RSVP HERE: SaraJazz streams via Twitch + MORE

Artists are expected to pump out content non-stop now that most of the connection with their audience is digital. Twitch variety streamer SaraJazz got a head start toeing the line between content creation and musicianship after switching from full time touring to streaming in 2018, back when most people thought of Twitch exclusively as a gaming platform. As a seasoned jazz saxophonist she came to Twitch with a resume including full time touring, radio play, and a feature on Supermans Feinde single “Shine,” which now has more than a million views on YouTube.

SaraJazz’s channel quickly grew though her quirky blend of music, comedy and gaming while speaking three different languages – German, Portuguese and English. She streams on a weekly basis and co-hosts the talk show Music Exposed with fellow streamer TheSilenceNoise on Saturdays at 5pm EST. We chatted with SaraJazz about the changing digital landscape, dealing with burnout, and the future of live performance for her career and the industry as a whole. 

AF: How did you get started as a musician and what got you into comedy?

SJ: Music has always been part of my life. I taught myself how to play basic piano as a kid. In early college I picked up the tenor saxophone as a hobby and taught myself how to play it. One day I wanted to buy an alto saxophone from a professional saxophonist – Michael Ausserbauer. When he heard me play he said I’d be dumb not to pursue a career as a full-time musician and invited me to play with him in his band. And because I’m very conscious about being dumb, I listened. And so my journey as a musician began.

Much later I started broadcasting on Twitch and discovered that people enjoyed my goofy sense of humor. I developed a passion for comedy and started not taking myself seriously. That was very refreshing for me because I came from jazz – which is a typically very serious scene. Slowly I started planning out comedy bits and started working on visuals that fit memes and jokes on my stream.

AF: When did you start streaming on Twitch and where did you get the idea for your channel?

SJ: Twitch was a gaming site in my mind. But I always thought, wouldn’t it be cool to play the sax live for people online? I never got around to doing so until July 2018 when I had a full month free of gigs. I saw WaxWaneMusic’s stream and was immediately hooked on the idea to also start streaming myself. So I researched basic streaming software, started the webcam on my gaming laptop, plugged in my USB mic and played some sax. I grew pretty fast and noticed people enjoy my comedy, so I slowly built my stream around it. My channel is always the result of a constant evolution of my state of mind. And being variety, thankfully my audience is very forgiving of me having different moods, ideas, or even switching content for a while. But comedy is always the root of my channel.

AF: Is SaraJazz a persona you’ve created, and alter ego? Or is she more a reflection of your true self? 

SJ: SaraJazz is basically Sara on crack with a shield. It’s what I have inside of me and is part of me – but SaraJazz is much more obnoxious, talkative, and loud than Sara. Sara is an introvert who likes the quiet. SaraJazz was always part of me – it’s the part that got me through hard times in life, where I had to toughen up. It’s the part of me that doesn’t give a fuck. SaraJazz is one of the dudes but in a hot girl’s body. She has the humor of a horny trucker, is loud, and will tell you off if you piss her off. Lately I’m trying to show more of Sara to my audience, though. And I’m still figuring out if that’s a good idea or not.

AF: When did you switch from full-time touring to full-time streaming and why?

SJ: I switched pretty much three months into streaming. I know that’s very unusual. As an introvert I felt extremely comfortable streaming from my own studio at home and being able to just goof around. My stream grew very fast and I had a lot of big supporters who believed in my art. Since I had just left my main band half a year before (because I just didn’t identify with their stale jazz style anymore) and I was unhappy with the bands I was playing with, I canceled all contracts with bands and producers towards the end of 2018 and went solo on Twitch. It’s what saved my ass in 2020. I would’ve starved in the pandemic if I still relied on gigs and tours to pay my bills. Which is why I made videos to help musicians get started on Twitch to help them pay their bills.

AF: How has Twitch changed since you began your channel and how do you feel it’s changed positively and negatively in 2020?

SJ: Twitch has changed a lot since 2018. I feel like discoverability got worse but also more talented streamers joined. I’m not the biggest fan of how Twitch handles themselves. I do see a trend of Twitch becoming more and more corporate and PG, with more labels joining, content being forced into a more ad-friendly environment and Twitch implementing more child-friendly rules. As someone coming from jazz bars with mature humor I don’t feel as at home as I’d like and used to.

AF: Who are some of your favorite streamers?

SJ: To be honest I don’t watch as much Twitch as I should. In my free time I watch more YouTube. But when I do I watch people like TheSilenceNoise, NorthboundMatt, MoraisHD, Kaceytron, AliceTheLittleAlien, TheManChildShow, and JohnWolfe.

AF: How do you see the audience and culture of Twitch shifting as more musicians turn to it in place of live shows and touring?

SJ: When I joined Twitch I immediately understood that online live performance is the future. Especially coming from a pretty much dead scene: jazz. I do think professional musicians should turn more to online content, although with the pandemic in 2020 I predict there will be a higher demand for live shows and tours again once the lockdowns are over.

As for the Twitch culture, plenty of viewers still don’t realize there are music and art categories. Most people view Twitch as a gaming platform. The more gaming streamers support musicians and artists on the platform, the more viewers will understand there is a whole creative world on Twitch.

AF: When did you start Music Exposed and who have been some of your favorite guests?

SJ: Music Exposed started in March 2020. The idea was to support musicians on Twitch – regardless of their size – in a format similar to Saturday Night Live but with live audience interaction (chat). TheSilenceNoise and I had the idea at the same time and started working together.

What I love about the show is that we ask questions that are very “real.” We tackle topics like drug addiction, mental health, financial distress etc. DarthRipz for example told us he had to threaten a club owner with a gun to get paid after a gig. Then we have other guests who talked about how music helped them with addiction. Or Hammeta who was homeless while busking. Musicians are extremely interesting people. One of my favorite episodes didn’t even have me in it: Episode 25 with Existence130 and NorthboundMatt.

All episodes are available as podcasts on streaming services and also as video on YouTube, btw.

AF: As a variety streamer and content creator you have so many more things to keep updated on top of being a musician/artist. How do you stay organized and are there any social platforms you wish you didn’t have to be on?

SJ: Variety is extremely difficult. Someone once called doing variety on Twitch committing content suicide. And it is kind of true. When you do variety you have a lot of fluctuation in viewers and regulars. Which impacts your revenue. As a variety streamer you have to make sure people stay for your personality. Which is also one of the reasons why comedy is so important on my channel. If I did only one type of content I would be bored out of my mind, though. My mind is racing constantly and I get easily bored. And if I already work a job that is difficult and unsatisfying financially, then at least I want to have as much fun as possible.

I try to be on top of the newest games – especially horror, since that’s my specialty – and gaming news. I also talk about politics when important things are happening in the world. So I also research articles and info about that. I also try to be on top of what happens on Twitch and talk about that. Plus trying to keep up with the newest memes. All of that plus trying to make fresh jokes and coming up with new topics. The music part is the easy part. That’s what I trained for for years and I can play or improvise over any song. It’s basically a 24/7 job.

I wish I didn’t have to be on as many platforms as I do to try to stay relevant. The sheer amount of platforms is what takes all my time away: Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, YouTube, Discord, etc. You need to be everywhere at all times to not be forgotten. The internet works fast. A year is ten years in internet time. A meme that was popular today will be old news and lame in three days.

AF: I’m new to streaming and it sounds so sterile being called a “content creator” – did you feel like this at first? Do you think there’s a better title for what you do?

SJ: I agree, it doesn’t really reflect anything. I prefer “content creator” to “influencer” though. “Influencer” sounds condescending to me. Although I hope I influence people in being kind and creative. On Twitter I call myself a professional troll and fabulous bitch. Let’s go with that as a title!

AF: Do you have any self-care routines or strategies to deal with burnout?

SJ: Ha, I wish. I’m slowly learning how to slow down and not work myself to death. I was always a workaholic. And the last two years have been hard for me mentally – so I dove into work like crazy. I worked nonstop. Built a community and never stopped. Now that I have a supportive partner who has gone through health issues due to being a workaholic himself, he helps me calm down and work less. Currently I’m working on recovering from my burnout in early 2020.

My biggest advice for streamers who start feeling tired: turn off viewer count! That’s very important for your mental health. Your performance is not gonna change if you’re performing for 20 or 2000 people – so just ignore the numbers and interact with chat as usual. As online creators we get caught up in numbers because that’s all that seems to matter: followers, likes, subs, viewers, growth. It’s part of this horrible mentality of “grind to get successful.” And I’m pretty sure many of us are tired of hearing stuck up business men in fancy suits say we need to work more to be more successful. No, motherfucker, we need to work efficiently. And if it’s not working, try a different strategy. Don’t work yourself to death! Don’t take the advice of “stream for 12 hours every day” when you have 3 viewers. That’s terrible advice.

AF: What would your advice be for someone who wants to become a full-time streamer now?

SJ: Don’t do it because you expect money or fame. Because you most likely won’t achieve that. Do it if you have a burning passion for your content and can handle the financial and mental tolls it takes.

Don’t quit your stable job just because you had a good month or two. Twitch fluctuates a lot and people run out of money. Try to go part-time with your regular job first, see how that works for a few months and once you have some money aside to survive a few months without any income and make enough on your platform to pay all your bills and more – do it! Basically just like any self-employed business. Actually TheSilenceNoise and I are thinking about offering courses on this matter, where we also review channels, help growth, and give business tips.

AF: Is there anything about the music industry as a whole that you would like to see change?

SJ: I will say the same as so many musicians will tell you: I wish it was less about money. The music industry is not an industry of creatives – it’s a lobby. It’s run by cigar smoking men in expensive robes who don’t even play a musical instrument. The gaming industry is slowly becoming that, too. Which is sad.

AF: Do you have plans to record and release any music in 2021?

SJ: This is where we go back to the question about burnout. Part of my recovery is writing more music again. By focusing on being a “content creator” so much I forgot to be a musician. I didn’t have time to write music anymore. And writing music requires quiet time for me, which I didn’t have since I started streaming. I am planning to release an EP with TheSilenceNoise in 2021 and once the pandemic is over I want to go on tour with him. My vision is prog rock with jazz elements, since we both have different backgrounds. But I imagine it working in a very unique and amazing way. I’m very stoked to go back on tour. We want to go on tour in both Europe and the US – anyone out there wanna book us in advance? I want to put together a band and a good show, so the audience has a unique and emotional experience. I can’t wait to start planning it once the world is back to normal.

More great livestreams this week…

2/5 Black Pumas via NPR Live Streams. 12pm ET RSVP HERE

2/6 “Black Laughs Matter” Virtual Comedy Show, 11pm ET, $0-20 RSVP HERE

2/6 Drew Citron via BABY.tv. 8pm ET, $5 RSVP HERE

2/9 Shakey Graves via Mandolin. 9pm ET, $20 RSVP HERE

2/9 JW Francis, Wendy Eisenberg, Haasan Barclay, Jolee Gordon, Raavi & The Houseplants via Twitch. 8pm ET RSVP HERE

2/10 Dead Leaf Echo via FIRSTLIVE. 5pm ET, $10 RSVP HERE

2/10 Snailmate via Twitch. 9pm ET RSVP HERE

2/11 Waxahatchee via Bandsintown PLUS. 10pm ET RSVP HERE

2/11 OHMME, AJ Marroquin, NNAMDI and more via The Hideout Online – a very special Valentine’s Day. 8pm ET, $10 RSVP HERE

Anna Fox Rochinski Champions the Effervescence of Pop Music with Debut Solo Single “Cherry”

Photo Credit: Eleanor Petry

Sometimes things coincide unintentionally to come together in a way that ultimately makes the most sense. Such serendipity is at play with Anna Fox Rochinski’s upcoming solo debut Cherry (out March 26 on Don Giovanni Records), of which she shared the title track and video last week. Rochinski is perhaps best known as a vocalist and guitarist for psych rock four-piece Quilt. Few sonic elements of that band remain on this latest offering, which is a product entirely of Rochinski’s own mind: plucky 70’s art funk shone through the lens of some very specific contemporary pop influences, among them Madonna, Midnite Vultures-era Beck, and Robyn’s 1995 debut.

Although Rochinski acknowledges that “lyrically my record is rather sad,” it doesn’t feel or sound that way. As evidenced by “Cherry,” it’s fun and funky, an amalgamation of futuristic sound effects, wiry guitar riffs, and the fizziness of pop music. “Honestly, pop music is something that I’ve always loved my whole life, and I kind of need it now more than ever, if that makes sense?” she says of this shift. “Pop music is almost medicinal in a way. Maybe not medicinal, but what I need. It’s an effervescence that I have to have right now. And it’s extremely fun. And I just recommitted myself to the pursuit of fun.”

Shooting the video itself became part of the pursuit. Shot in Arizona by director Alex LaLiberte (OTIUM) and styled by Dani Bennett, we’re presented with three different characters. One floats around her house wearing a flowing silk robe (designed and sewn by Bennett herself) and drinking a green juice, perhaps the idyllic version we all wish to embody during this time at home. Another is a business woman presiding over an empty conference room, her turquoise pants, scrunchie, and the furniture all mirroring each other by accident (there’s that serendipity again). The third dances around a semi-abandoned shopping mall in the sun, light and carefree in her yellow pants.

Rochinski acknowledges the difficulty of breaking out of her shell to embody these characters, recounting a dispute with the director over a black blouse she insisted on wearing. “I was like c’mon man! I’m so used to wearing black in New York City. It’s kind of a habit we fall into here,” she says. “He pushed me out of that comfort zone but I’m glad he did. He was like, ‘These are outfits that you aren’t going to wear in your normal life because we are making a music video. Like these are characters.’”

The production itself was the first time Rochinski experienced socializing in any capacity during the pandemic; the crew all got tested upon arrival. Despite the particular accommodations that had to be made in the interest of safety, Rochinski is quick to acknowledge the joy of “collaborating on a creative project in such a normal and free way with people. I had been missing that too. It was just great! But it’s ironic because in the video all you see is me. And like a shadow at times too.” 

But who are these characters, and who is that shadow? She leaves the characters themselves up to interpretation, keeping them abstract if only to say that she’s not really sure if they’re all her or not, or just different versions of the same person. It conveys a certain kind of isolation, the fragments of ourselves we present in different settings and social situations that mask the complete picture of who we are. “It’s kind of like this person at home, and then another version at work, and then another version out in a public space being more carefree, conveying different emotions and different atmospheres of emotion rather than conveying specific people,” she says. All of whom, it’s worth noting, don’t cross paths with a single living person throughout the whole video.

They’re chased only by a faceless shadow, which follows the characters throughout all the settings and portrays the distinct feeling of being watched. But not necessarily by another person, Rochinksi explains, as much as by yourself, the person we often hide from the most. While she says the shadow too is up for interpretation, she does offer some insight. “Maybe it’s something from the past that’s haunting you, but maybe it’s also an opportunity from the future that I’m resisting,” she says. “The song is about this push-and-pull feeling of knowing that you’re emotionally unavailable but being presented with chances to connect, and kind of wanting it but knowing it’s impossible. So you’re haunted by past trouble while trying to move forward into the future, but being stuck in the middle, just preserving yourself, out of the need to protect your heart.”

In other words, there’s a sense of choosing isolation because the possibility of anything else feels too vulnerable – a sentiment that shows itself in the first lines of the track itself: “I’ll never let him in/Because my guard is up for stormy weather.” The shadow, in a way, is that guard.

Rochinski penned Cherry, her first solo effort, after transplanting herself from the Hudson Valley to New York City following a tough break-up of a six-year relationship, starting a new life on her own without a partner or her band. Although she had written and recorded this album pre-COVID, isolation is already a major theme at play, starkly evident in the video itself. But in another example of bittersweet serendipity, our current circumstances offer the album a whole new emotional entry-point for listeners. We’re all alone right now, in some capacity or another. For many, the isolation on display in this video will resonate with the experiences of this past year, the slivers of our identities shaved off once we no longer saw coworkers in person, or that friend you have lunch with maybe once a month, or the barista from the coffeeshop. And for musicians, that extends to the part of their identities lost with the continued cessation of live shows and touring, something they must all contend with.

Rochinski remains optimistic. “I have high hopes for late 2021, but I’m not expecting anything,” she says. “I’m just keeping my ears perked up and planning on rehearsing a band and just basically being ready to play in whatever capacity we can play in, so there can at least be some documentation of live performances of these songs. I feel very excited about that actually. I’m keeping an open mind on how to show the world the performances.” 

In the same way the fun, funky instrumentals of “Cherry” add nuance to the song’s sad lyrics, the point here is to try to make peace with the difficulty of our present circumstances, to bask in the version of yourself living right now, and, lest we forget, to recommit to the pursuit of fun. As Rochinski has shown us with “Cherry,” it’s when you do this that things finally come together in the way that makes the most sense.

Follow Anna Fox Rochinski on Instagram and Twitter for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Andrea Clute Dials Up the Heat with “Red Light”

“There is nothing more intimate than giving everything that you are to somebody you love,” says singer-songwriter Andrea Clute. Her latest track, “Red Light,” zeroes in on her long-term relationship, simultaneously depicting emotional vulnerability, confidence, and the importance of sustained passion.

“I’ve been with the same person for a few years now. [When the song was written] we had been together for five years so the lyrics ‘even after five years, this is all I want dear’ literally means that no matter how much time passes, my love for this person is endless,” the Vancouver-based musician tells Audiofemme.

Growing up in the High School Musical-obsessed world of the late ’00s, it’s no surprise that Clute used music and performance as an outlet growing up. A self-confessed Belieber, the 23-year-old had her sights set on honing her craft, experimenting with atmospheric sounds and cinematic elements. “I’ve been learning how to write [songs] through trial and error and learning how to sing better by practicing every day and learning new techniques,” she says. “This is the only thing I ever want to do. Of course there are moments where I’m like, I don’t know if I can do this, this is not a stable path. But then I think, screw it! Just go for it and make the best of it.”

Through a combination of gaining more confidence with each single and the general increase in more time spent at home (courtesy of the pandemic), Clute has become more and more involved in the production process. “I was in a rush before, but this period has encouraged me to enjoy my time now,” Clute explains. “With my music, I’ve taken it one day at a time rather than thinking months in advance. I know COVID is stressful, and it has certainly taken its toll on me, but it has also made me appreciate life more and the process of making music is more fun now.”

Music runs strong within her family – her brother Chris Clute creates his own electronic pop, typified by tracks such as “Darkest Hour” and “Special To Me.” Naming her as one of his inspirations for 2020, the two share a supportive relationship which has led to a number of collaborations. “I was definitely inspired by Chris because he was already ahead of me in making music. I was always in awe as to how he came up with all those ideas,” Andrea Clute says. “When we do come together we always show each other the new songs that we made and share ideas. We have a couple songs together that we’ve written and I hope that we can write more together – it’s really interesting to see how we write differently and have different styles.”

Having a support base of like-minded friends, family, and collaborators has helped Clute push herself in more musical ways than she ever thought possible. Canadian production duo Sound of Kalima worked with Clute on “Red Light,” and she says her encounter with them helped demystify music production. “I’ve had more input on beats and I just feel more involved and more connected to the music that we’re making,” she says.

This connection shows in the final product – “Red Light” is markedly different from the singer’s past work. Previously released racks such as “Haunted” and “Xoxo” have a more upbeat pop feel, demonstrating the ways Clute experiments with her expression. With “Red Light,” she manipulates space, letting the lyrics breathe with each chord as the melody washes over the listener. Clute’s latest single opens the door to a new side of her personality, a harbinger of continued evolution as Clute enters into the alt-R&B realm.

“Red Light” begins with a melodic introduction that conveys an off-kilter feel before a sensual beat comes in – the effect is similar to waking up from a dream – and Clute begins to narrate intimate scenes from her relationship. Airy flutes, angelic harp, and sinewy guitar samples drift in and out of the production, cementing the track’s meditative, dreamy feeling.

Though “Red Light” can be taken as a quintessential slow jam, with Clute consumed by the emotions she’s experiencing and the vulnerability that loss of control brings, she embeds dual meaning into the lyrics, using physical descriptions to convey emotional feelings and thought processes. “The lyrics sound pretty physical, but the imagery is more spiritual,” Clute points out. “When I say ‘Imma take it all off for ya’ it can mean I’m going to take off my clothes, but in my head it stands for me wanting to be my true self. Everything has a deeper meaning in this song.”

By the close of “Red Light,” Clute repeats the line “I just wanna love you,” conveying a poignant, visceral yearning. The soul connection Clute seeks may be expressed by the physicality between she and her partner, but their bond seemingly goes much deeper, making “Red Light” a compelling study of human desire in the emerging singer’s catalogue.

Follow Andrea Clute on Instagram for ongoing updates.

Aaron Lee Tasjan Talks Most Personal LP to Date, Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!

Photo Credit: Curtis Wayne Millard

Aaron Lee Tasjan can still remember watching MTV for the first time while on summer vacation with his family, introduced to the music network by the local high school student his parents hired to babysit him and his sister. “There were two videos that really got me,” he professes. One was Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train,” which captured his attention with its acoustic riffs, the other being The Black Crowes’ cover of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle.” After watching those videos, Tasjan says, “everything in the house became a guitar.” Tasjan happened to find a guitar pick on the floor left behind by a previous guest, which he took as a sign. “I treasured that guitar pick,” he says with emphasis. “I was just so fascinated with it.”

Fate would intervene again four years later when Tasjan’s family relocated to Southern California. A young Tasjan was at Vons grocery store with his mother when he spotted a small guitar shop next door offering lessons (the first was free, a sign announced). The aspiring musician convinced his mother to let him take a lesson, furthering his passion for the instrument.

The family later moved to Ohio; at the age of 16, Tasjan was invited to sing a folk song he wrote about peace at his school’s Columbine remembrance day event. The song led Tasjan to a life-changing opportunity to perform at a safe school conference in Ohio hosted by Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary). Yarrow was so moved by Tasjan’s song that he invited Tasjan onstage to sing the Grammy-winning trio’s hit cover of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” That same year, Tasjan flew to New York with the Columbus Youth Jazz program and won the outstanding guitarist award at the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival. 

Each of these moments represent a seed planted in the music connoisseur, who’s since flourished into a genre-blending artist with his infusion of psychedelic-rock-meets-interstellar-pop. “My sound is informed mostly by what moves me. I never really thought of music in terms of genre,” he explains. “I have been touching all these different styles of music since I was a kid. It was just that way for me and always has been. All of these things are intentional and they’re done with purpose, and I think that’s why I seem to be able to do different styles of things that still connect with people.”

That’s evident on Tasjan’s brilliant – and most personal to date – solo album Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!, out February 5 via New West Records. Introduced with a three-part video series that positions Tasjan as an alien lifeform kept awake by rock ‘n’ roll transmissions in “Up All Night,” searches the universe to fulfill his musical destiny on “Computer Love,” and takes stock of his journey, ultimately beaming his own unique sound into the cosmos with “Don’t Overthink It,” the record is a culmination of both Tasjan’s journey and his retro sensibilities.

Tasjan began honing his sound in earnest after ditching a scholarship at Berklee College of Music and moving to New York at the age of 20, where he met future pop hit songwriter Justin Tranter. The two formed Semi Precious Weapons, alongside Cole Whittle and Dan Crean, in late 2008. In large part to his connection to Tranter, Tasjan became immersed in queer culture, disclosing that he knew at an early age he was queer, yet wasn’t self-aware enough to understand it at the time. “I just knew that I seemed to be attracted to all different kinds of people and I didn’t know what that meant,” Tasjan remarks of having romantic experiences with men and women while in high school. “I never really defined that or thought of that as ‘I need to figure this out’ or anything like that. It was something that felt natural to me, to be able to fall in love with people that captured me in some way.”

Tranter was instrumental in helping to broaden Tasjan’s horizon when it came to queer culture; he’d watch in awe as Tranter orchestrated photo shoots while indie designers Tommy Cole and Roy Caires of fashion brand Alter (formerly known as This Old Thing?) designed the outfits the band wore on stage. The two also attended several drag shows together, Tasjan marveling at the art of performance – and later referencing his relationship with one of the queens in “Up All Night.” “They weren’t just doing this performance, they were living this performance. It gave you a whole new sense of what it meant to really be authentic within the context of whatever it is you’re trying to present in art, but to really come at it with intention and a desire to be seen,” he observes, adding that Tranter pulled inspiration from drag shows into the band’s live shows.

Tranter and Tasjan also experienced the discriminatory side of being openly queer. Tasjan recalls how Tranter would be chased down the street after coming out of a club in certain pars of town, and recounts a frightening experience when the two were chased by a man in his car. “That was not an uncommon part of [Tranter’s] life. Because I was his partner musically and we had this band together, those moments just broke your heart, largely in a way because they felt too common,” Tasjan reflects, adding that he’s been met with a fair share of disapproving looks that were “always interesting.”

In the fertile Lower East Side club scene, they met rising burlesque performer Stefani Germanotta, sharing bills in small LES venues with her as she developed her electronic pop persona Lady Gaga; Semi Precious Weapons would go on to open as special guests for lengthy stretches of her Monster Ball Tour, once her first singles catapulted her to fame. But by then, Tasjan had left Semi Precious Weapons to perform as the lead guitarist for New York Dolls, and formed his own band, The Madison Square Gardeners, before eventually moving to Nashville in 2013.

Staying true to his identity is embedded in Tasjan’s DNA, exemplified by the autobiographical single “Feminine Walk.” Describing the song as “the naked truth,” the song comes halfway through Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!, which the artist says he recorded some 22 songs for, filtered down to 11 that “happened to be the ones where I was really singing about me,” he notes, adding that the subject matter of “Feminine Walk” “doesn’t leave room for guessing” in terms of its subject matter. Tasjan candidly sings, “I get one look, two look, three look, four, every time I’m at the bathroom door,” and though the track is ultimately celebratory in feel, he admits the song served as a “good opportunity to use my creativity to challenge my fear beliefs,” he says. “Everything kind of fell out because it was always there. It was like it was just waiting to happen the right way.”

Tasjan entered the writing process with a vivid childhood memory of walking down the street with his dad when he was no older than eight, donning a ’70s style bowl cut and an “androgynous” look that prompted an older child to stop the father-son pair and ask “is that a boy or a girl?” while pointing at the young Tasjan. He recalls another experience in a Denver airport as an adult, standing at the sink in the men’s bathroom washing his hands wearing jeans, a pea coat and hat when another man walked in and saw him, immediately walking out with a spooked look on his face. Moments later, he returned, laughing and saying that he initially thought he walked into the wrong bathroom. Tasjan laughs himself as he recites the memories, void of any animosity or bitterness. “My sense is more that they’re intrigued by it, and that’s what’s angering them more so than who I’m being,” Tasjan points out, using the song to investigate the curiosity of how people carry themselves and the impression it makes on others.

“I thought about that in my life and how some people have these qualities that seem to capture others in all sorts of different ways, but for some reason, people are captured by the way that somebody looks sometimes whether it’s for a good reason or a bad reason,” he muses. “I just happen to be one of those people. Everybody at some point in time has felt insecure about the way in which they’re perceived – we’ve all had an experience like that.”

“I like songs that I feel like are a part of the cannon, a part of the conversation of music that’s been happening for a long time. That song to me felt like it could be a part of that because I wasn’t sure that I had heard a song before where I had heard somebody say it quite like that. So that made me feel like ‘this is a good road to go down with this one,’” he adds. 

“Feminine Walk” allows Tasjan to explore the differences in perception that often translate into vulnerability – and that exploration doesn’t end with those anecdotes. Tasjan shares another distinct memory from his youth when he proudly invited his classmates on the playground to gather around as he attempted to do his impression of Michael Jackson’s famous moonwalk, feeling a sense of accomplishment when his peers asked him to do it again, only to realize they were actually making fun of him. It’s a moment that Tasjan says draws a parallel to his life as a performer, inviting people in to explore and immerse themselves in his wonderment – wholly accepting the genuine reactions from each individual.

“People’s perception of everything is going to be colored by their own experience, so you put yourself out there knowing that. It’s not really yours to create the experience for someone else – you have to allow them to have that experience on their own, which means it’s going to take on a different meaning than whatever it was that you intended, and I think you just have to be cool with that,” he observes.

“I seek out these moments purposely. There’s something about testing how far is too far, how much is too much. Something about that does inspire me creatively, or makes me feel like I’m pushing myself into a place that I haven’t been yet,” he says. “That’s my goal to do that on every record.”

Follow Aaron Lee Tasjan on Facebook and Instagram for ongoing updates.

Buzzy Lee Won’t Cry Over “Spoiled Love”

Photo Credit: Julia Brokaw

Growing up as Hollywood royalty, Los Angeles musician Sasha Spielberg has always been able to indulge her creative streak, from playing bit parts in her dad’s movies to forming bands, like Wardell with brother Theo and Just Friends with fellow Brown University alum and longtime collaborator Nicolas Jaar. But since she’s stepped into her solo persona as Buzzy Lee, Spielberg has come to embody her truest form – beyond the caricatures and cameos in blockbusters – speaking the raw language of lost love and discovery of self. Her much-delayed debut LP Spoiled Love arrived last Friday via Future Classic, like a ray of warm sunshine or a timid coastal zephyr as the East Coast braced for a foot of snow.

At its heart, Spoiled Love is an authentic chronicle of past relationships. It opens up with three articulate, melodic vocal ballads. Tracks like “Strange Town” have Southern influences. And as the album progresses, “Circles” and “High On You” are more synth-heavy, not unlike Buzzy Lee’s 2018 EP, Facepaint, which Jaar also had a hand in producing. With all the different elements in the album, it comes together surprisingly well. Started in a café in Paris, then assembled throughout three seasons with Jaar (whom Spielberg affectionately refers to as Nico), Spoiled Love delivers all of the above.

First came the lyrics, entirely written in the City of Light. “I was on this European tour. I was also dating a French guy, which is very Emily In Paris. I was a complete parody of myself sitting in a café writing lyrics, holding a baguette,” Spielberg jokes. A couple days later, she headed home to Los Angeles to play the songs for Jaar. “The whole album started with just piano and vocals. The first one we started with in the studio was ‘Circles.’ We created a beat and I was playing keys, and then I came up with a melody in the room,” Spielberg recalls. “That was how we got started; this is how we always do it. We record a synth-heavy song with drums, and then we get into the deeper stuff.” 

After working with Spielberg on Facepaint, Jaar had moved to Europe, leaving her to search for another producer, but eventually she came to terms with the fact that no one else could help bring her songs to life the way he could. “When we get into a room together – I know this is so cheesy – it feels very magical,” Spielberg admits. She leaned on Jaar’s motivating guidance as much as his production ideas, particularly for the album’s title track, which Spielberg says she had been hasty about writing lyrics for.

“He was like, ‘Will you just read me the lyrics without the music?’ I knew that he was going to catch me in my bullshitting procrastination, like classic high-school, Sasha; I really plowed through and did not think about the meaning at all. I just was like, ‘The melody will do the work,’” Spielberg recalls. “Nico’s whole thing is like, ‘No. The melody can’t just do the work. The lyrics have to mean something, or else none of this is going to work.’ He put [‘Spoiled Love’] on a loop and left for a walk. For an hour and a half, I rewrote all the lyrics. After I read them back to him, he goes, ‘That’s it.’ Then we recorded ‘Spoiled Love.’”

Two tracks tie together the middle of the album. While “Mendonoma” is only instrumental, it reprises the nostalgic stomp of “Strange Town” like a ghostly, lingering memory; both bring listeners back to the salty air where Spielberg once knew love, or what seemed to be love, anyway. “‘Strange Town’ is about a Northern California coastal town, a place I would go with my ex. It was a place I could be exactly who he wanted me to be, without the distractions of my daily routine in L.A., which he did not approve of,” Spielberg remembers. “He really loved the person I was in Gualala, because we were walking all day, we weren’t on our phones. We were on the beach, we were in the forest, we were by the river. It was just so haunting there.” Even though it was a turbulent relationship, Spielberg stayed in it for four years, justifying her lack of resolve by revisiting these empyrean moments – a behavior anyone who’s suffered silently in a toxic relationships can relate to.

Leaving one harmful cycle, Spielberg found herself in a new relationship where she felt like she was trying on a different costume. “I entered this relationship with someone who I just felt just did not approve of me. I felt like I was working so hard for his validation,” Spielberg says. “I wanted him to love me the way he loved his other girlfriend. I wanted to be this dark, mysterious person for him. We got into a fight and I went to the keyboard – very, very 16-year-old me – and just started writing.” In a moment of swearing off men forever, the single “What Has A Man Done” was born. 

The release of Spoiled Love was pushed due to the pandemic – Spielberg had been hoping she’d be able to tour and humanely connect with her fans – but as time went on, she felt the album could not be delayed much longer. “I’ve had one breakup since, and I’ve fallen in love again. It’s just a different world, though the songs still mean so much to me,” she says. She’s already set to record her next album in the middle of February, and though it’s been a struggle to write new material while anticipating the release of Spoiled Love, she’s been playing around with songs and resurrecting old voice notes.

Spielberg has also been busy with her hilarious Twitch series, Gearhead. Streaming once a week, she interviews musicians on their favorite instruments, gear technology, mics, and more. “I do a lot of different genres. I’m trying everything. I want to do country at some point. I want to just interview everyone,” she says. “It is so fun being the interviewer. My whole character is that I know nothing about gear, but I make it seem like I know everything. And then once I’m challenged, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m someone who’s learning about gear through these interviews.”

She easily rattles off the vintage synths she’d love to add to her own collection: “I really want an OB-6, Oberheim. Dear Wishlist, I want a Prophet. Udo, U-D-O, super sick synthesizer. I want that too.” She plans to continue the series throughout the year, and has exciting guests joining at the end of February. To complete her gifted trifecta, you can also get an original Sasha Spielberg watercolor painting of your pet. 

With these multiple avenues for her unbridled creativity, she has found some internal validation. Many lessons were learned from her sequence of heartaches, her songs reading like a diary of deliverance. While writing the album was not a cure-all, these past relationships made her reflect on why she was doing the same dance. The time spent spinning her wheels cannot be taken back, but she doesn’t grieve over it.

There is still one thing she feels robbed of, though – live performances. “I do need that fix. There is something so exciting about going on stage,” she says. “There’s an adrenaline rush, and then if people are into it, it just fills you with so much. I can get lost in a performance – which again sounds so cheesy – but if I can get lost and I’m completely present, there’s no better feeling.”

Follow Buzzy Lee on Facebook and Instagram for ongoing updates.

Latin Grammy-nominated Nathy Peluso Provokes Raw Emotion on Debut LP Calambre

The birth of Argentine trap exists as one of the most promising and evocative musical trends for 2021 – and at the forefront of the buzz sits Nathy Peluso, a queen riding on the worldwide embrace of Latin sounds spanning from rhumba, salsa, and Cuban ballroom styles, to its ’90s rebirth helmed by producer Sergio George (who worked with Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, La India and more), to today’s Billboard-topping smash hits like “‘Despacito.” With a modern twist and a dramatic presence, Peluso’s in-your-face persona and genre defying repertoire will leave a mark on your musical memory.

On her bold debut LP Calambre, the Barcelona-based, Argentine-born artist exhibits stylistic versatility, including trap beats, retro R&B toplines, and a fresh take on old-school salsa. After moving to Spain with her family at age 10, she spent her adolescence discovering hip hop via artists such as Notorious B.I.G., Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent and Timbaland. She became enthralled by hip hop’s subversive attitude, although she wasn’t immediately able to translate the deeper meaning behind the lyrics.

Discovering her ability to freestyle, rhyme, and harmonize opened up endless musical possibilities for Peluso. 2017’s trap-driven debut single “Corashe” illustrates a modest Peluso, a vocalist and M.C. of wisdom and quick witted words. By 2020, she had evolved to a stylized, technicolor Y2K pop icon, drawing comparisons to Lady Gaga with “Business Woman.” With a natural affinity for grand gestures, and performative characters, she hopscotches between styles, genres, dynamic accents, and cultural languages. “I don’t want to please. I want to provoke,” she explains.

A natural beauty reminiscent of late pop sensation Selena, Peluso is an accomplished performer who breaks the mold in the current Latin urban pop landscape with her unique flow and hyper magnetic energy. With the fusion of cutting edge sounds, fashion forward fits, and her ability to incorporate unique crossover elements into her music, she’s carving out her own sacred space in the entertainment industry.

“My influences go in many different directions because I’m a music-lover and I revel in discovering and fusing genres that wouldn’t appear to have anything in common but that I enjoy mixing,” she says, before rattling off numerous inspirations. “From Brazil, I listen to Antônio Carlos Jobim and Caetano Veloso. When I’m listening to boleros, I like to hear Celia Cruz and Antonio Machin. For tangos, Anibal Troilo. My favorite salsa artists are Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón, Ray Barretto. I have always listened to jazz – my heart belongs to Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles. Of course, hip-hop – Dr. Dre, Timbaland, J Dilla; as well as female rappers like Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim, or Foxy Brown who have contributed a lot to my way of understanding and challenging myself in hip hop.”

Visceral and vulnerable, sexy yet understated, onstage and in the digital arena, Peluso’s unique sensibilities have garnered her a cult following. Before signing with Sony, Peluso released two independent EPs that gained her acclaim in the underground urban and alternative scenes in Spain: 2017’s Esmeralda, a collection of singles; and 2018’s La Sandunguera, in which she ironically channeled a tongue-in-cheek version of a fiercely empowered Latina femme fatale. “I get really bored being the same person. I like to dig for characters inside of me,” Peluso explains. “Sometimes it’s for the drama, sometimes just to laugh. It’s all a reflection of what I have inside me, that intensity.” With the success of La Sandunguera, Peluso played in her native Argentina for the first time and made her North American debut at the Latin Alternative Music Conference (LAMC) in New York City’s Central Park.  

“My career is entertainment, not just music,” Peluso asserts. That fearlessness drives the overarching concept for Calambre, including its Grace Jones-inspired album cover.  “I’m the one who takes the plug and causes the shock – of passion, happiness, whatever it is, I want to stir people’s guts without them being able to contain themselves.”

Peluso made her grand debut at the 21st Annual Latin Grammy Awards in November 2020, performing Calambe track “Buenos Aires,” which was nominated for Best Alternative Song (Peluso also earned a Latin Grammy nomination for Best New Artist). Taking a step back from her modern M.C. persona, she was backed by Argentinian singer and pianist Fito Paez for soulful rendition of the single. Peluso’s sultry and expressive tone exuded true star power, while her seamless contemporary choreography was hypnotic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=156&v=IyAmbm6Sd0k&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=CALAMBRE

“I’ve always felt linked to dance even when I wasn’t consciously aware of it. I always intuitively moved my body when I sang,” Peluso says. “As a child I would watch myself in the mirror and dance for fun. As I developed my talents, dance became more intentional, and I began studying professionally. I’ve been preparing the fusion of these art forms since I realized this was my passion. It makes me really happy to share this with the world.”

In the Agustin Puente-directed video for “Delito,” the third single from Calambre, Peluso breaks out a full flashdance routine in a dimly lit tavern surrounded by unassuming poker players, though not a head turns in disbelief as the floor becomes her stage. Whimsical shots and Peluso’s dynamic energy illustrate the turbulence of hedonistic debauchery, while seedy settings and stark cinematography evoke Buffalo 66 or Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. The song describes the pure lust fueling an intoxicating relationship; its lyrics were written entirely by Peluso and the music was produced by her frequent collaborators, including Rafa Arcaute, Fede Vindver, RVNES (Kali Uchis), and Pearl Lion (Bad Bunny, Juice WRLD). While the young couple indulge in tension-filled entanglement, Peluso demands eye contact from the viewer – a recurring motif of agency and dominance.

Many fans experience deeper political undertones in Peluso’s songs relating to Argentina’s past and current economic crisis. Listening closely, those motifs surface within Peluso’s music, though it’s usually only after the track is completed that she realizes how closely her themes connect with the political climate of Latin America. 

“I learn a great deal about my songs after they’re written – it’s like there are hidden messages that are between the lines,” Peluso says. “In the end, I’m just another citizen. I’m a woman who lives my life and has situations presented to me. That is what’s most interesting to me – taking inspiration from regular daily life as a woman, an individual person in the world. I often learn from my audience who are on this same journey. Through their interpretation and thought process, I in turn learn from them. It’s fascinating.”

Empowering Calambre cut “Sana Sana,” full of bravado and infectious rhythm, couches Peluso’s viewpoints in symbolism from a classic nursery rhyme that parents sing to children when they’re hurt (sana translates to “heal”) with both its title and the appearance of an amphibian friend in the video. Peluso often takes inspiration from memories of her childhood. “I believe that childhood appears naturally in my songs because I admire its magic,” she says. “It inspires me to reconnect with that part of myself. It’s an essential element of the human experience.” She’s touting the importance of monetary agency, of protecting what’s rightfully yours, and it works on a personal level as well as in the grander scope of Latin American politics.

Ultimately, Nathy Peluso sees her blending of musical styles as political in and of itself. “I grew up listening to music in English and it captivates me; I’ve learned a lot from it on my quest as an artist, a composer and a lyricist. I truly believe musical styles can live together independently of the language,” she says. “As a lyricist, it’s important to study how I can make the sounds that we Hispanics are used to listening to with English lyrics, while still getting the message across in Spanish in a natural, unforced and beautiful way. Many of the genres that I listen to and work on are predominantly recorded in English. However, I really enjoy transforming and giving them form in Spanish. I feel that the more they mix amongst themselves, the richer the result, and the greater impact the music will make on the world.”

Follow Nathy Peluso on Instagram for ongoing updates.

Rowan Niemisto Returns with Relatable Sadboy Anthems on Once Again EP

It’s been three and a half years since Rowan Niemisto released his electro R&B masterpiece Gradient. In those three years, Niemisto says he was preoccupied with his first “big boy” job at Detroit’s NPR station, WDET, where he works as a sound engineer and the occasional cameo as a voice actor for various underwriter advertisements. The Rowan Niemisto who voices ads for the local pet daycare and arts university feels like a completely different person than the sultry singer-songwriter that authors and performs his latest EP, Once Again. But maybe that’s part of what makes him so appealing. Besides his universally loveable voice, relatable lyrics and nostalgic/soulful arrangements, Niemisto is just like us. He’s a regular adult with a nine-to-five job who doesn’t have any dreams of grandeur, but picks up the pen whenever he feels moved. 

“I just like making music and putting it out,” Niemisto puts it plainly. “I’m not trying to be the guy that makes it if that makes sense.” And it would, if his voice and guitar playing weren’t so goddamn angelic. Your everyday casual guitar strummer just can’t write the kind of music that Niemisto creates. With Once Again, he builds a world of hurt and healing, love and loss. His voice careens over a bed of masterful guitar playing and effortless live arrangements, which were recorded in a single studio session. 

After three years of writing and ripping up forgotten songs, pandemic downtime fueled Niemisto’s latest body of work. “I had an excuse to dig my heels in and get it done,” says Niemisto. “I had no real excuse about time commitments or whatever.” And while collaborating felt impossible to most of us during the pandemic, he says that recording with a few of his friends was surprisingly easy. 

They set up some glass walls so they could see each other, went into the studio, slapped on masks, and pretty much improvised the entire EP. Niemisto came in with skeletons of songs already written, but he credits the band – Jacob Sigman (keys), Junho Kim (bass), Huntley Chamberlain (drums) and Jonah Grey (synth on “Once Again”) – for helping shape the sound of the record. “I’ve been playing with these guys for years,” explains Niemisto, “so I kind of know their style and I had trust that they’d be able to put their own spice on it and have it come out the way I wanted more or less.” 

If the way he wanted it was Isley Brothers meets badbadnotgood, then they definitely succeeded. Once Again serves the listener an all-too-familiar cocktail of unrequited love, longing, and heartbreak. But there’s something about Niemisto’s soothing voice and nonchalant melodies that makes lost love feel it’s not the end of the road, but the beginning of a new one. It’s not that he’s constantly suffering from a broken heart, but more that the morose melodies are the ones that come most naturally to him when it comes to songwriting. 

“For some reason, I find it easier to write songs in minor or songs with melancholy feels,” Niemisto muses. “Especially with lyricism, if I try to write something uplifting… it always just feels a little tacky or forced to me.” Fair enough, especially seeing as warm fuzzy feelings were definitely in short supply this year. And even though Niemisto admits he’s “sticking to the clichés,” he has a way of writing about them that feels new. 

Like in the first few words of the record – “Tell me how long, how long has it been?/Since that night we took each other in?” – reflecting on a fleeting night of a romance as an act of care and compassion instead of a flippant act on desire. Especially during a pandemic, the idea of a “one night stand” can feel careless at best and guttingly consequential at worst. To think of a night of random romance as “taking each other in” is a refreshingly tender outlook, and one we can all daydream about in these solitary times.

Whether you’re ruminating on love lost or longing for that Tinder crush that you’re too scared to meet IRL, Once Again gives us plenty of possibilities to ponder, and reassurance that we’re not alone.

Follow Rowan Niemisto on Bandcamp and Soundcloud for ongoing updates.

Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno Ruminate on Missed Connection with “You Don’t See Me”

Photo Credit: Brendon Burton

We all live with other versions of ourselves, identities we’ve outgrown that may suddenly—and uncomfortably—reemerge when we revisit people and places from our past. How we react to these seemingly inevitable encounters is another story, and the topic of the new single “You Don’t See Me,” from Portland-based folk duo Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno.

Specifically, “You Don’t See Me” centers on the phenomenon of how someone who was once dear to you can become a stranger over time, which Leva experienced firsthand during a strange encounter she had while visiting her hometown of Lexington, Virginia.

“I got lunch one afternoon at a great little spot called Blue Sky Bakery. I sat on a bar stool, facing the large window and looking out onto the street. As I ate my sandwich, someone I knew from high school slowly walked by the window. I waited for them to look at me so that I could wave, but they never did. I wasn’t sure whether they just didn’t see me, or if it was a purposeful choice,” Leva recalls.

Leva, the daughter of celebrated old time musicians in Lexington, was especially baffled by this person’s aloofness because they were more than an acquaintance—they were an ex-boyfriend. “It was someone I really knew, and that kind of blew my mind. I actually saw him twice and he didn’t say hi to me,” she says.

Calcagno, who has collaborated musically with Leva since the two were in high school, remembers how profoundly this impacted her, and how quickly she turned to writing “You Don’t See Me” in order to process it. “She just sat down on the couch and I remember it coming out all at once,” says Calcagno. “I think I left the house – I knew when to give her space to think about it.”

Fittingly, “You Don’t See Me” possesses a sort of nostalgic introspectiveness—both lyrically and sonically. There’s a bittersweet quality in Leva’s crystalline voice as it lilts against a driving guitar and violin pedal that mimics the ticking hands of time. And, as intensity builds, Leva’s exploration of this awkward encounter turns into a larger lyrical conversation about growing apart from people as we grow up—and how weird that can feel.

“A crowded room of faces I remember/From a time before/I try to wave but they turn their shoulders/They don’t know me anymore,” Leva sings. “I’m living in your little box of secrets/Where you don’t see me/And you don’t care.”

Aside from the sting anyone would feel from being snubbed, it makes sense that this cold behavior would baffle the pair. Calcagno and Leva emanate easy warmth and kindness, even in the sunlit cover image of their forthcoming self-titled album. After all, the pair grew up in the same close-knit music community, where everyone is somehow connected and old and new faces are eagerly recognized.

“I grew up playing fiddle music in Seattle,” says Calcagno. “I was actually learning tunes and hearing Viv’s parents’ music growing up, but didn’t know about her.” He still remembers sitting in the crowd at a Leva family performance in 2016, and thinking that the way Leva sang felt so familiar. When the pair finally met, they were excited to know another person in their age group skilled at playing old time music, which isn’t all that common. “I think we were inspired and struck by the generational aspect that we were having these parallel experiences,” says Calcagno.

Leva had a similar reaction herself. “On the East Coast everyone was either a couple years older than me or a little bit younger than me, and so meeting people that were at the exact same stage in life, but you know, really advanced players, was really fun,” she says.

Quickly, the pair began playing music together in an country band called The Onlies. Leva’s acclaimed 2018 solo debut, Time is Everything, which deeply considered the concept of time, featured Calcagno – but the eponymous album as a duo is the debut that finally puts them on par with one another as collaborators. It considers the ideas of distance and separation, something the duo—who sent voice memo ideas for songs across the country via text message while they were still in school in different cities—is well-accustomed to. Unexpectedly, the idea is even more resonant as we all sit in lockdown during the pandemic.

“All of these songs kind of just inherently were about distance and separation and space,” says Leva. “It’s interesting because even though it we didn’t write them in 2020, it feels really applicable to this time. We were writing it in a unique long-distance situation but now I think a lot of people are separated from loved ones.”

Today, Calcagno and Leva are both freshly graduated from college and have been living together in a house in Portland during the pandemic. Their shared living situation has allowed them to play together and remain connected to their fans and community via livestreams, like the Quarantine Happy Hour concert series (they’ll plan to play a release show for the new record as part of this concert series when the album drops on March 12 via Free Dirt Records).

“That’s been a lifeline for a lot of folks in our little scene. It was started by our friends who play in a duo called The Horsenecks,” explains Calcagno. “That’s been a really nice thing to see people and hear from people.”

Clearly, this duo—like so many of us—run on their connection to each other, the music, their fans and their community. That’s evidenced in the nuanced questions they ask in “You Don’t See Me,” as well as their biggest hopes for 2021. “Best case scenario would just be for COVID to die down, us be able to play the gigs we were supposed to play in 2020, see some friends, go to some festivals,” says Leva. One thing’s for sure, if the quality of this self-titled debut means anything: Leva and Calcagno’s next live performance will be hard to ignore.

Follow Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno on Facebook and Instagram for ongoing updates.

Erin Ivey Finds Inner Peace on Solace in the Wild LP

Photo Credit: Nicola Gell

Erin Ivey twirls a rose quartz that fits perfectly in her hand as our conversation begins. Gifted to her by friend and fellow artist Raina Rose, Ivey habitually takes the pretty pink crystal (meant to strengthen the heart chakra) into the recording studio with her to occupy her hands while her brain is emoting, at times holding it up to her third eye as she sings. “There’s something that just vibrates in a cool way,” Ivey says during our Zoom interview. “This one in particular has a lot of personal meaning to me because it came from a friend, and it fits. It’s like a worry stone.” Much like the reposeful stone she refers to, Ivey has long found sanctuary in music, a journey that’s reflected in her first recorded material in six years, Solace in the Wild.

Growing up as a self-described “ham” who satiated herself with a healthy artistic diet of musical theatre and live performances, Ivey was particularly drawn to the act of singing as a “self-soothing exercise.” Inspired by Debbie Gibson debut Out of the Blue, she wrote her first song at age 9 and can still recall the pad of paper on which she wrote it, emblazoned with a cat wearing a jazzercise outfit.

She discovered a deeper passion for writing in her teen years when she was gifted a journal by her friend, who filled the first page with inspirational quotes that motivated Ivey to keep writing. “I was turning to it to get my thoughts out,” she remembers.

What started as a hobby has become a prominent part of Ivey’s life – she rarely leaves the house without a journal in hand, as much a trustworthy confidant where she shares her thoughts and song ideas as it is a convenient place to jot down a to-do list. “If I don’t get that stuff out of my head, whether it’s creative or logistical, it clogs up the works and I’m very easily drowned,” she says of the “mystical” process of journaling. “It’s a way to process everything that’s going on inside and around you and also ways to capture a moment. It opens our eyes differently to translate things onto the page. That’s an everyday experience. Then you get to see what you think. It’s like a shift in perception that is so rich.” 

Ivey notes that she began songwriting “in earnest” after making the trek from her native Maryland to attend The University of Texas at Austin. She initially intended to study theatre before ending up in the business school, ultimately designing her own major – a combination of art, history and French. But songwriting “became a part of my coping mechanism more and more,” Ivey says, and by 2011, she had burst onto Austin’s legendary music scene with her Broken Gold LP. After working as a full-time musician for eight years, Ivey married husband and musician-DJ Cam Rogers and spent two years working a corporate job and a year and a half in the nonprofit sector at Black Fret. “I like bringing order to chaos,” the Austin-based singer observes of her business acumen and project management skills. “It’s a science and it’s an art.”

But fate intervened and reconnected Ivey with her musical calling when Black Fret awarded her a $10,000 grant that became the “sacred” seed money she used to make her exquisite new album, Solace in the Wild. ”I never feel more fulfilled than when I’m making [music],” Ivey says. “There’s nothing that can take the place of music and live performance. There’s no better, soul-filling endeavor than that. All of the negative parts are superseded by this magic of music, this need to have that in my life to remain sane and balanced.”

For the past decade, Ivey has maintained contact with producer Chuck Pinnell after they worked together on 2011 compilation Dark River, which features Civil War era songs reimagined by Austin artists. He’s contributed arrangements to the lyrics that Ivey has been crafting over the years, and during one of their routine Friday sessions, Pinnell presented her with the title “Lost Girl.” It immediately send a flood of images to Ivey’s mind: a young girl floating in Hamilton Pool, an ancient swimming hole in Texas; a forest on fire surrounding the girl as she peacefully floats in the sanctuary of the water.

The song’s defining lyric became the album’s title and embodied the message she wanted to share with the world. “In that context, it means there is solace in the wild when everything’s on fire. When shit is going wrong, you can still find your center,” Ivey explains. “It’s something that we actually have to do. We have to pay attention how we get there.”

Solace in the Wild comes to life in the form of 10 gorgeously arranged songs that showcase Ivey’s angelic voice. She holds enduring notes in the gentlest ways, as demonstrated on the relaxing “Joy” and the stirring “Jealousy” alike, while the album’s lyrics reflect her brilliant mind.

The album as a whole is drawn from a well of deep curiosity, creating a potent combination of profound thought and emotion that covers humanity’s plight through the ages. For instance, “Dust Bowl” sees the self-professed “history nerd” exploring the drought, displacement, and depression suffered by farmers in the 1930s. “I feel for those people and their stories, and the humanity in that is so palpable,” she empathizes.

But one of the album’s most reflective moments arrives in “Charleston,” a track that calls for healing in direct response to the racially-motivated church shooting that occurred in 2015. Each line is crafted in a way that causes the listener pause, particularly the thought-provoking probe of a chorus: “It is for the good not to be silent/We are all reflections of ourselves/We cannot sit by and abide violence against anybody else.”

Ivey reveals that she originally had misgivings about releasing the song due to its sensitive nature, comparing the subject matter to an “open wound.” But after some encouragement from friends in the South Carolina city, she weaved it into the album as an exercise in helping others reflect on where we’ve gone wrong in the past. “As worked up as people get about politics, I tend to try to be really careful about what I say and how I say it. I think it’s important so that we can keep having conversations even when we disagree,” she continues. “But it is very true that I believe those things. I wrote the song to comfort myself and to try and wrestle with this evil that continues to recur.”

For Ivey, “solace” is the “personal peace that is juxtaposed against something that would keep you from it,” which she finds through such purely simple acts as “dialoguing with my inner child” in her journal, gazing at a burning candle and cradling her rose quartz. “I wanted something that would remind me… that if I do not do that writing, if I cannot find that solace, if I don’t have a mug of something warm, if I don’t take a hot bath and light a candle, if I don’t prepare myself in that way for the world, I show up haggard and cruel,” Ivey says. “I wanted to show up for this album in a way that would allow me to have it show up for me.”

She hopes that, even if Solace in the Wild doesn’t always make listeners feel better, they at least feel something. “Sometimes I think it’s my job to help people feel their feelings, and then maybe to help me feel my feelings,” she explains. “I hope that people enjoy the songs and that they identify with pieces of them; that they are called back to listen again and again and make these songs a part of their life or part of their exploration.” 

Follow Erin Ivey on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for ongoing updates.

Jocelyn Mackenzie Connects with Her Purpose on Debut Solo LP PUSH

Photo Credit: Ester Segretto

“Purpose is a feeling. It’s not a goal,” stresses Jocelyn Mackenzie. The New York singer-songwriter, formerly of acclaimed indie-folk trio Pearl and the Beard, speaks emphatically about her solo work and the long, winding road it took to get here. Her debut album, PUSH, splits open with gushing string arrangements, bound tightly like holiday ribbon around stories of pain, trauma, and eventually “radical self-love,” a theme she never expected to emerge.

With some songs dating back more than a decade, the process evoked plenty of anxiety about what it all would ultimately mean. Her psychic medium mentor (more on that later) was quick to remind her that one’s purpose is “how you feel, not what your goals are,” she tells Audiofemme. “PUSH has been a goal of mine, [but] the purpose of it is to feel connected to other people… I continue to do that through this music. The great thing about recorded music is that it’s timeless. It travels through space and time. Someone across the world can be listening to this 25 years from now. There’s an infinity to this process.”

Co-produced with Sam McCormally, PUSH is like thunder cracking across the sky. With the help of five composers, who were given total creative control over their arrangements, Mackenzie’s lyrics are given a life they may not have had otherwise. “Audubon Garden,” for example, gurgles with a Shovels & Rope swampiness, Mackenzie dishing up one of the defining vocal performances of the bunch. Composer Franz Nicolay leans into devilish rhythms that seem to inject a bit of crackling mysticism. Later, closing number “Little Islands” ebbs and flows, a dream-like quality rising like fog ─ owed to former bandmate Emily Hope Price’s fragile, stirring arrangement.

Mackenzie had been stockpiling demos for quite some time, “not really knowing what I was going to do with them,” she says. Once she got the itch to take that next step in the album creation process, she handed out 19 demos to a small composer pool to see which songs resonated most with them. “I was really letting the album create itself. I couldn’t be more thrilled,” she says. “For the most part, I wanted the composers to do their thing. They would send me a draft, and I would [sign off].”

Of course, she doesn’t undersell her personal expedition through pain to enlightened healing, and hopes listeners will relate to the catharsis she experienced in finally putting the songs to tape. “The album wasn’t really written in response to anything in the exterior world. It was a lot of reflections on my inner world,” she says. “Have I healed? You know what, fuck it, I think I have. I think there’s always new healing to be found. I also think healing, for me, gets more and more subtle the more layers you work through.”

One of the most traumatic layers Mackenzie sifted through was a miscarriage in her early 20s. “That was very, very painful,” she admits. Now that she’s done plenty of songwriting about it, namely with the gut-punching “Primate,” she “can’t say that wound is closed, and it’ll never open again. But it resurfaces in subtler and subtler ways. I’m 37, and sometimes, I’ll imagine: what if I had a 12-year-old kid? It’s not like it ever goes away and that healing is ever finished, but I think I’ve learned how to live with the subtleties of it in a more sustainable way… A big part of it for me is treating myself with love. If I have an emotional moment when something comes up, and I feel untethered, to go, ‘what’s the loving way to treat myself so I can move through this and not blame myself?’”

With “Look at Me,” she further casts out trauma, firmly confronting sexual assault but also learning to forgive. “It’s the kind of thing that happens all the time. I don’t really know a single female-identifying friend of mine who hasn’t experienced it, as well as some male and non-gender conforming friends,” she explains. Forgiving her abuser became Mackenzie’s way of breaking the cycle of generational trauma even further “by not resenting this person,” rather than be fueled by unbridled rage. “I won’t hold your pain, won’t turn it into mine/I’ll heal seven generations at the same time,” she crows through Price’s needle-pricking arrangement. She says she had to “make the choice to face the fear and the hurt” so she wouldn’t continue such a vicious, relentless cycle.

“It’s been scary, but it’s been absolutely healing. It’s not up to me to make that choice for anybody else,” she adds. “The way Emily treated [this song] with such love allowed me to look at my experience from an elevated standpoint and say, ‘Yes, I went through this thing that was completely horrifying. The person who did this to me went through horrible things themselves.’ And that’s not to say I condone that behavior. I do not… but I can forgive it because I understand… what I experienced was a diminished form of abuse of what they experienced. Forgiveness and condoning are two different things.”

As heavy as PUSH often is, Mackenzie makes sure to inject a bit of levity through some twisted, dark humor. “Sick & Suffering” is a prime example: “Oh the whisker I grow, it won’t bother me no more/When it grows six feet under ground,” she sings. “And the shoes that I own that pinch my big toe/Won’t pinch the toe the tag hangs around.” Over McCormally’s off-kilter string arrangement, Mackenzie “acknowledges that my brain is wired for the worst case scenario,” she says with a laugh. “It’s constantly telling me it’s the end of the world and I’m going to die alone. I’m incredibly insecure. Sam’s arrangement really made it funnier for me. Humor can be so important in healing.”

“There She Goes” swerves back to a more serious mood, handling a breakup with an ex who came out as transgender and was faced with ostracization from their family and friends. With Patrick Breiner’s unsettling, reality-blurring arrangement that feels like something out of a Tim Burton film, Mackenzie approaches the topic with the utmost care, focusing less on her own heartache and more on the pain her ex endured after coming out. “A lot of pain could have been avoided if our world and society supported transgender people in a better way, so they were never put into this position to begin with,” Mackenzie points out.

“I know this piece of you is true/So go and get her ‘fore she gets the best of you,” she sings, the tension slowly building. “Everyone is worthy of patience/Everyone is worthy of love,” she continues, not letting bitterness drown her words. “But love can’t come from anybody ’til you give it to yourself.”

“I was overwhelmed with glee when I heard this arrangement,” Mackenzie says. “Patrick is an incredible, nuanced composer. When I told the composers to do whatever they wanted, Patrick took the prompt and ran with it the farthest, and I was so excited he did.”

The whimsical follow-up, “Belly of the Beast,” comes out of nowhere, its throwback style quite a musical treat. Mackenzie was doing dishes one day when it hit her as a bolt of lightning. “I imagined it being sung by a gay barber shop quartet,” she remembers. Two gay friends, Anthony Napoletano and Mike Nelson, supply plush vocal work. Unlike the rest of the album, the string arrangement (courtesy of Nicolay) is kept sparse, giving the track an a cappella vibe.

“[This song] is really about the music industry eating you alive,” offers Mackenzie, adding that despite the amazing promise it holds for artists, the industry is “still feeding itself on souls,” she chuckles. “I believe music is our divine birthright, and the industry took it and commoditized it. It’s very challenging. We live in a capitalist society. There’s no shame in needing money.” 

Macknezie’s journey with PUSH is undeniably hitched to her spiritual awakening over the last two years. Growing up, she was always an extra-sensory kind of person, privy to feelings far beyond the here and now ─ but “there was a single day when I had my awakening, and it was a total shift for me, as far as being a human being in this world,” she remembers of the fateful day everything changed: July 28, 2019. “I’ll never forget it. It was amazing, but also really intense.”

Mackenzie says, “For years and years before that, I had experienced a lot of synchronicity” – from finding collaborators who would become bandmates in Pearl and the Beard, to meeting legendary musician Ani DiFranco (who would eventually release PUSH via her label, Righteous Babe Records). Mackenzie began a deep-dive into YouTube’s psychic medium world and discovered Nicky Sutton; one video in particular struck her, and Mackenzie sought out a local circle to entertain the possibility that she was a medium, as well.

She found a meet-up the very next day, two blocks away from her day job, and 15 minutes after her shift. Her destiny could not have been more aligned. “I had had plans that night that got canceled. So, I went and showed up,” Mackenzie recalls. “I sat down, and the teacher was like, ‘Okay, now you’re going to give each other readings.’ I raised my hand and said, ‘I’ve never done this before.’ She laughed in my face and said, ‘Not in this lifetime, honey.’ That night, I gave my first two readings. She gave me some tools and said, ‘Trust yourself.’ After that, it was like a light switch flipped on. I ended up connecting with a really amazing mentor who has really trained me. It’s been incredibly enriching and a beautiful gift.”

Humanity has a long history of seeking out such avenues to connect with the dead, the afterlife, and deeper, more sensitive emotional ties. “Music is something that does that for us,” Mackenzie notes of music’s innate divinity. “It’s not all that radical to say music is a spiritual experience. It’s immaterial. You can’t put a price on it. Even when you’re at a show ─ sure, you pay for the price of a ticket ─ but the experience… what’s the price you’d pay for your favorite song if it had never been written? You can’t put a price on that.”

Now, as PUSH flies wild and free in the world, Mackenzie takes stock of what the process of making the album has taught her. “I’m more patient than I realized. I’ve always thought of myself as an instant gratification person. But this album has been a labor of love,” she offers. “I always believed it was possible to do whatever I want. I’ve always drank the Kool-Aid of the American dream. And I’ve wanted this for so long, and now it’s really happening. So many people helped. I’ve learned how to ask for help and get out of my own way. Everything is possible. We have to let it happen to us.”

Follow Jocelyn Mackenzie on Twitter and Instagram for ongoing updates.

Lia Ices is Honestly Happy on the Mountain

Photo Credit: Renee Friedrich

In 2014, after Lia Ices released her third album Ices—her first time adorning her ethereal piano with electronic loops—she realized she needed to recommit to her intuition’s call. She took a break from recording and touring, but she hardly lay fallow. Instead, she got married and moved from New York to Sonoma, California’s Moon Mountain, where her husband, Andrew Mariani, co-owns Scribe Winery. They now have two young daughters, Una and Alice. On new record Family Album, released on Ices’ own Natural Music, the singer-songwriter celebrates the bounty she’s found.

As Ices fell in love with the landscape and her daughters, her new reality felt downright hallucinatory. “The more real it is, the more surreal it feels,” says Ices. “That sentiment came to me throughout pregnancy and right after I gave birth to [my first daughter] Una. It’s the most primal, mammalian thing you can do, birthing a baby, yet it was very psychedelic. After I gave birth I felt like I was on acid. The same goes for living in such a crazily beautiful, abundant place.”

In tribute to the motherhood and landscape that nourished Ices’ creativity, the singer-songwriter built a living altar. “I went to the garden and got all these roses and plums and made an altar for my living self,” Ices says. “There’s something to bringing in all these pieces from nature. There’s always been this motif of conjuring spirit. The meaning of the album keeps deepening after it’s done. The waves keep coming.” Family Album nixes the electronics, returning to songs that highlight her piano and vocals, with and without a backing band. The music moves effortlessly through Americana and psychedelia just as much as minimalist piano and vocals.

Returning to the piano also signified an assertion of creative control, one which led Ices and her husband to start Natural Music. There’s an easiness to her recent output, and it proves that being raw doesn’t always have to be heavy. “I couldn’t do anything but be totally honest. These songs started coming from a pure, organic place. My only motto was to let what happens happen naturally,” Ices says. “Sitting at the piano is something I hadn’t done in a long time. I abandoned it on purpose just to see what it’s like. This time I leaned into my surroundings and let them take over me.”

“Young on the Mountain,” the album’s third track, is the first one Ices penned for the album. With its upbeat tempo, lilting vocals, and spacious “oohs,” the song is a welcoming to Ices’ big new sky and the music birthed beneath it. Her songs are infused with spirit, with nature, with universal forces like synergy—and yet, she doesn’t even creep near New Age territory. Instead, these are the genuine testimonies of a woman preoccupied with the capital-M Mysteries of existence.

Among them are the synchronicities that kept piling up as she made the new record. “The more people I worked with on the project, the more I realized they knew each other. There were these crazy overlaps,” she recalls. Those working relationships included her producer JR White (best known as half of indie band Girls), who recently passed away. White heard the final album before his death, lending a bit of closure. “Now that JR passed during the cycle, it makes the album mean so much to me,” Ices says.

The fact that she feels White’s presence in the album deepens the mystery, not just of the music, but of the immortality of creative forces. Ices speaks often about the Muse, though her definition is always in flux. At present, she sees the Muse in more pragmatic ways than one might expect. “I think pregnancy and motherhood support the idea of the Muse. Being a mother and an artist at the same time, I can be more expedient with my means. I used to tinker and not trust my gut. But when you don’t have all the hours of the day, you can access what you need to access quicker,” she says.  The Muse also relies on dedication, she adds, saying that it’s “not a romantic thing. My biggest takeaway is that if I don’t show up, the Muse won’t show up. Showing up is more than half the battle. Even if you don’t feel like showing up, you have to do it and allow for the possibilities, which can be terrifying.”

“We’re on our way to go anywhere at all,” Ices sings on “Anywhere At All.” In her own life, she dove into that anywhere – it’s no wonder she had the confidence to follow her intuition, embrace risk, and sing honestly about beautiful, mysterious things.

Follow Lia Ices on Facebook and Instagram for ongoing updates.

Sarah Mary Chadwick Makes Friends with Ennui

Photo Credit: Simon J Karis

Multi-instrumentalist, visual artist and intrepidly candid singer-songwriter Sarah Mary Chadwick will release her seventh full length studio album, Me and Ennui Are Friends, Baby, on Friday, February 5th, via Ba Da Bing Records/Rice is Nice. Known both for her solo work and for a decade spent as frontperson of Batrider – which formed while Chadwick and her bandmates were still in high school in New Zealand – Chadwick has explored some dark places and difficult terrain. Going solo certainly sent her on a new trajectory – one that has kept listeners compelled to discover what she’s just done and what she’s doing next. Her latest album justifies plenty of curiosity and attention, not only for its exploration of intense emotions – she is, as ever, starkly honest, articulate and unfiltered – but also for the approach to recording it.

Ennui is almost entirely singing and piano, all recorded live in one day with Chadwick’s friend, bass player Geoffrey O’Connor. Chadwick and O’Connor recorded on a Yamaha upright piano in her friend’s studio. The upright added to the “bar-roomy feel of the record, which wasn’t intentional but definitely came through when we were recording,” Chadwick says.

It immediately follows 2020’s Please, Daddy – a painful, introspective work that, according to Chadwick, was more ambitious in terms of instrumentation. Though it seemed a logical trajectory to do something more complicated after its release, the stripped-down nature of Ennui is a result of Chadwick’s conscious desire to free herself of expectation. “The last record had Geoff engineering, a drum and four other musicians. This was just me and Geoff sitting in a small, intimate room for a whole day,” she says.

“In terms of doing it in one day, my thinking has always been that there’s only so good I can play and sing a song,” explains Chadwick. “It doesn’t get better if I do it 50 times. I think you lose a lot of energy if you iron things out. I wanted to capture a lot of energy in this record. I usually only record in one or two days, with only two or three takes of a song.”

It’s all part of Chadwick’s effort to retain some of that “demo energy” when recording songs for her albums. “My process is the same for music and visual art. Working fast, you’re not afforded the space to second-guess decisions, so you get into the habit of making decisions quickly; you just make choices to realise what you think is important,” she says. “For me, that energy is so important. If you’re doing it right, you’re making good decisions that enable you to realise what is important about art.”

Even while making choices that seem intuitive rather than heavily and lengthily considered, Chadwick is deliberate. One of those choices is the cover art for the album, revealing her parted legs in shorts that don’t cover everything. It’s quite brave, confronting even. “I wanted to free myself up from having to put my own artwork on the cover every time,” she says. “It’s a candid photo that my partner took. I like the colours of it. It works well as a cover and as an image. The album itself is quite earnest in parts, so it’s a nice counterpoint to have something a bit garish, a big vulgar, as cover art.”

Chadwick is very much in the practice of constant creation, always engaged with visual art and music. When putting together a record, she books the studio three months prior and works each week on new songs, which typically take half an hour to an hour. “When I was quite young, I was concerned with stagnant periods and writing block but now I don’t encounter that ever,” she admits. “Doing lots of work subsequently makes me feel not guilty for when I don’t want to work or can’t be bothered. It makes my downtime guilt-free. I have always been in the habit of having something ticking over.”

Having the deadline ensures she has selected songs which are in the process and refines them in preparation. She’s already working on the next album and is considering doing demos to prepare, in contrast to the off-the-cuff nature of Ennui. “I’m always writing,” she says. “Because we’re just about to put this one out, I don’t feel pressure to rush the next one, which means the next one will come pretty easily.”

Perhaps, for Chadwick, there is a security in constant creation and self-analysis, working hand-in-glove to keep her on an even keel. Readers, beware: the following discussion may be triggering or difficult; those struggling with mental health issues may want to take a breather here.

Both Ennui and Daddy are the continuation of a trilogy of albums, beginning with The Queen Who Stole the Sky, that focus on Chadwick’s attempt to take her own life in 2019, following the death of her father and a close friend, as well as the intense breakup of a long-term relationship. They openly explore the event itself as well as the trauma that precipitated it, and continue the healing process Chadwick has undergone in its aftermath, particularly her views on psychoanalytic therapy.

“I’ve always had, since a child, depression and anxiety, but it’s gotten a lot better in the past six years. I’ve always seen psychologists on and off since I was a teenager but never found it particularly useful and was disappointed by it no matter how much work I put into it,” admits Chadwick. “It became clear that it wasn’t my fault. I started psychoanalysis and that was far more rewarding. The more I put into it, the more it gave back.”

Rather than process first and write later, Chadwick made the writing of these albums part of her journey toward healing. “Did I want to explore it? Definitely, I did,” she says. “I was in treatment five times a week afterwards, and the experience only informed my creative process. I draw unconsciously and very naturally on day-to-day things.”

Chadwick has released her latest batch of records through Rice Is Nice, run by Julia Wilson and Lulu Rae. Chadwick met Jules through an ex-girlfriend. “Jules is a really, really dear friend and a great person,” Chadwick says. “We’ve worked together since 2015 and done over four records together. Jules works super hard on things for me and she’s not doing it for finance, since I’m a relatively small artist, so I’m really grateful for the fact she does so much because she loves me and she loves my work.”

Chadwick is scheduled to do a series of launch events, in which she’ll play music from the trilogy of albums for small crowds in Melbourne. The events will be live-streamed so international audiences can tune in.

Despite the emotional weight of Ennui, there’s something triumphant in its self-deprecating tone. Perhaps Chadwick’s Bandcamp describes it best: “On Ennui, Chadwick is free, there is nowhere for her or us to run from the need to very presently and repeatedly articulate her trauma until it is simply, ‘articulated out.'” Another brave choice from an artist who, decades into her career, still stuns with her bravery.

Follow Sarah Mary Chadwick on Instagram and Facebook for ongoing updates.

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio Deliver on a Promise with Sophomore LP I Told You So

Photo Credit: Francis A. Willey

With the release of their newest album, I Told You So, which drops today on Colemine Records, Seattle’s simmering soul-jazz Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio deliver on a promise they made to their fans more than two years ago.

Shortly after the 2018 release of their debut album, Close But No Cigar, the trio’s long-time drummer, David McGraw, departed the band, leaving fans disappointed and worried that the trio would lose their quintessential in-the-pocket sound.

“David has such a distinct way of drumming. It was very pocket, very soul. It was like Motown-type soul drumming. And we’ve never really had anybody that played like that. So when David left the band it was a lot of people were worrying about well they’re not going to sound the same,” says bandleader Delvon Lamarr. “I told them, I will find the right drummer. The album is called I Told You So because I told you guys the album is still going to be good regardless of who’s on it.”

While the album’s title is tongue-in-cheek, it more than fulfills that prediction. Featuring Lamarr on organ, the incomparable Jimmy James on guitar, and their choice for solid “pocket” drummer on the recording, Grant Schroff—from another popular Seattle group, The Polyrhythmics—I Told You So has every bit the groovy throwback sound their debut had, with some fresh additions.

While I Told You So still has plenty of that nostalgic 60’s soul-jazz vibe they’re known for, the trio brings in more diverse influences that underscore and build on their unique sound. “I think we kind of broadened the musical spectrum, like our influences, into our newest album and it’s been progressing,” Lamarr says.

In fact, several of the tracks, including the notably more melancholic “From the Streets,” embraces a low-key hip hop feel and spacious guitar loop unlike other previously-released music. Turns out that was an intentional nod toward some other music Lamarr and company are into. “I love anything by J Dilla, stuff like that. Old hip hop, I listen to a lot of cats like Slum Village and Talib Kweli. That laid back, you know—way behind the beat stuff,—D’Angelo does that a lot. That’s my thing,” he explains.

As well, the trio lays down a cool version of “Careless Whipser,” a 1984 pop ballad written by George Michael that recently had a resurgence in 2011 after The Sexy Sax Man’s satirical performance of the song on YouTube became a viral sensation. In 2021, Lamarr and company reinvent the song yet again, making the schmaltzy pop anthem and internet meme into one of the album’s most impressive and listenable bangers. Funny, because Lamarr almost didn’t record it.

“It was a thing that we did at live shows and I thought, I don’t know if anybody wants to hear this on an album. But my wife Amy [Nova] was like, ‘Dude, you gotta record it man! I think it’s going to be a hit,'” says Lamarr.

This isn’t the first time Nova has had good instincts when it comes to her husband’s music. In fact, Lamarr credits Nova as the reason behind the trio’s formation in 2015. “She built this [trio] from the ground up,” Lamarr says. “She asked me for years to start my own band and I didn’t want to. She just watched me struggle so much as a musician and she was like, ‘You’re too good for this man. You get some guys together, write some music. I’ll take care of everything else.'”

Nova was also instrumental in getting the group signed to their Ohio-based label, Colemine Records, which has the perfect retro branding and roster to complement the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio. “They’re great, man. What I really like about them is they’re two brothers that own it, Terry and Bob, and they have the same philosophy we have in this band – we always say we just play music we like to hear and when you do that people are going to love it,” Lamarr says.

Lamarr, James, and their new permanent drummer Dan Weiss, like most of the music industry, haven’t been able to perform live or tour since the onset of COVID-19. Being stationary doesn’t come easy for the trio, who usually tour throughout Europe and Japan for most the year and are so well-known in Europe they get called out in train stations. Hence, their biggest hope for 2021—aside from hoping that I Told You So is as well-received as their debut was—is to get back out there and see their fans.

“That’s our thing. That’s what we enjoy,” says Lamarr. “It’s great to be at a studio recording. But it is what it is. I got to be on the road, I got to be on the stage. That’s my dream and goal. It’s always been.”

Follow Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio on Facebook and Instagram for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Wrené Emerges From the Ashes with “Phoenix”

During a time when many are longing for renewal, the symbol of the phoenix is a beacon of hope, creating something beautiful from what seems to be destroyed. Toronto-based experimental artist Renée Mortin-Toth, known professionally as Wrené, employs this image in her latest single “Phoenix,” describing the experience of regeneration: “I’m a little songbird/if I shed the last tear, I’ve won!/My heart unlocks the cage/and I rise from the ashes.”

Wrené wrote “Phoenix” about the process of leaving an abusive relationship and “finding ways to empower yourself in these times of manipulation where you feel a lot of pressure is on you,” she says. “What I hope people can take away from it is that message of empowerment – so it can be for young women, it can be for people who are stigmatized, people who feel their feelings and worth are diminished by other people.”

The song combines an upbeat ’80s synthwave pop sound with darker melodies and lyrics, beginning with erratic synths, loud drums, and theatrically sung lyrics: “Sometimes it feels like I have no choice/and so I’m stripped of my voice/I can’t let my woes carry me through the wind.” She goes on to sing about finding independence and carving out a new life for herself.

Co-producing with her friend Joash Mendoza, she broke from her usual routine of using Logic and utilized the program Ableton, incorporating EDM elements. Many of the drum sounds are samples of organic drums that they sequenced themselves, but other than the vocals, everything is electronic.

Mortin-Toth has been singing her whole life, though she previously worked as an actor. After finding the roles available to women her age limiting, she threw herself into music and released her first album, Unharmed, last year. “Phoenix” is off her second album, Live Wire, which comes out in February.

The album is “an experiment with pop sounds and different pop elements,” she says. “But they all hold a common theme of storytelling, and a lot of them are quite darker in their tone, even if they sound more upbeat.”

The title is inspired by lyrics from “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads, which Wrené adapts for her album’s title track with the passionately sung line: “Don’t you fucking touch me/I’m a real live wire.” Heavy guitars create almost a metal aesthetic as she stands up to mistreatment from a lover. The song is a response to “the misogynistic pressure to be the perfect partner,” she explains.

The album as a whole, she adds, “was a project to explore the many colors of a malfunctioning mind. I’ve always been someone who’s felt like an outcast, who’s felt like I didn’t really have places to belong, and I’m kind of vouching for the people who are shut down because of that.”

Embodying this spirit, much of the album defies musical conventions. Several of the songs lack a chorus, sounding more like one long, drawn-out verse. And rather than record the vocals line by line, she went through each song in its entirety, making the vocals intentionally imperfect and rough around the edges in places.

The minimalistic “Unravel” mixes an R&B-like beat with theatrical, despondent singing — “it’s never good enough/everything is all out of place” — that focuses on the emotional impact of being shamed and gaslighted by a partner.

“Marionette,” a cinematic song influenced by ’90s rock, critiques society’s rise-and-grind mentality with powerful guitar riffs, atmospheric percussion, and lyrics like “I’m stuck in an endless search/my feet can’t seem to grow tired.”

The last song, “Secret Garden,” has an airy pop sound, using the metaphor of planting a seed to represent recovery from addiction and self-harm. “This album has a journey within each song, but as a collective, it starts off with being angrier and more defiant, and it comes around to being forgiving for yourself,” she says.

Even as she gears up to release Live Wire, Wrené is already at work on her next project, a self-produced concept album focused on string and synth sounds and aimed at creating a surreal landscape. “This one is kind of an experiment in melding the sort of classical organic sounds with very odd dark synth or electronic elements,” she says. “I like to delve into the area where lightness and darkness coalesce.”

Disparate as her music may seem, it all revolves around the central concept of self-empowerment. “I really want to get across the notion of finding empowerment within yourself,” she says. “Especially in dark times where you feel trapped, you feel weakened or invalidated, or you feel your most vulnerable, it’s really important for people listening to understand that, whatever hardship or difficulty you’re facing in your life, you have to be the one to overcome it; you have the power within yourself to do that.”

Follow Wrené on Instagram for ongoing updates.

Bel Holiday Conjures Up Healing Incantation With “Mama Mountains”

Bel Holiday needed to heal. While “dealing with insufferable loss and depression for ages,” the singer-songwriter hopped on a plane bound for Arizona, hoping to find solace within its rugged landscape. She soon “not only fell in love with, but felt an indescribably spiritual shift in self from hiking,” she says. “All motivation had magically returned, and for once, I had faith in my healing.”

However, that energy dissipated as quickly as it had come. Her new song “Mama Mountains,” featuring guitarist Mamoon, reads as a desperate “cry for help directed towards the mountains I hiked,” she tells Audiofemme. Its bluesy undercurrent gives Holiday ample room to showcase her undeniable vocal tone – honed over years spent performing in theatre – while carving out an exciting new musical path for herself. “In this song, I try to summon what I describe as ‘Mama Mountains,’ so that ‘she’ may heal me from my suffering as ‘she’ had seemed to before,” Holiday explains.

“Went to Mama Mountains/She said, ‘Take care of the limbs that you carry’/Took a mirror to glass lungs and told me that the life I been leading is scary,” Holiday sings. Every fear and ounce of pain guides her vocal acrobatics, often flying loose and wild. With producer Thalo, Holiday sculpts out a mesmerizing incantation about healing, self-awareness, and intense connection to nature.

“The [creative] process honestly involved bouncing files back and forth more than anything,” says Holiday. “Between this and being just kids, the record is definitely a bit dirty, but I see that as authentic in showcasing where I’m at as an artist and aspiring producer, as well as where I’d like to go.”

“Mama Mountains” serves as the first single to a new EP called Mess of a Mind, expected February 12. It’s a quick follow-up to Holiday’s Watermelon EP, released in August 2020. With “Mama Mountains,” the Fort Lee-based musician draws upon such influences as Hiatus Kaiyote and early (specifically +-era) Ed Sheeran, as well as multi-instrumentalist Becca Stevens. Holiday actually took a songwriting lesson with Stevens, a process in which “she provided thinking exercises and meditations that inspired me to finish the song.”

“I write at my best when I least expect it,” Holiday adds. “I’ve been dealing with some awful [writer’s] block lately, but just the other night I had a epiphany: I realized that the more I try and tell myself what to write about or how I should be writing before I get going, the less material I am able to actually come up with.”

The bridge settles upon a moment of enlightenment, and Holiday appears to regain, at least marginally, a sense of purpose and calm. “Weighted blankets heavier than if I tied you to my back,” she sings. “But in the absence of sound, I smell your dry air and I know that Mama Mountains is still there…”

While the song is explicitly directed to a mountain, Holiday hopes the listener can at least “hear my raw passion and lust for musical chaos, as this is probably the song that encompasses me best out of all that I’ve recorded thus far,” she says. “I also would really like this song to become a go-to for hippie dancing. I haven’t written super percussive, modern music like this for release before, but I would like to write more, as the thought of people letting loose and immersing themselves in my music through dance fills me with so much joy and pride.”

Follow Bel Holiday on Twitter and Instagram for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: EVVAN Takes Pride in Individuality With “Wolf”

Photo Credit: Richard Gaston-Pierre

Long Island, NY-based folk singer-songwriter EVVAN always felt like the oddball out – a lone wolf breaking away from the pack. This used to affect her self-esteem when she was younger, but on her latest single “Wolf,” she celebrates the independence that comes from not fitting in.

“You are in a world so loud/Affected by the crowd/who don’t see you right/only want to fight,” she sings in a deep, rich voice over haunting guitars. The chorus is full of long notes containing drawn-out “oohs,” escalating into a wolf howl at the end, and poses the question: “What will you do/when the wolf comes out in you?” — EVVAN’s way of asking, “are you gonna follow the pack or be who you truly are?”

“Wolf” began as a “moody kind of soundscape song,” she says. When her drummer Jorge Balbi added a drum part, her vision for the song completely changed, and she had her engineer and guitarist Sean O’Brien laid down a lap steel guitar to help “give it that haunting spooky vibe with that flare of folk.”

The inspiration for the song began when EVVAN was watching a National Geographic documentary about wolves. “I was so fascinated by the howls and how, when you have a group of wolves, like a pack that just starts howling, it’s so musical and it’s haunting, and the song kind of builds off that,” she says. “I wanted to see what it would sound like if I put those howls to a melody, and I started crafting around that idea.”

The song also stems from EVVAN’s experience as a non-binary, pansexual person. “Ever since I was a kid, I was never one to kind of follow the norm, even down to the way that I dressed,” she says. “There were so many times I would get bullied because girls my age wore skirts and colorful clothes where I wanted to wear jeans or shorts and black.”

EVVAN’s debut EP Home, out April 30, deals in different ways with these themes of self-acceptance and belonging over the course of five tracks. In the warm, soothing “I’m Not Done Yet,” she sings about coming to understand her own gender and sexuality and open up about it even as the people around her warned her to “stay in the dark” or that “it’s not the right time” to come out.

“It’s never the right time to come out and say ‘I’m pansexual,'” she says. “We are either afraid of it or we want you to hide it. We don’t like that you’re different from the norm. And through this song, I was able to use what people told me to create this anthem [that says] keep throwing whatever you have at me, but I’m not done yet. I still carry who I am with me, and it’s gonna stay with me forever.”

Perhaps the catchiest song on the EP is bluesy single “Hurricane,” where EVVAN sings about a relationship that starts off fairly calm and then surprisingly blows up like said natural disaster. “You have that honeymoon phase and you think nothing could ever go wrong, but the doors were blown off, the windows were blown off, it was just a house in the middle of a hurricane,” she explains. “It was really just a song that allows me to express the kind of pain that I felt, but also the cathartic revelation where I’m actually okay with this — I have my moment of hate but I’m fine now, I’m refreshed, I’m over you.”

The influence of Fleetwood Mac is evident in EVVAN’s voice, while her love of Milo Greene is more audible in her folky instrumentals. Milo Greene, in fact, ended up co-producing the album after EVVAN emailed them and asked to work with them.

EVVAN got her first guitar when she was 12 and has been writing, playing, and singing nonstop ever since. She began her musical career performing under her given name Evan Petruzzi, releasing several singles, videos, and covers before changing her act’s name to EVVAN, a name that felt in line with her goal of promoting individuality.

“Evan for a female is kind of a rare name,” she says, “so I liked the idea of going with that, and I wanted it to be a little more unique, and EVVAN with two Vs is quite unique. So I decided on that, and once I did, it felt right and it felt like my full music persona was whole in a sense.”

As she channeled the resolve that went into this decision into her music, it began to sound more mature and confident to her. “I was going back and forth and there was that anxiety – should I even do it? Maybe this is just a silly idea,” she says. “And then I kind of just said, no, this is who I am. This is what I want. I should be able to do that.”

Follow EVVAN on Instagram and Facebook for ongoing updates.

Jessye DeSilva Heals From Traumatic Religious Upbringing On ‘Hover’ EP

Jessye DeSilva never intended for religion to emerge as a thread in their songwriting. With their new record, Hover, a five-track project bubbling with witchy incantations and soul, DeSilva was able to “channel some of that hurt” born out of their youth growing up in the church. “All the things that make you who you are end up coming out in your music,” the singer-songwriter tells Audiofemme.

DeSilva’s father was a pastor, and Sunday services were a natural part of life, if not an obligation. But DeSilva took full advantage of any opportunities to perform, from taking piano lessons to singing and playing in various services. “My relationship with the church has been really complicated,” they admit. “I really owe a lot of my growth as a musician to the church. I think church folk were the first to encourage me and show me that I had some sort of talent that was worth nurturing.”

However, many churchgoers were quick to turn on them when they learned DeSilva was queer. “I had been the talented preacher’s kid, and suddenly they were afraid for their children to be alone with me,” they remember.

DeSilva’s father rallied behind his child and “really did a lot of soul-searching when I came out. And he got to this place of radical acceptance and affirmation of me and the queer community, which is really a beautiful thing,” DeSilva recognizes. “I think to this day, my baggage isn’t with faith itself so much as what people have done in the name of their faith.”

As we’ve seen over the last four years, “religious extremism [has become] interwoven with politics and social issues,” and unlike ever before, DeSilva finds themselves reevaluating their upbringing, meanings of faith, and gaslighting.

A song like “Something Wicked,” for instance, referencing the iconic “something wicked this way comes” line from “Macbeth,” firmly uproots the “sense of collective gaslighting” that reared its head during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. “For me, what was going on there triggered some religious baggage with me, even though the trials weren’t overtly religious,” DeSilva explains. “It felt very similar, the way that I was feeling, in how the public was being gaslit. It felt a lot like the religious gaslighting I grew up with. That whole period culminated in me taking the song and turning it into an anthem. I wanted to own what made me wicked in certain people’s eyes.”

“It’s coming for your vanity/It’s coming for your guns/It’s coming for your bigotry/No matter where you run,” DeSilva snarls, spooky harmonies rattling like chains around them. Later, they firmly regain their worth with this moon-bound creed: “A change is gonna come…”

DeSilva’s emotions run red-hot, particularly with the title track. Written around the fourth anniversary of their partner’s mother’s death, the Boston musician attempts to make sense of grief and the afterlife and whether we, mere mortals, can lift the veil between worlds; their mournful lyrics slip from their tongue: “Come and stay by my side/When the cold moves in/Nights are long, nights are long/And my mind’s prone to wandering.”

“It was the first time I had been so close to that kind of grief before. I’ve lost close friends and grandparents. I have yet thankfully to lose my own parents,” they reflect. “Being with [my partner] through that was really difficult. I wasn’t able to empathize in a direct way with him. I wasn’t able to fix it. I didn’t know what to say.” 

DeSilva had also been fascinated with a podcast called Unobscured at the time. The second season delved into the spiritualist movement of the 1800s, when mediums broke into mainstream culture. “I was thinking about whether or not we really can communicate with the dead,” they continue. “I think we keep people alive through our memory. Whether there is a literal afterlife, I don’t know how I feel about that.”

Hover also offers up a bit of encouragement with “Worry,” a personification of DeSilva’s mental health tug-o-war as a plucky, front porch tune. “Leave your key by the front door/Take your dirty shoes off my clean floor/Keep moving on,” they sing, encouraging themselves to look to the horizon.

“I have very few songs where I don’t remember the writing process that much because I sat down and finished the song in one go. It’s pretty rare, but it’s also really awesome when that happens. This was also one of those rare instances where I had a melody in my head before lyrics,” they offer. “I had this simple folk structure in terms of the melody and rhyme scheme I wanted to play with.”

DeSilva had recently read author Mary Oliver’s “I Worried,” a poem in which she speaks directly to her anxiety. “That whole idea really vibed with me,” says DeSilva, who then turned their own mental health struggles into a “semi-abusive lover” for the song.

Hover is DeSilva’s second project, the follow-up to 2019’s Hoarfrost and Crocus Shoots. The former is marked with palpable boldness in melody, lyrics, production, and vocal prowess. Yet DeSilva still wrangles with their songwriting gifts. “I think what’s difficult is letting it be enough. I have this tendency to worry, especially when something just comes to me, that it’s not interesting enough or that it’s too simple,” they confide. “I get really tempted to throw in some fancy, weird chord or to add another adjective or metaphor to the lyrics. I look at songwriters like Brandi Carlile who can say something so profound but say it in a way that’s just how people talk. It doesn’t always sound like flowery poetry. It sounds like a heart-to-heart conversation with someone. I still feel like I can’t do that.”

Still, there’s an intrinsic optimism to Jessye DeSilva’s music that adds buoyancy to the weighty topics they address. “I kind of write myself in my music the way I want to show up in the world. I find a way to empower myself through my songs,” they explain, citing Stevie Nicks as a big influence. “She has this way in all of her songs of dealing with her heartache but at the same time having this feeling that ‘things really suck right now but I know I’m going to be okay.’” 

Follow Jessye DeSilva on Twitter and Instagram for ongoing updates.

After the Heartbreak, Greya Will Still “Thrive”

With a bright red jacket and vibrant orange eyeshadow, Greya stands out against the desolate, vacant backdrops in a new music video for latest single, “Thrive,” about a one-sided relationship and the unrequited passion that comes along with it. “The song itself is pretty literal, so we wanted to accentuate the feelings that come with a toxic relationship and emulate them through various settings and emotions,” Greya explains. “You see me alone outside a gas station, going through a kind of mourning, contrasted with an ideal relationship, which we personified at the beach.”

Director and videographer Hannah Gray Hall shot Greya opposite Tony Woodland, who plays her love interest, at Percy Priest Lake and an abandoned storefront in East Nashville. Greya’s bold red jacket symbolizes dauntless energy; red is a color of love, anger, and in some cultures, death. Greya blooms like a flower in the grey landscape—one that, with some courage, will bloom again despite being beaten and bruised.

Extraordinarily, the entire process of making the video came together in the span of three days, including post-production. Greya met her director on set while shooting a video for her previous single “He,” where they instantly connected. “When the ‘Thrive’ video situation became a time crunch, my roommate suggested giving her a call and within minutes we had a shoot date and concept down,” Greya says. With help on set from Greya’s roommates (and a bottle of whiskey they shared to keep warm), the group had the shoot down in one day. 

A Philly native, Greya is no stranger to the music scene, having picked up a guitar at age 10 only to start writing songs a year later. She has learned to express herself fearlessly in writing sessions with the likes of Shannon Sanders, Sacha Skarbek, Flo Reuter, and her “Thrive” co-writers Jasper Leak and Chris Keup, resulting in the arresting debut singles she released last year, “He” and “All Hell Breaks Loose.” But self-expression wasn’t always second nature to Greya.

“Developing confidence really evolved all aspects of my music,” she says. “I spent a lot of time questioning myself, which of course pretty much affected everything I did. Getting past the self-doubt is both my biggest accomplishment and my biggest evolution in music.”

With her latest release, we see that the confidence extends to Greya’s personal life as she describes leaving a destructive relationship, finally realizing that her emotions came second to her partner’s selfishness and deciding to let go, while holding space for the heartache she’s suffered. She sings, “Why do I always do this?/Want the guy that always puts me through it.” It’s easy to say in these moments of self-awareness that you’ve learned your lesson, but it’s a lifelong learning process according to Greya. “On paper, I now know how important it is to be up front when getting into any new relationship, which I’ve never done in the past,” she says. “I was always so concerned with being the ‘chill girl’ who didn’t ask too many questions, but that becomes a really difficult hole to climb out of. Going forward, I’d like to be straight up, but that’s easier said than done.” 

Despite how many times our hearts are broken, we’re only human. For Greya, facing the sadness in one relationship doesn’t provide immunity for others to come – and that’s okay. “The short answer is yes, I’ve become aware of some things that could improve relationships in the future,” she says. “But the long answer is no, because I usually mess that kind of thing up one way or another.”

Follow Greya on Instagram for ongoing updates.

Anya Marina Preps Live Album and Premieres Video Loveletter to Leaving NYC with “Pretty Vacant”

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

Adulthood doesn’t mean that an acquaintance can’t manage to make you feel like shit. Anya Marina is an accomplished singer-songwriter, known for an expansive catalogue, including “Satellite Heart” (from the platinum-selling soundtrack to Twilight: New Moon) and her bomb-ass cover of T.I.’s “Whatever You Like” (6 million YouTube views and counting). Her latest single, “Pretty Vacant,” off 2020’s Queen of the Night album, strips away the resume and showcases the raw pain of adult friendships.

“I wrote that song in Nashville and I was really hurt, at the time, by this famous girl,” Marina remembers. “I thought we were friends and I heard through the grapevine that she didn’t like me – it was like junior high school all over again. She showed an email that I wrote to a group of other people who I respected and I was just like: I am too old for this bullshit. It was so wild to me that adult women could act this way. Of course they can – we can all get that way. She had her reasons for being threatened by me or not liking me, but it really took me by surprise.”

The resulting song is a gel-penned hate note for the modern era, its pleasant guitar strumming and gentle vocals mocking the reader: “Darling, I don’t want your money or fame/Darling, I don’t want the keys to your place/Don’t you see I’m happier, too?/So happy without you.” From Marina’s point of view, the unnamed celebrity was only interested in an entourage, not a real friendship (with real sparring and emotions). And while she could understand not being liked, it was this woman’s approach that turned her stomach. “I was really shocked by the gossiping. I can’t believe that a 35-year-old woman who’s so strong and powerful and revered would say this stuff about little old me,” Marina says with a shrug. “I’m nobody to her.”

The video for the single, premiering today via Audiofemme, strays from the original plot of the song and focuses on Marina’s real-life move from her longtime hometown, New York City. In a series of cutaways, Marina cleans her apartment, carefully sweeping dust bunnies from the corner of her living room; the city looms outside the window, as static and ever-permanent as it could be. The move was a difficult, but necessary turning point for her. “I know the Buddhists say you suffer when you resist things, but it was hard,” Marina confesses. “I did not want to move. I loved my apartment. It was my little Shangri-La. But you know, when I started to move I was ready to do it.”

The album Queen of the Night was written as an ode to her time in NYC. “I had a really fruitful time in the city – going through heartache and living with a comedian, Nikki Glaser, who I love,” Marina says with a smile. “We were talking about our respective heartbreaks a lot as roommates. We’d come home for the night and discuss: ‘Who did you talk to?’ ‘Who did you see?’ ‘What’s the status of your love life?’ She would write jokes and I would write songs.” During this time, Marina and Glaser began co-producing a podcast called We Know Nothing (which she continued with comedians Phil Hanley and Sam Morril after Glaser’s other projects took precedence), chronicling their wild adventures in Chelsea and beyond.

With the whirl of daily life, Marina hit a creative wall, and put off writing for months despite her prolific run of albums spanning from 2005 debut Miss Halfway to 2019 EP Over You. “I was getting angry at myself for being such a bad singer-songwriter and being so undisciplined,” she remembers. “And then I was like: Just play one note. You always tell yourself just take baby steps with everything and then you’re not doing it with your music.” She grabbed her guitar and hummed what became the opening lyric for the album’s title track: “Maybe I’m a fool in love/But I don’t care/I won’t play their games.”

Anya Marina loves pulling vignettes from her life to use in her music. Like an expert in collage, her albums tend to capture and reinterpret a moment. She was raised on the drama and improvisation of jazz; her father was an amateur jazz musician and her grandmother a jazz pianist. “She was in bands up until the day she died [at the age of] 99,” Marina says. “Her last week of her life, she had three gigs with her big band and the other big band in her convalescent home. I come from some good genes I guess.”

While she’s now living in upstate New York with boyfriend and fellow musician Matt Pond (of Matt Pond PA), she is grateful for every moment spent in NYC. She’s incredibly thankful for her final performance there, which will be released as a career-spanning compilation, Live and Alone in New York. Her good friend, collaborator, and tour mate Eric Hutchinson convinced her to do the live album, not knowing it would be her final performance in the city for the foreseeable future. “I don’t think I would have done it if it were not for him pushing me to do it, which is how most of my projects get done – somebody pushing me to do it,” she remarks. The album was recorded over two nights at Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side in December 2019, then Marina and Hutchinson handpicked each intro and song. “It’s a good snapshot of the time,” Marina says of the experience.

Anya Marina isn’t resting on her laurels. She recently started her own Patreon and is busy sharing demos, unreleased songs, blog entries and private live stream shows with subscribers. As she looks forward to a new jazz ensemble project and ongoing collaborations with Matt Pond PA, New York City – and the failed friendship that inspired “Pretty Vacant” – are now in her rear view mirror.

Follow Anya Marina on Facebook for ongoing updates.

Palberta Play With Fiction, Animals, and Repetition on Poppy New LP Palberta5000

Photo Credit: Chloe Carrasco

Nina Ryser, Ani Ivry-Block and Lily Konigsberg don’t take themselves too seriously, and that’s what makes their band, Palberta, so much fun to listen to. The NYC-based indie rock outfit’s fifth studio album Palberta5000, like much of their previous work, is disjointed, chaotic, and sometimes disorienting – in the best way possible.

The album features the kind of lo-fi sound you’d imagine emanating from a Brooklyn warehouse show, with songs inspired by the relationship between the members, both as bandmates and as friends. The song “Before I Got Here,” for instance, mimics an argument between two people, then settles into soothing instrumentals, conveying that “you made it, you communicated, and now you’re still friends,” Konigsberg explains.

“We’re three women, and groups of three are really hard,” she says. “We had to figure out how to spend a lot of time together on the road and make music together without talking over each other or anyone feeling left out, and we have grown a lot in accepting and working through our issues. I feel like that made the music clearer because we can write together more easily.”

In a larger sense, the album deals with connection and community, something that’s become elusive to many in recent times. In “Corner Store,” they sing in discordant vocal tracks about meeting up with your friends at a local bodega, adding a fictional storyline about seeing someone they know on the cover of the newspaper.

The line between reality and nonsense is blurred throughout the album, where the band used animals as plot devices just for the fun of it. On “Cow,” they build a story around the act of taking home a bovine buddy, and in “Red Antz,” they describe running over the insects on a drive. “We’re oftentimes singing about feelings that are there, but maybe fictional scenarios that kind of bring about those feelings that maybe someone could relate to,” says Ivry-Block.

“We use absurdist combinations of words, and then they come to take on meaning when we put them together and process them,” Konigsberg adds. “There was really no reason to include so many animals. It was a surprise to all of us.”

Palberta’s songs are notoriously short — the 22 tracks on their last album, 2018’s Roach Going Down, are all under three minutes — and with this album, they set out to make them longer. “People always gave us grief about how short our songs are, and said it would be cool if we could go for longer, and I wanted to see if that was true,” says Ivry-Block. They succeeded: Two of the songs, the heavy, staccato “Fragile Place” and the harmony-driven “All Over My Face,” are nearly five minutes.

To lengthen the songs, the band experimented with repeating lyrics and melodies. “We write parts that sound kind of crazy, but if they’re repetitive, they’re less so,” says Ivry-Block. “If you hear it more than once, it becomes normal.” For the entire second half of “Big Bad Want,” for instance, the phrase “yeah, I can’t pretend what I want” repeats again and again in a way that’s a bit maddening yet pleasantly hypnotic.

Palberta5000 was also more heavily produced than the band’s past albums, giving it a poppier sound, which they were already inclined to incorporate. “We were all just way more interested in pop music at that current moment,” says Konigsberg. “Listening to it, being better at our instruments, being in a professional recording studio, and having a better vocal mic sound all led to a more poppy album.”

Palberta has been around for seven and a half years, the members having first met while they were students at Bard College. The origin of the band’s name, like much of its music, is fairly random: they’re all fans of their dads, so they were going through their dads’ names, and a friend of Konigsberg’s who was staying with her had a dad named Albert. They decided to feminize it and added the “p” as a play on words signifying their friendship. “People think we’re from Canada,” says Konigsberg, even though the existence of the Canadian province didn’t even register in their minds at the time.

Ivry-Block hopes that when people listen to Palberta, they feel inspired to make music also. “We all come from really different musical backgrounds, and we kind of came together to make very specific music,” she says. “I just believe in my heart [that] anyone is capable of making music, and we’ve just got to go for it. We hope it inspires everyone, even if you don’t have any experience. You can do it.”

Follow Palberta on Facebook and Instagram for ongoing updates.

Vákoum Unpack an Anxious Mind to Become One with the Body in “Airotic” Video Premiere

On their debut full-length LP Linchpin, experimental duo Vákoum offer up an expansive array of rhythmic, textural, and tonal complexity, utilizing unexpected transitions between effected guitars, a blend of acoustic and electronic drum beats, and ethereal Bulgarian-inspired vocals to create a sound that mirrors the many mood swings of an anxious human mind. Though certainly relevant in these unprecedented times, these are themes Vákoum has been unpacking since their very inception.

Multi-instrumentalists, composers, and producers Kelli Rudick and Natalia Rudick-Padilla formed Vákoum in 2014, upon meeting at a guitar clinic at now-defunct creative hub The End in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Since then, they’ve released an EP (2017’s Home for Home), toured with The Album Leaf, and refined a sound inspired by the likes of Björk, Blonde Redhead, and Holly Herndon. They’re due to drop Linchpin February 19th, and they premiere the video for the album’s second single “Airotic” on Audiofemme today.

“Airotic” was written pre-COVID, though it translates well to our present moment. The track guides the listener through the stages of an anxiety attack, using sonic transitions to mark the initial moment of panic leaden with fear and dread, through the disconnect we feel from our body and breath until the moment we finally let go. The song is about grounding through breath, a skill Kelli explains she only honed in recent years. ‘“Airotic’ came from this visualization of the breath,” she says. “There’s so much power in conscious breathing, and most people don’t know how to breathe. I feel like I didn’t know how to breathe until a couple years ago, and so to me it’s the only thing that’s left when things become really hard, and dark, and you lose control. It’s the only thing to anchor you to the ground.” 

Directed by Adrian Landeros and featuring dancer Yansi Mendez, the video’s choreography was entirely improvised. They had been filming all day; Mendez was cold and exhausted. They stopped production but the cameras were still rolling when something came upon her and she started moving, capturing the song’s meaning through movement entirely led by intuition, herself becoming grounded, becoming one with her body. 

The video is edited to further articulate the feeling of a violent mood swing by rushing through clipped, saturated images of the natural world: crinkling leaves, sparks of flame. But around the 45-second mark these wildly flashing images stop, transitioning to the dancer’s organic movements just as the song bursts wide open into the Vákoum’s haunting vocals. Mendez flails wildly and the manic images return, until the mood shifts again and her movements become more gentle, the imagery cuts in less violently, the beat slows and the vocals become more drawn-out, almost akin to chanting.

At times Mendez pauses completely; we can see the breath rise and fall in her exposed ribcage. In the final minute of the video her movement picks up again but she is now covered in blood, perhaps signifying a rebirth from her own dread to a new space of letting go. The blood is “something human beings are so ashamed of, and scared of, and disgusted by. It’s like a part of us. It’s everywhere in our body, and yet we’re so scared of it,” Kelli explains. “At the end, when she starts dancing with it, it just felt like a baby coming out of the womb.” Blood also figures heavily in the video for Vákoum’s previous single “Spark,” also directed by Landeros, establishing an intense visual language particular to the duo.

While the track articulates the mechanization of an anxious mind, Linchpin as a whole also serves to illustrate the way anxiety can affect a relationship between two people. Married in real life, Kelli describes herself as the more neurotic of the pair, leaning on Natalia for support in these difficult emotions. Natalia explains that it’s no less dreadful to witness these moments of panic in a loved one from the outside. “There is a sense of solitude, and helplessness, from not being able to reach in,” she says. “I think when you see or feel that main shift of the song, you hear the lyrics say, ‘It’s you in it, untrue isn’t it, enough enough.’ And I think it’s really beautiful to be able to hold that space for the other person, and speak almost kind of softer, and change the filters in which life is being viewed.”

The pair describes music as their marriage counselor. Their musical collaboration has helped them to learn more about each other and resolve triggers and other issues, which is where the album’s title comes in, a linchpin being the tool that connects a wheel to an axel. “Things that remain unspoken that you sometimes, for some reason, are afraid to say, you’re able to put out there in music. Or even a feeling, which is maybe this transition or this chord or whatever,” Natalia explains. “It’s a beautiful thing about our relationship that we have a way of feeling music that is extremely similar, and sometimes it can be spoken that way, so you’re not hurting anybody, you’re not saying the wrong thing, you’re just putting it out there with music and the other one picks up on it in a way nothing else does.” In other words, it provides a vehicle for deeper connection, for more difficult conversations.

Despite the limitations and frustrations inherent to releasing an album at the height of a pandemic, both Kelli and Natalia warn against the overwhelming sense of pessimism so many feel. They continue to practice every other day, and have used this time to become more disciplined in learning new technologies to help them share their album with a wider audience, focusing on streaming in place of live performance. Kelli laments the pent-up energy that comes with releasing a new record without a live vehicle for sharing and experiencing it with others, but ultimately says, “What it comes down to is that we have to just keep doing what we love, and no matter what happens, that’s the most important thing, just to keep creating.” Natalia agrees, once again emphasizing the linchpin that holds their creative and personal relationships together: “We’re not as affected in that regard, because we always make music for ourselves. It’s kind of a newer thing to want to share it. And so it’s a little bit like home anyway, with an industry or not. I feel complete.”

Follow Vákoum on Facebook and Instagram for ongoing updates.

MUSIQUE BOUTIQUE: Arlo Parks, Tamar Aphek & Juana Everett

Welcome to Audiofemme’s monthly record review column, Musique Boutique, written by music journo vet Gillian G. Gaar. Every fourth Monday, Musique Boutique offers a cross-section of noteworthy reissues and new releases guaranteed to perk up your ears.

There’s been a lot of anticipation for the release of Arlo Parks’ debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams (Transgressive Records). The London-based performer broke through in 2018 with the understated, insinuating track “Cola” (quickly snapped up and featured in the HBO series I May Destroy You), followed up by two well-received EPs. When her first headline tour was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, she then focused her energies on creating music that addressed the sudden upheavals in our world. “Hurt,” for example, deals with pain of relationships, but lines like “It won’t hurt so much forever”  resonate on a much deeper level. “Where there is this global sense of confusion and uncertainty and fear, I like to think my music provides something soothing,” she told Billboard, and while Collapsed in Sunbeams does have a cool, calming sound, Parks’ poetic self-awareness adds an edge to her work.

The most prominent elements of Parks’ songs are her vocals and the drumbeats; other instrumentation is spare, and somewhat in the background. It gives her work a heightened intimacy, especially so on this album, which she’s said is based around the writings in her own adolescent diary. Listening to her songs is like sitting down with an old friend, the kind who can get you to open up without fear of judgment. “Black Dog” is a remarkable depiction of a friend’s depression, vividly capturing the sorrow that can overwhelm you: “It’s so cruel what your mind can do for no reason.” “Green Eyes” sadly looks back at a relationship broken apart by homophobia.

But despite the somber subject matter, these aren’t songs of despair. There’s a light touch to Parks’ delivery that makes a beam shine even in the darkness, and not just in the songs that are obviously geared to that theme (e.g. the reassuring “Hope”). It’s the recognition of pain, while refusing to be brought down by it, that gives Parks’ music a buoyancy that ultimately leaves you with a sense of optimism. This is an album of multilayered delights.

Israeli musician Tamar Aphek came to my attention when I discovered the highly entertaining video for “Russian Winter,” from her latest album, All Bets Are Off (Kill Rock Stars). It’s a rollicking number, propulsively driven by bass and drums, with a few well-placed guitar and keyboard riffs from Aphek to dress it up, paired to a blast of colorful animation. It provides an explosive start to this taut and edgy album.

In general, the classic guitar/bass/drums power trio lineups have a stripped-down, leaner and meaner sound, which is certainly true of Aphek’s band, and, in this case nicely balanced out by her deadpan vocals. The sparse instrumentation of “Show Me Your Pretty Side” makes that statement sound more like a threat than a request. A rattling drum kicks off “Crossbow,” a stuttering bassline then adding to the building anxiety, with Aphek’s vocals floating coolly on top, oblivious to the discord percolating away underneath. It’s even better when Aphek adds guitar to the mix. “Beautiful Confusion” (a great title that perfectly describes the kind of harmonious dissonance you’ll find on this album), starts out as a slow crawl, with a hint of jazz flavor, before a raw blast of guitar comes in to shake things up.

The unexpected closer is a melancholy cover of “As Time Goes By” — though considering that this is an album of contrasts (harsh and soft, bracing and mellow), maybe that’s not such a surprise after all. It injects a note of nostalgia into this very modern work.

After establishing herself as a musician in her native Spain, Juana Everett relocated to Los Angeles in 2016. It’s a journey that’s very much a part of her new, self-released album, Move On (digital only, available on all streaming platforms), starting with the opening track, “Drifter of Love.” “I wasn’t sure of what I was chasing/but I carried on,” she sings, before urging her restless self to be patient. “Wind Whistle Blow” mines similar territory, a forthright, upbeat number about keeping your head up and forging ahead, no matter what: “When I hear the wind whistle blow/keep moving on.”

There’s a warm, welcoming feeling to this record. Everett has traded her previous punk rock leanings for a folkier, more intimate style, bringing to mind the confessional work of singer/songwriters from the heyday of LA’s Laurel Canyon music scene; Carole King, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, et. al. (she clearly moved to the right place). The sound is crisp and clean, with moderate, soothing tempos. Sometimes there’s a delicacy, as in “Light Up a Fire,” a gentle song about recovering from a breakup and confronting depression. “Little Tragedies” is a deeply emotional number, a song whose rising hopes are illustrated by its fuzzy ascending guitar line. “Free As a Bird,” though initially somewhat pensive, ultimately looks ahead to redemption. Move On is an album about finding your way, and understanding the journey is just as important as the destination.

Brisbane Trio The Disgruntled Taxpayers Transform Old-School Aussie Punk Into Modern Anthems

This week for Playing Melbourne, we’re taking a detour up the East Coast of Australia to Queensland, where 3-piece band The Disgruntled Taxpayers are based in the capital city, Brisbane. We’re taking this long, humid and scenic trip because a couple of weeks ago, my beloved Melbourne community radio station 3RRR played “Fried Chicken Gave Me Boobs,” which laments the consequences of hormone-pumped poultry resulting in some alarming (ahem) developments. Before you write this off as boys-making-jokes à la Weird Al Yankovich novelty, hear me out. The track is wiry, angular, dynamic and a deprecatingly modern political protest.

At first, I’d wondered: was this an obscure Iggy Pop song I’ve never heard, or some amazing relic of the ’70s punk scene? In fact, the Disgruntled Taxpayers formed just over 12 years ago in Brisbane, their sound and energy that of three musicians who are thoroughly comfortable and attuned to each other. Not a relic, but a living, raging, rocking beast of an act that channels the best of The Stooges or The Ramones along with the hilariously sardonic political commentary of Melbourne’s own Snog.

Jake Donehue fronts the band on vocals and guitars, older brother Paul Donehue is on drums and Mark Heady tears up the atmosphere on bass. “Fried Chicken” features on their most recent EP, $5 Toaster, which came out in 2018. It followed up their 2014 debut, Over-ambitious, Selfish Corporate Whore; both offer biting, off-the-cuff observations on the absurd.

“I’ve got a book of thoughts,” Jake Donehue explains. “The best songs are the ones that fall out of you in 15 minutes flat. We jam as a band, we’ve got a good little set up where we rehearse, experiment a lot, and so a lot of the songs and riffs come out of that. The world’s such a ridiculous place – it just keeps on giving, so we’ll never run out of material.”

That includes new songs the band has “banked up and ready to go” for their next album, which they intend to release in mid to late 2021. “We’re excited about playing new material. It’s gonna be even more stupid than the last one,” Donehue warns. “But, before we record the album, we want to get gigs in and be match ready. I think we fill a void. I’ve tried writing serious songs, it doesn’t work.”

What does work is the sardonic humour of songs like “Crabs Are Much Better When They’re at the Beach” which lampoons a sexually transmitted disease while also celebrating the little seaside creatures that “entertain your kids.” Or “Insecure Men,” with its crunchy guitar riffs and throaty refrain: “Look at my clothes and look at my car!”

The band gigs in Brisbane, northern New South Wales and Queensland towns, like Toowoomba (“always fun”), Lismore, and Ipswich (“we’ve got a little following out there, which is cool”). Currently, the border restrictions due to a recent COVID-19 outbreak in northern New South Wales has ensured no artists are doing interstate gigs without extensive applications, testing and quarantining; thus, the trio have been gigging significantly less than usual. Perhaps the only thing to do is to listen to $5 Toaster and have a laugh.

“You either laugh or you cry, don’t you?” Donehue suggests.

The band had played a “stinking hot” gig in Brisbane the night before our interview though, so as stifling as the restrictions are, they’re not a total impediment to live music in Queensland. “People are a bit sketchy going out. It’s good we’re still rolling, but it’s frustrating 30,000 people can go to a footy game but there’s only 50 people in a gig,” Donehue says. “Considering there’s no international bands here for a while, it’s good for Aussie bands at the moment, so we’re taking advantage of that. Last night, it was 50 people maximum and everyone sat down.”

It’s no surprise to learn that the Disgruntled Taxpayers are fans of Australian punk bands formed in the 1980s, typified by Radio Birdman, Hard-Ons and The Meanies. “We’re all big Midnight Oil fans, early Midnight Oil,” says Donehue. “Our bass player ran away from home as a teenager to follow them on tour, actually! We used to sneak into gigs as teenagers, like Cosmic Psychos, The Celibate Rifles and all that sort of stuff. I was also into jazz, though. Mark is more into heavier stuff whereas Paul is more into world music. We don’t want to be constricted by genre, ever.”

Donehue’s punk rock ethos dictates that he doesn’t seek to please everyone, not even fans. It’s an approach that has, however improbably, attracted a broad and loyal fan base. “We’ve got a lot of young people in their late teens who like us. I’m mid-40s and there’s a lot of people my age as well,” admits Donehue. “The Brisbane music scene is really inclusive. I lived in Sydney during my 20s and it’s a lot more cliquey, and Melbourne can be a little like that, but up here it’s too hot to be fashionable. Everyone is welcome. A lot of people come to cheer up. If that’s what I can do for the world, then so be it.”

The Disgruntled Taxpayers, with their bank of new material and enough gigs to keep them “match ready,” plan to record their next LP with Jeff Lovejoy at his Blackbox Recording Studios. “Once we start it, it will be a pretty quick process, a couple of months,” Donehue predicts. Lovejoy is a great asset to have on board, having worked in both engineering and production for Powderfinger, Shutterspeed, Wolfmother and Black Mustang amongst other notable Australian bands.

Despite their larrikin image, Donehue says band affairs are mostly a wholesome endeavor. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a fight,” he says, adding that his bandmates are “both family men, so they’ve got that going on as well. There’s not much rock ‘n’ roll going on. I have to make it up for the other two – it’s ridiculous!”

Follow The Disgruntled Taxpayers on Facebook for ongoing updates.

Seattle’s Sundae Crush Serve Up Psych-infused Solidarity with “Don’t Give Up” Video

After the year we all just had, it’s completely understandable if you feel like giving up. But with “Don’t Give Up,” Seattle’s Sundae Crush have arrived to offer you another option: How about a therapeutic float through a neon floral wonderland?

In the psychedelic, prairie-inspired video, designed by visual duo The Valdez, band founder Jena Pyle and bassist/vocalist Izaac Mellow are dressed in twee floral and ruffled outfits from a clothing line fittingly titled “Ugly House on the Prairie,” by Seattle-based no-waste clothing designer Janelle Rabbott, (a.k.a. JRAT). Lyrically, Pyle and Mellow offer strength, support and solidarity as they sing, “Don’t give up so soon/You know that I’ve been there.”

“Don’t Give Up” was first penned in 2018 as part of Sundae Crush’s live scoring of Sailor Moon R at Northwest Film Forum’s Puget Soundtrack series. Originally called “Don’t Give Up, Sailor Moon,” this song was written for a scene where the manga princess is feeling extra discouraged. With an effect similar to that of a flick of that legendary moon-shaped wand, the song lends the listener a little self-empowerment magic for the hard times—and that’s exactly what Sundae Crush intended.

“‘Don’t Give Up’ feels like the healing process – the acknowledgment,” says Mellow. “I think about how excited I was when I recorded the bell kit part on that song. I could just feel it in my head; this is going to sound so good and positive and poppy.”

But Sundae Crush’s effusive joy didn’t exactly come naturally. The song—in fact, the whole record—is dedicated to Pyle’s therapist, who has helped her get through difficult times. Released in November 2020 by fresh Seattle label Donut Sounds Record Co., A Real Sensation centers the importance of caring for your mental health, so much so that the band is donating 50% of the sales from first 100 vinyl copies of the LP, as well as 25% of merch sales, to the WA Therapy Fund to support Black healing.

“A lot of the time I was writing songs, it was usually after some sort of conversation that I had with my therapist, so that was a lot of my process for the record, for sure,” says Pyle. “I really wanted to give back in some way [with this album]… so I took the opportunity to donate part of the record to something that would be really helpful. I would really love for therapy to be free in the future, hopefully.”

In 2015, Pyle moved to Seattle from her college town of Denton, Texas, with the dream of Sundae Crush already in her heart. At the time, she had a project called Layer Cake, which nodded to her love of food and the “aesthetics of cute,” two themes she continues to riff on in Sundae Crush.


After a few temporary lineups in 2017-2019, Sundae Crush’s current iteration was born a few years after Pyle’s start in Seattle when she crossed paths with bassist/vocalist Izaac Mellow, guitarist/vocalist Emily Harris, and drummer Dan Shapiro, while out and about at shows in Seattle. Notably, Shapiro got involved with the band shortly after hearing the group perform at a gritty house show, where he endured an awkward Tinder date.

“The Tinder date was not good. I think they left and I was watching the show. They were like, ‘peace,'” remembers Shapiro. “But I saw them for the first time and I had a similar reaction that Izaac had, like this is the best band ever.”

Many Seattleites feel the same way. In fact, Seattle Weekly noted Sundae Crush’s debut EP Crushed as one of the best local albums when it was released in April 2017.

A Real Sensation represents what makes Sundae Crush so sweet, mixing the shimmering sounds of throwback psychedelia and the country authenticity of Pyle’s Texas upbringing for a fresh take on Seattle’s low-maintenance, D.I.Y. rock aesthetic. The video for “Don’t Give Up” dials that aesthetic all the way up – while reminding us all to keep going.

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