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Talkhouse

Burr Oak is the new project of Chicago-based singer-songwriter Savanna Dickhut who merges together brutally honest, story-driven lyrics with raw, dreamy vocals. Breaking away from her duo-fronted band Elk Walking, Burr Oak is Dickhut’s first-ever venture as a solo artist.
With just two singles out this past year, The Chicago Tribune wrote her songs “show the promise of a songwriter sure of her voice and sound, one that is piercing and deeply relatable and authentic.” To put it simply, Burr Oak resonates by bridging voice with story.
Before the stay-at-home order, Burr Oak played the annual Chicago winter festival Tomorrow Never Knows (they opened for Twain and Buck Meek of Big Thief) and Savanna performed a solo set for Panache Booking&#8217;s &#8220;Village of Love&#8221; Planned Parenthood benefit concert this past Valentine&#8217;s Day.
(Photo Credit: Carl Solether)

Burr Oak

Music

Introducing: Burr Oak’s “Trying”

Floating Room is the musical project of Portland based multidisciplinary Uchinanchu American artist and DIY veteran Maya Stoner. Their newest EP, Tired and True, was written by Stoner and recorded in the summer of 2019 amidst a backdrop of intense transition: She graduated art school, stepped down as president of Portland indie label Good Cheer Records, and wrested creative control of her band from an ex-boyfriend and former guitarist who liked My Bloody Valentine a little too much.
Lead single “Held Open Door” is a meditation on dimming innocence set to jagged guitar pyrotechnics a la Deerhunter and Television. “Freak Show” is a self-professed “pop hit” concerning Stoner’s perceived pariah-dom within Portland’s blindingly white, furtively racist punk scene.
Tired and True is being released independently by Stoner digitally and on vinyl. It features contributions from Jon Scheid (Duck. Little Brother, Duck!, Dreamdecay), Aaron Liu (Two Moons), Jared Ridabock (Anne, Hemingway), and Mo Troper.

Floating Room

Introducing: Floating Room’s “Freakshow”

With his wonderful new album Stardust, Luka Kuplowsky makes a refreshing argument for the relevance of acoustic music as a place to hold thought; an open space to place impeccably chosen words, ideas and images. A young songwriter with a calm, conversational delivery and an effortless, un-showy grasp of poetry; Kuplowsky humbly picks up the same threads of inquiry that did Cohen, asking the big questions about love, meaning and consciousness. Musically, Stardust triangulates between Hejira and Late for the Sky, finding connections between the purity of simple melody and the tangled modulations of jazz. Luka Kuplowsky makes a music of contemplation, a music alive to the everyday possibilities of epiphany and revelation, an unhurried music that moves with the gentle and curving rhythms of thought.
(Photo Credit: Melissa Richards)

Luka Kuplowsky

Introducing: Luka Kuplowsky’s “Stardust (Reprise)”

With Fish Pond Fish, Darlingside — Dave Senft (bass), Don Mitchell (guitar, banjo), Auyon Mukharji (violin, mandolin), and Harris Paseltiner (cello, guitar) — has created a natural history in song, taking us into gardens, almond groves, orchard rows, down to the ocean floor and under stars. The band has long been praised for their harmonies and intelligent songwriting, described by NPR as “exquisitely-arranged, literary-minded, baroque folk-pop,” and their dynamic presence (crowded tightly together onstage) has made them a live-performance favorite.
(Photo Credit: Rob Stey)

Darlingside

Three Great Things: Auyon Mukharji of Darlingside

Kacey Johansing was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan and raised in the mountain towns of Colorado, the daughter of a coal miner and a painter. After leaving Berklee College of Music in Boston, Johansing relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she co-founded the duo Yesway and released two solo albums. Later moving to Los Angeles, Johansing released her third solo album The Hiding in 2017, which received widespread acclaim from critics and listeners alike and garnered comparisons to Fleetwood Mac, Carole King and Prefab Sprout. She subsequently toured internationally and shared the stage with Real Estate and Fruit Bats, and became a frequent touring member of Hand Habits. She is currently preparing for the release of her fourth album on her own Night Bloom Records.

Kacey Johansing

Introducing: Kacey Johansing’s “I Try”

Maxwell Stern&#8217;s new album, Impossible Sum, is out September 25 via Lauren Records and <a href="https://www.lauren-records.com/products/670183-maxwell-stern-impossible-sum" target="_blank" rel="noopener">available for pre-order</a> now.

Maxwell Stern

The Joy is in The Making

Groupie is a Brooklyn-based band known for turning introspection into kinetic, cathartic sound. Their music fuses the emotional edge of punk with the immersive textures of shoegaze and dream pop — sharp, shimmering, and unafraid of vulnerability. Groupie has become a mainstay in NYC’s indie scene with a sound that merges dream pop sheen and punk urgency. Since the release of their debut album Ephemeral in 2021, they have shared the stage with indie greats like Warpaint, Silversun Pickups, Neon Trees, and many more. Led by bassist and frontwoman Ashley Kossakowski, a queer, first-generation daughter of Polish immigrants, and joined by drummer Aaron Silberstein, and guitarists Eric Rubin and Eamon Lebow, the band’s evolution from the raw immediacy of their debut Ephemeral to their upcoming sophomore album reflects a sound fully in bloom — cinematic in scope, but deeply human at its core.

Groupie

Introducing: Groupie’s “Daleko”

With the minimal instrumentation of post-punk as their framework, The Wants inject the hypnotic pulse of Detroit techno into the practice of pop songwriting. Led by Madison Velding-VanDam’s elusive duality of personas, which oscillate between earnestly romantic and unsettlingly deadpan, The Wants naturally forge a dark alley off the beaten path into danceable dissonance. Velding VanDam’s vulnerable lyrics sometimes foray into the sardonically biting, reflecting the complex cycle of self-reflection of the current generation, while drawing from sources like the satire-of-power in Jenny Holzer’s “Inflammatory Essays,” and the midwestern heart of The National’s frontman Matt Berninger. Anthony “Shake” Shakir’s “Frictionalism (1994-2009)&#8221; and John Beltran’s “Ten Days of Blue” drew Velding-VanDam into the lush soundscapes and entrancing mood of electronic music.
The Wants origins are in the musical partnership between drummer Jason Gates and Velding-VanDam who met in 2014 in the Bushwick, Brooklyn DIY scene. Velding-VanDam was new to New York at the time. Their first project together (ONWE) was short lived — while Velding-VanDam retooled and Gates focused on work and his project Veda Rays, Velding-VanDam joined his friend Ben Hozie’s new project BODEGA on guitar and as a producer. Heather Elle was the final member to join The Wants — after a decade in New York, she joined BODEGA where she met Velding-VanDam and the two instantly felt a strong musical chemistry.
For their first three years as a band, The Wants performed exclusively in NYC, often at the Bushwick underground venue Alphaville. Council Records, a brand new London based label, signed The Wants in early 2019 originally for an EP that was expanded into a full length. Following their signing, The Wants traveled to Austin, TX for SXSW 2019 and London and Brighton, UK for The Great Escape 2019.
The Wants’ debut full length Container was released March 2020.
(Photo credit: Madison Carroll)

The Wants

Introducing: The Wants’ “The Motor”

Stephen Morris is the legendary drummer of both Joy Division and New Order. His contributions to post-punk and beyond are immeasurable, both as a drummer and synthesizer expert. He’s part of both “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “Blue Monday,” for God’s sake!
(Photo Credit: Warren Jackson)

Stephen Morris

Introducing: New Order’s Stephen Morris Remixes a Maps Song

Uma Bloo is a character Molly Madden invented in response to world-weariness. Originally a solo project based in burlesque performance, Madden has since expanded into a full-fledged band that connects with audiences through sheer force of will.
The band&rsquo;s strengths lie in stage performance and Madden&rsquo;s unguarded lyrics that lay her out in the open. The sultry existentialist Uma Bloo is often compared to Angel Olsen and Warhol superstar Nico, who shares a penchant for defying traditional boundaries of genre while enticing listeners to reckon with the past.
As Madden&rsquo;s first and only music project to date, her upcoming 2020 debut album includes songs she originally wrote when she was as young as 19. When she began recording, she enlisted Mike Altergott who soon after joined the band. Altergott is also a talented musician and engineer in his own right, who has worked with the likes of Fran and Fauvely, to name a few.
Madden brings her background in theater and performance to create an entirely immersive musical experience as Uma Bloo.
(Photo Credit: Monika Oliver)

Uma Bloo

Introducing: Uma Bloo’s “Coming Home”

Roundelay is LAKE’s most cohesive, adventurous, and fully realized record to date with their own brand of sophisti-pop. It is rich, layered, developed, and at times, avant-garde. Odd time-signatures reign without being too mathy, and sprinkles of horn arrangements, grand piano, and pedal steel put the elevator in the new genre they dub from this moment forward, elevator punk.
To summarize the record, “LAKE got heavy!” was exuberantly yelled at a recent gig in their hometown on Whidbey Island, WA. The band agrees their once lighter sound has drifted into a realm where they feel comfortable calling themselves “rock.”
LAKE formed 14 years ago in Olympia, WA. Their song “Christmas Island” is the ending credits theme in popular Cartoon Network show, Adventure Time. Over the years, LAKE has collaborated with Northwest native Karl Blau extensively in the studio and on the road as his back-up band. They released records for historic indie label K (Beat Happening, the Microphones) for 6 years before jumping to German pop and experimental label Tapete/Bureau B for their latest release Forever or Never (2017). In 2020 LAKE is releasing their new album Roundelay with Seattle label OFF TEMPO. They are touring in February with Pinegrove in US and Japan in March and are planning more touring for Fall 2020.

LAKE

Introducing: LAKE’s “Resolution”

Blushh was never Shab’s plan. Shab Ferdowsi started writing songs in 2015 as a joke before moving to Ireland for a month. She thought it would be funny if she could make some money busking on the streets of Galway while she was abroad. Well, she didn’t make a lot of money, but she did get into the habit of songwriting every single day. When she came back to LA with those new songs, her friends offered to join her band so she decided to give this a shot. 
In the fall of 2016 she bought an electric guitar, recorded “Are We Too Far?” in her friend’s garage, and played her first full band show.
In 2017, Blushh released its first EP It’s Fine, followed by a split EP with Maddie Ross that fall. In 2018, Shab learned what power chords are and that’s what you hear when you listen to her 2nd EP, Thx 4 Asking. That fall, the full band headed out on their first West Coast tour.
Within the next nine months, the band (now consisting of Skyler Garn on lead guitar, Kenzo Cardenas on bass, and Arturs Reirs on drums) went on two more West Coast tours, played SXSW in Austin as an official artist, performed at Treefort Festival in Boise to a crowd singing along to Shab’s lyrics, and recorded a full length album.
Blushh’s debut LP R.I.P. Apathy will be out in April 2020 and is the band’s most collaborative project yet.

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