Audra Kubat reps Detroit in NPR's Tiny Desk Contest this year. Photo by Daniel Land. For indie bands on the rise, it's become a rite of passage to perform a live set in Bob Boilen's office as part of NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series, which has been ongoing since 2008. But since 2014, [...]
Brooklyn via Detroit songwriter Anya Baghina captures the feeling of melting melancholy with fellow Soviet Girls bandmate Jonathan Franco in “Almost Alone.” As the ice drips off the branches and the sun peeks out of the grey Michigan sky, the two friends narrate the passing of time, the weight of seasonal sadness and the comfort [...]
band photos by Alexa Viscius With “band interests” listed as “fresh cut flowers & cum” on their Facebook page, it’s no surprise that Pixel Grip’s debut LP, Heavy Handed, is about as sweet as a goth-disco record can be. Bandmates Rita Lukea, Jonathan Freund and Tyler Ommen grew up in Chicago suburb, Crystal [...]
Originally from Toronto, Daniel Benjamin has been hopping from city to city for the past ten years. The longest time he’s stayed in one place were the three years he spent in Hamtramck, Michigan - a multicultural haven tucked within Detroit’s city limits - and that period ended up having a heavy hand in shaping [...]
photo by Alex Buks We’ve all heard the cliche - “some of the best songs are written in ten minutes.” Think of the story behind pretty much any early Beatles song and you’ll land at some iteration of that. But what about the songs that unravel like a slow burn, painstakingly dragged along [...]
photo by Carmel Liburdi Newcomers to the Detroit music scene, Tears of a Martian released their first single, “With You,” this week. The three-piece - Arianna Bardoni, Justin Reed, and Todd Watts - is hard to pin down genre-wise but brings a refreshing mix of indie-rock, soul and R&B to the table. Bardoni’s [...]
This week, Detroit-based producer, songwriter and DJ Tammy Lakkis released her debut single, “This is How It Goes,” a mesmerizing meditation on the cyclical nature of life. Lakkis fuses her background in more traditional songwriting and her love affair with Detroit’s electronic music scene, honing her original demo with the help of Assemble Sound resident [...]
Call it the Lady Gaga effect: a promising young artist is “discovered,” signed to a label, and goes on to achieve viral success, leaving audiences and artists alike set on the Cinderella story of being picked up and swept away by music industry magic. This romanticized version of making it big is, unfortunately, a statistically [...]
Still from Mega Powers' "Virtual Boy" music video If there’s anything 2019 has to offer so far, it’s a wealth of releases that followed in the new year. February was an especially prolific month for Detroit artists, following in the wake of January’s month-long hangover and a few spring-feeling days that turned into [...]
photo by Studio 29 Photos Detroit feminist punk/noise band GIRL FIGHT released their sophomore record, She’s a Killer, last week - a politically charged twenty-minutes that barks and bites. Ellen Cope and Jacob Bloom fine-tune their brazen two-piece effort with tighter riffs and rhythms and lyrical prowess that breaks down complex topics and makes them [...]
