/link?url=http%3A%2F%2FTED.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TED.com</a> featured a talk on heartbreak and neuroscience that Dessa delivered in Hong Kong. In the weeks since, her speech, titled &#8220;Can We Choose to Fall Out of Love,&#8221; has accrued more than a million views. Other recent career accomplishments include 2018’s acclaimed album Chime, a Super Bowl 2018 performance, in spring of 2019, she performed her sixth straight sold-out show with the Minnesota Orchestra at Orchestra Hall.  The Utne Reader called her simply a “one-woman powerhouse.”
(Photo Credit: Matthew Levine)

Dessa

Three Great Things: Dessa

David Michôd is an Australian film director and screenwriter known for his films Animal Kingdom, The Rover and War Machine. His latest film, The King, will be distributed by Netflix and stars Timothée Chalamet, Joel Edgerton, Robert Pattinson, Ben Mendelsohn, Lily-Rose Depp, Sean Harris, Tom Glynn-Carney and Thomasin McKenzie. Michôd co-wrote the television series Catch-22, based on Joseph Heller’s celebrated novel, starring George Clooney and Chris Abbott. He was the editor of Australia’s Inside Film magazine between 2003 and 2006. He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and Victorian College of the Arts School of Film &amp; Television. (Picture by Mirrah Foulkes.)

David Michôd

Three Great Things: David Michôd

Formed in New Brunswick, NJ in 2005, Screaming Females are Marissa Paternoster (guitar, vox), Mike Abbate (bass), and Jarrett Dougherty (drums). Over six albums and more than a decade of music making, the band has remained deeply individual and steadfastly DIY. They have also grown into one of the most dynamic and devastating touring bands going today.

Three Great Things