Lineup

Björk
The Icelandic singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist started her career in Reykjavik in 1977 at the age of 11, recording an eponymous album of children’s songs and covers of popular songs that went platinum in Iceland. At 14, she played drums in the all-girl punk band, Spit and Snot, and later tried her hand at jazz fusion in Exodus. The early punk influence was apparent in Jam-80, eventually renamed Tappi Tikarrass, translated from the Icelandic as “Cork the Bitch’s Ass.” Her next group, KUKL, toured and collaborated with UK anarcho-punks Crass. After shifts and restructurings, KUKL morphed into the Sugarcubes (starting officially on the birth of her son in 1986). Björk achieved international success as the lead vocalist for the group, which lasted until 1992, and was perhaps best known for the 1988 single, “Birthday”. (In 2006 the Sugarcubes reformed for a one-night benefit show in Reykjavik.) After the Sugarcubes disbanded, Björk established herself as a solo artist with Debut (1993). She has since recorded six solo albums: Post (1995), Homogenic (1997), Vespertine (2001), Medulla (2004), Volta (2007), and Biophilia, a multi-media project pairing 10 songs with corresponding iPad Apps (2011), as well as a number of compilations, soundtracks, and remix albums. In addition to her musical career, Björk won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes film festival in 2000 for her lead role in Dancer in the Dark as well as being nominated for an Oscar for her song "I’ve Seen It All", composed alongside the soundtrack for the film. She also co-starred with her partner, the visual artist Matthew Barney, in his film Drawing Restraint 9, for which she also composed the soundtrack (brass sections from the film are sampled on Volta’s "Declare Independence" and "Vertebrae By Vertebrae”). The couple has a daughter together.
R. Kelly
In an era of declining songwriting skills and AutoTune crooning, R. Kelly embodies the best traditions of American music as a vocalist, songwriter, and producer. Despite selling millions of recordings and writing classic songs for himself and many others, this Chicago-based singer-songwriter continues to push his art forward with Write Me Back, a dynamic 12-song collection that was part of his extraordinary 2012. Along with his new album, R. Kelly published his first memoir, Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me, and has re-teamed with IFC to add chapters to his innovative hip-hop opera Trapped in the Closet, which was an early 21st century cultural phenomenon. In an era where hip-hop has overshadowed R&B as mainstream music, R. Kelly has reinforced his credentials as “the R in R&B.” He speaks candidly about the state of that venerable music culture and his role as a keeper of the flame. “I don’t mean to sound bold but I speak the truth, especially when I speak about R&B music,” he says humbly. “R&B has in some ways been abandoned and it’s being used in areas when people see fit to maybe put a hook on a rap song to blow up a rap song. Now, I don’t knock that hustle, but if we’re gonna respect R&B when it comes to rap, then it deserves to stand on its own as well.”
Belle & Sebastian
Since being launched on the River Clyde in Glasgow in 1996, the good ship Belle and Sebastian has sailed far and wide on the oceans of international indie pop, stockpiling a treasure trove of gold and silver records, a loyal legion of fans, and critical kudos by the barrel‐load. The current line‐up has been in place for over a decade, selling over three million albums, releasing a dozen singles, and playing countless sold‐out concerts around the world. The latest instalment in Belle and Sebastian’s illustrious recording career comes with the release of The Third Eye Centre in June 2013, a gathering of rarities and B‐sides from the past 10 years. After touring festivals this summer, the band intend to get straight back into the studio to record their ninth studio album.

MIA
In 2000, the Sri Lankan born, London bred Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam was encouraged, by electro-clash icon Peaches, to make music on a Roland MC-505 Groovebox. Maya pulled lyrics from journals she had written during a 4 month trip to the Caribbean island of St Vincent. In 2005, she released Arular. It was considered as much a political statement as a musical one. 2010 saw the release of, /\/\/\Y/\, which received early praise from Rolling Stone commenting, “M.I.A's latest is as challenging and awesomely out-there as the title of her album /\/\/\Y/\.” Now, as M.I.A. readies her fourth studio album, new track “Bad Girls”, produced by Danja, was released worldwide on January 31, 2012. The “Bad Girls” video was shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco and directed by Romain Gavras. It debuted on Noisey on February 3, 2012. Named one of the ten defining artists of the 2000’s decade by Rolling Stone and one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine, M.I.A. has been nominated for an Academy Award and two Grammys (“Paper Planes” and “Swagga Like Us”). Expect a full length release from M.I.A this summer!
Joanna Newsom
Joanna Newsom has been playing music since she got her first harp, which fell from the sky into her backyard when she was all of eight years old. She and that harp embarked on a series of adventures that would make The Chronicles of Narnia seem like a total snooze! But, long story short, Joanna learned to play her instrument in the styles of all the continents, and along the way, she played some piano as well and began to write songs of her very own. Now she's cracked the tender young age of 30, but she's looking back on an extraordinary decade that saw her break into the pop world as a harp-playing singer of uncommonly compelling songs. Her first album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, was released by Drag City in 2004. Joanna hit the road in support of the album, driving from show to show with her harp in the back of her car. It was cheaper than driving a piano around--but still! About six months after the record came out, it started selling like hotcakes--or perhaps crepes is a more suitable form of pancake metaphor. The Milk-Eyed Mender still sells like crepes today--even on the CD format, which generally sells like crap these days. Joanna hasn't ever looked back, and on both Ys (2006) and Have One on Me (2010), she has elevated her songcraft into unforeseen and wildly fulfilling areas for both herself and her fans.
Solange
Solange’s latest single, “Losing You” and her critically acclaimed EP True, made with collaborator Dev Hynes, are reflective of her journey as an artist, bringing listeners a fresh new sound “with a breezy fusion of singer-centric R&B, 1980s pop, and lanky mid-tempo hip-house beasts,” as Spin Magazine put it. Along with her success as a DJ, Solange previously released two albums, Solo Star (2003) and Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams (2008), which entered the Top 10 of Billboard’s 200 chart.
The Breeders
Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs, and Jim Macpherson played their first show together on Friday, June 19, 1992 in a snooker hall behind Warrington Rugby Club in the north of England, near Manchester. Two days later, they supported Nirvana in Dublin and Belfast, and then played at Glastonbury. Back in the U.S., after playing 27 sold-out shows that fall, they made their way to San Francisco to record Last Splash. Released August 30, 1993 on 4AD, reviewers described the platinum-selling Last Splash as "effervescent," "blistering," and "incoherent." At its center is the infectiously appealing, instantly recognizable "Cannonball". Propelled in part by the video directed by Kim Gordon and Spike Jonze, the song was voted Single of the Year by the NME. After more than two years of touring, they played their last show on September 5, 1994, at Lollapalooza in Los Angeles. In 2013, they play together again for the first time, performing Last Splash live. 4AD release LSXX, a deluxe anniversary edition of Last Splash, in April 2013.
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo is one of the most beloved and respected bands in America. For nearly 30 years, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew have enjoyed success entirely on their own terms--playing the world’s best concert halls, museums, and dives, dominating critics’ lists, doing a “Simpsons” theme, playing the Velvet Underground in “I Shot Andy Warhol”, sharing stages with some of the most important musicians of our time, and even creating a holiday tradition unto themselves with their yearly series of Hanukkah shows at Hoboken, New Jersey’s legendary club Maxwells, from which they’ve donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity. Their 13th (depending who you ask) LP Fade is the most direct, personal, and cohesive album of their career. Recorded with John McEntire at Soma Studios in Chicago, it recalls the sonic innovation and lush cohesion of career high points like 1997‘s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One and 2000’s ...And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. The album is a tapestry of fine melody and elegant noise, rhythmic shadowplay and shy-eyed orchestral beauty, songfulness and experimentation. But Fade attains a lyrical universality and hard-won sense of grandeur that’s rare even for this band. It weaves themes of aging, personal tragedy, and emotional bonds into a fully-realized whole that recalls career-defining statements like Blood on the Tracks, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, or Al Green's Call Me.
Lil B
Brandon "Lil B" McCartney of Berkeley, Calif., penned his first Billboard 200 hit at the age of 15 with his group the Pack. His song "Vans" received nationwide airplay and worldwide distribution through Jive Records, launching Lil B's career as a recording artist. Since his early successes, Lil B has recorded nearly 3,000 songs, self-produced and directed hundreds of music videos, and developed an army of online and real-world supporters with a creative style and originality unmatched in the entertainment industry. Lil B is a published author and the architect of the Based lifestyle--a philosophy that encourages positive thinking and creative expression in the pursuit of happiness and helping others.
Swans
Michael Gira founded the seminal NYC band Swans in 1982. Quickly becoming infamous for their punishing, brutal, and repetitive onslaughts of sound, extreme volume levels, and Gira's sloganeering vocals, self-flagellation, abject shouts and growls, Swans gradually transformed over 15 years, ultimately venturing into harsh mechanical proto-industrial rock, sprawling shifts of texture and perspective (see the bucolic atmospheric folk idles and martial stomps of their much heralded Children of God double LP from 1987), gentle acoustic-based songs, and finally on to their ultimate statement, Soundtracks For The Blind (1997) which somehow incorporated all of these elements at once, across well over two hours of music. At this point, Gira called it quits after 15 years of relentless touring and productivity, and disbanded Swans. He spent the next 10 years releasing his music under the name Angels of Light. He also produced and released music through his label Young God Records by notable talents including Devendra Banhart, Lisa Germano, and Akron/Family. In 2010, Gira reactivated Swans and has since released three critically acclaimed albums with them, the latest being the 2xCD set The Seer, as well as mounting year-long world tours.
Toro Y Moi
Since his first music began making the rounds in 2009, Toro Y Moi’s Chaz Bundick has proven himself to be a prolific and diverse musician, letting each successive release broaden the scope of his oeuvre. The funky psych-pop of 2011’s Underneath the Pine evinced an artist who could create compelling atmospheres even without the aid of source material or drum machines. The product of a move from South Carolina to Berkeley, Calif., and the subsequent extended separation from loved ones, Toro Y Moi’s third full-length, Anything in Return, puts Chaz Bundick right in the middle of the producer/songwriter dichotomy that his first two albums established. There’s a pervasive sense of peace with his tendency to dabble in both sides of the modern music-making spectrum, and he sounds comfortable engaging in intuitive pop production and putting forth the impression of unmediated id. Anything in Return is an album that feels like the artist’s essence, uninhibited by genre.
Savages
Savages' intention was to create a sound, indestructible and musically solid, written for the stage, designed with enough nuances to provide a wide range of emotions. Savages are a self-affirming voice to help experience our girlfriends differently, our husbands, our jobs, our erotic life, and the place music occupies in our lives. Savages' songs aim to remind us that human beings haven’t evolved so much, that music can still be straight to the point, efficient and exciting.
Rustie
With the release of his debut album Glass Swords in 2011, Rustie went from being an underground treasure in the UK to the face of an entire musical movement. His complex composition of sounds led critics to place Rustie at the forefront of the “maximalist” movement in electronic music; Simon Reynolds called Glass Swords one of 2011’s great albums. Things only continued to skyrocket in 2012. His “BBC Essential Mix” was one of the most popular of the year, and he played sold out shows in the US during the spring and fall.
TNGHT
Within a few months of their standout debut performance at SXSW 2012, Hudson Mohawke and Lunice’s TNGHT collaboration has taken over the electronic/hip-hop scene. It is now nearly impossible to attend a bass-leaning DJ set and not hear one of the tracks off their collective first EP, TNGHT. Released July 2012, this 16-minute EP debuted on the US Billboard charts with near universal critical acclaim, and featured in Kanye West’s Paris Fashion Week show, as well as this year’s MTV VMA Awards. Hudson Mohawke has also recently signed on as a producer for Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Beats family.
Low
Low was formed by Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker in Duluth, Minn., in 1993. The Invisible Way is their 10th album in 20 years as a band. It was recorded by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and engineered by Grammy-winner Tom Schick at Wilco’s the Loft studio in Chicago. How is this different from any other Low record? In the words of Low’s Alan Sparhawk: “Mimi sings lead on five of the 11 songs; piano, lots of piano... and an acoustic guitar; songs about intimacy, the drug war, the class war, plain old war war, archeology, and love. Thank you for your time and please enjoy what we made. I think it’s beautiful.”
El-P
El-P is a rapper and producer from Brooklyn, New York. He used to be in a group called Company Flow, which put out some records that people liked. He started a record label called Definitive Jux, which put out a bunch of other records people liked. He has released three solo rap albums, a jazz album, five instrumental albums, and has been on TV a bunch of times. He has produced records for many people. He has performed for many people all over the world. His critically acclaimed, new, full-length rap album, Cancer For Cure, is out now, as is Killer Mike's R.A.P. Music, for which served as producer.
Killer Mike
A true OG, Killer Mike made his debut on the Grammy-winning Outkast song "Whole World". Since then, he has continually distinguished himself with his superior rhythm, cadence, and searing lyrical content. He further cemented his unique niche in hip-hop with 2012's R.A.P. Music which was produced entirely by El-P and topped many Best of 2012 lists. He spent the rest of 2012 on the road, proving his chops to sold-out rooms on a nightly basis.
Wire
In spring 2012, Wire’s plan had been to convene at Rockfield Studios in Wales to review the rudimentary blueprints of songs that had never made it beyond a few live performances in 1979 and 1980 – a time when the band-members were in creative overdrive yet the band itself was disintegrating. The aim wasn’t simply to resuscitate and record old songs; in fact, many of them hadn’t become proper songs in the first place, existing only as basic ideas or undeveloped parts. Rather, the objective was to approach that unrealized work as an oblique strategy, a potential springboard for Wire’s contemporary, forward-looking processes – a possible point of departure for new compositions. Change Becomes Us encapsulates the paradoxical essence of Wire’s creativity. The tendency of these new songs to refuse a single, settled identity is emblematic of the band’s ever-evolving aesthetic – one that’s always hinged on sustained tensions and oppositions: between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the comfortable and the unsettling, the melodic and the brutal, the cerebral and the visceral, the smart and the moronic, the obvious and the inscrutable, the rational and the absurd.
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
Formed in late 1994 by singers/guitarists/drummers Conrad Keely and Jason Reece, Trail of Dead has evolved over the years, expanding their line-up while still being creatively driven by the core founding members. Friends since childhood, Keely and Reece started playing music in the indie rock town of Olympia, Wash., and eventually relocated to Austin, Tex., where they started …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Their first release was a self-titled album that came out on Trance Records in 1998, which was succeeded by Madonna in 1999 on Merge records. In 2002 they released Source Tags and Codes on Interscope Records and over the next four years released two additional albums on the label--Worlds Apart and So Divided--before parting ways with them in fall 2007. In the Spring of 2008, …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead launched their Richter Scale Imprint, and in February 2009 released their sixth studio album The Century of Self via Justice Records (US) and Superball Music (Europe). In Spring 2010 the band signed a Worldwide deal with Superball and released Tao of the Dead in February 2011. Lost Songs, their eighth full-length studio album, was recorded in Hannover, Germany this past summer and released in October on Richter Scale/Superball Music. …Trail of Dead is Conrad Keely, Jason Reece, Autry Fulbright II, and Jamie Miller. Jason and Autry are based in Austin, Conrad is based in Cambodia, and Jamie lives in L.A.
Chairlift
Caroline Polachek and Patrick Wimberly made Something, their second record, over 18 months between the back of an antique store in Brooklyn and the basement of a family home in Streatham, London. The world and characters of Something slowly emerged--overtones of manic revenge contrast with a dark brooding guilt, and pastoral, almost psychedelic love meets its own inevitable, blue future. Producer Dan Carey's London studio is part of the world of Something, full of giant plate-reverb boxes, mint green reel-to-reels salvaged from dismantled BBC studios, and plastic human heads which are used to record and simulate the listener’s location in approximation to the sound. The head was sitting in the back seat of Carey's car, a microphone on each ear, while Caroline drove, screaming the "I'm gonna hunt you down… I'm gonna run you down" lyric of "Sidewalk Safari".
Foxygen
Foxygen is the Los Angeles-bred songwriting duo of Sam France (vocals) and Jonathan Rado (guitar/keyboards). They are the raw, de-Wes Andersonization of the Rolling Stones, Kinks, Velvets, Bowie, etc. that a whole mess of young people desperately need. They create a sometimes impressionistic, sometimes hyper-real portrait of sounds from specific places and times that somehow never comes across as anything but absolutely modern music. They bring the manic, freewheeling qualities of an artist like Ariel Pink to those aforementioned influences to make for one of the most refreshing listens of the year.
Phosphorescent
Matthew Houck, an Alabama native, now Brooklyn resident, has delivered five albums as Phosphorescent since his 2003 debut. Houck has a highly distinctive artistic voice, but also a refreshing, rolled-sleeves approach to his expression. It was 2007's Pride – a delicate and spare, haunted and haunting work of ragged country, bittersweet southern gospel and forlorn folk-ish drone – that first caused ears to swivel appreciatively in Phosphorescent's direction. He followed it with To Willie, a tribute to country legend Willie Nelson, then 2010's Here's To Taking It Easy, an unapologetically enthusiastic plunge into country rock and rolling Americana. Now, his sixth album flashes yet another color in the subtly shifting Phosphorescent spectrum. Muchacho reprises the understated melancholia and sensuous minimalism of Pride, while kicking up a little of Here's To Taking It Easy's dust, but it also strikes out into more adventurous waters via rhythm and electronic textures. Muchacho received Best New Music accolades from <a href="http://pitchfork.com/">Pitchfork.com</a>, an Exclusive First Listen with NPR Music, and The AV Club called it “Houck’s most accomplished release to date—his most heartrending and life-affirming, equal parts lost-love devastation and hip-swaying, horn-led exultation.”
Sky Ferreira
After making music within the major label system for a few years, Sky Ferreira now has full creative control and is making the best music of her career. Her single "Everything Is Embarrassing" was widely acclaimed, and 2012's Ghost EP was received positively by both mainstream and indie-centric critics. Sky looks to build on that success with her debut LP in 2013.
Glass Candy
Crazy like a rabbit and happy like the new year, Glass Candy make music that is, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “irresistible.” On Beatbox, producer Johnny Jewel made beats fitting of his Hustletown hometown, and there aren’t many MCs who can ride a track like Ida No can, slippery but never sliding, full of highs and lows but never any flat lines. Glass Candy sound like a poet on a cloud floating above the discotheque, and the whole dance floor can’t stop reaching for them.
Woods
Woods got dark for their seventh album, Bend Beyond. It’s not that they weren’t dark before--when you really get in there and listen, Jeremy Earl is singing about some heavy stuff, but it’s hidden under his gorgeous falsetto and sometimes obtuse lyrics. On Bend Beyond, though, Earl and company fully embrace that darkness. Album opener “Bend Beyond” has long been a jammy live staple, but here it’s compact and tight with a stuttered guitar line and a world-ending collision of instruments. Meanwhile “Is it Honest” jangles along happily until you notice Earl is in a more destructive zone than the bright music initially suggests. While previous albums sounded like they went directly from Earl’s brain to tape with minimal outside interference, Bend Beyond is lush and full-bodied, the work of a band in perfect, heavy harmony. Listening to the record as a whole, it feels like the most daring leap Woods has made yet: It captures the band’s live intensity, but keeps the intimate sadness that made them so great in the first place.
Andy Stott
Manchester’s Andy Stott made his debut for the Modern Love label in 2005 with the Replace EP--a four-track exposition of his uniquely slanted production style that takes in Chi-Town and Motor City influences with an obtuse genetic code at its core. In the years since, he has released over a dozen EPs and an album under his own name, as well as several productions under the Andrea moniker for Modern Love's Daphne imprint. Refusing to settle, his output has veered from deepest techno to broken garage, slowed-down house and hyperactive juke, always sounding deep, complex, and oddly beautiful. 2012 saw the release of his breakthrough, Luxury Problems, which was simultaneously more complex and more accessible than his past releases, and added a human edge to his dark sound thanks to the presence of Alison Skidmore’s operatic vocals.
Mikal Cronin
Cronin’s self-titled debut from 2011 was all about endings: the end of college, the end of a serious relationship, and the end of his time in Los Angeles, where he grew up. So it’s no surprise that his sophomore release MCII— out May 7 via Merge Records— is all about new beginnings. Since Mikal Cronin was released, Mikal moved to San Francisco and toured extensively with Ty Segall as well as with his own band. Recorded in late 2012 by Eric Bauer at Bauer Mansion in San Francisco (except for “Don’t Let Me Go” which was recorded by Cronin at home), MCII was performed entirely by Cronin other than a few guest appearances by K. Dylan Edrich (viola and violin on “Peace of Mind” and “Change”), Charles Moothart (drums on “Change” and “Turn Away”), Ty Segall (guitar solos on “Am I Wrong” and “I’m Done Running from You”), and Petey Dammit (slide guitar on “Peace of Mind”).
Mac DeMarco
“4am rolls by; Mac DeMarco goes for his 11th cup of coffee, whilst on the broken TV/VCR combo comes the fifth pass of Eyes Wide Shut on mute. Lost deep in some wet flanger oscillations, his cigarette burning awfully close to the lips, DeMarco begins to romance the stone. His mind races, “Is it a hit? Can it be another hit?” Inspiration blows the door down. Lit on the four-track is play/record and the tape is absolutely ripping by. Note after note, jam after jam, his living room turns into a foundry of platinum best sellers and poignant quips. “And when the track’s done, the video is next. In his undies, iMovie is DeMarco’s angel. “The vid is for the fans, this smoke is for me!” An annoyed neighbor hears everything through the paper-thin walls. It’s now 8 or 9am, and Mac’s lover girl arises for the 9 to 5. With his hair standing on end, wired and juiced from a night of heavy production, he lays down to sleep, only to arise again to pick “KIKI” up from work. Goodnight my friend, goodnight.”
Autre Ne Veut
Born April 20 1982, Arthur Ashin is the eldest of two children, and the only son of American expatriates living in rural Kenya. He’s struggled with minor bouts of depression throughout his life, but a year of intensive psychoanalysis helped Arthur to realize that anxiety was at the crux of his problems. He named his second full-length album for the diagnosis: In one sense, Anxiety sees Ashin closing a chapter on his adolescence through songs depicting his personal relationship struggles and ecstasies. There are club bangers on Anxiety, for sure; “Counting” is a cybernetic sea shanty that tips its hat to Timbaland, and opening track “Play by Play” rolls out like a slowly evolving Top 40 operetta, with nods to Dr. Luke and Patti LaBelle in equal measure. But when experienced as a whole, there is an unfolding sense of confession to Anxiety.
Evian Christ
The tail-end of 2011 saw the emergence of material from a producer known only as Evian Christ. His oblique videos accompanied music which seemed to occupy its own particular twilit corner of the musical landscape, poised somewhere at the crossroads between freaked, haunted ambience and sparse, twisted R&B. Signing shortly after to Tri Angle, the renowned incubator of all that is dark and innovative in electronica, Evian Christ (aka 22-year-old Merseyside resident Joshua Leary) released a free mixtape, Kings and Them, collating his eight tracks to date, and heralding the arrival of a truly exciting new talent in the process. A vinyl release due in July collects four remastered tracks from Kings and Them, and stands as testament to exactly what marked him out as so special in the first place. Like Steve Reich and some of his experimental forebears, Evian Christ has a miraculous way of making the avant-garde as beautifully compelling and effortless.
Ryan Hemsworth
Ryan Hemsworth is a young producer from Canada who has maintained a remarkably productive output over the past two years, and a totally unique approach to hip-hop and R&B production. With an early background as a singer and guitarist, he quickly weaned off rock into hip-hop and more software-oriented music, diving wholeheartedly into drum loops and samples. He quickly followed his debut 2011 release No Plans with A Way and Kitsch Genius, which got his singular sound noticed. He soon became a go-to producer for MCs like Main Attrakionz, Shady Blaze, and Deniro Farrar, helping to craft a sound sitting somewhere between chillwave and trap. Hyperbolic Chamber Music, a collaborative project with NYC clothing brand Mishka, saw him at the helm of a 22-minute posse cut featuring 26 different rappers from across America, and his remix treatments of Grimes, Frank Ocean, and Danny Brown spread his name throughout 2012. With his first label release, the Last Words EP released through Wedidit Collective, Ryan Hemsworth continues his sonic collages and explorations, digging even deeper into unexplored genres and delivering his finest work to date.
Waxahatchee
Waxahatchee, former P.S. Eliot singer Katie Crutchfield’s compelling hyper-personal poetry is continuously crushing. Cerulean Salt follows last January’s American Weekend, a collection of minimal acoustic-guitar pop written and recorded in a week at her family’s Birmingham home.
Parquet Courts
Though made up of Texan transplants, Parquet Courts are a New York City band. Throw out the countless shallow Brooklyn bands of the blasé 2000s: Their debut record, Light Up Gold, is a conscious effort to draw from the rich culture of the city--artists like Sonic Youth, Bob Dylan, and the Velvet Underground that are not from New York, but of it. A panoramic landscape of dilapidated corner-stores and crowded apartments is superimposed over bare-bones Americana, leaving little room for romance or sentiment. It's punk, it's American, it's New York... it's the color of something you were looking for.
Angel Olsen
Angel Olsen has a fresh edge to her sound, a warm and wonderful range so rarely found, and an otherworldly skill and charm. Her special presence became apparent through her debut, Strange Cacti, and radiates even more on her second album, Half Way Home. Released on Bathetic Records, Half Way Home is a continuation of Angel’s elegance, a collection of both new and old music, honed and matured, thoughts revisited. It presents this beautiful woman and her extraordinary voice taken to a new level, in no doubt a growth and reach brought on by several road trips with Bonnie “Prince” Billy and crew. It’s an emotional stew with Angel's robust voice up front, bold and engaging, aching to be heard.
Julia Holter
Los Angeles composer/multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter has forged a reputable identity in the contemporary music landscape by merging pop melodies with abstract composition. A true DIY composer, Holter cut her teeth releasing limited-run cassettes and CD-Rs for labels like Human Ear Music, Engraved Glass, and NNA Tapes. Holter's songwriting stems from a mythological reverence of that which is incomprehensibly beautiful. Holter's Eating the Stars EP (2007) was a first attempt at musically transcribing this beauty, while discovering the honest enjoyment of unadulterated creativity. Holter's debut album Tragedy (Leaving Records, 2011) embraced similar strains of shimmer, but used sparser textures in a narrative context. Julia further refined this sound on her 2012 follow-up, Ekstasis (RVNG Intl., 2012), an album that reflected the conventions of her classical training while also introducing pop structure. Julia is currently recording her follow-up to Ekstasis, with an anticipated 2013 release on Domino Records.
Pissed Jeans
Age and four full-lengths haven’t mellowed Pissed Jeans; they can still unleash a blare that will exfoliate your cochlea. Formed in Allentown, Penn., Pissed Jeans released their first album, Shallow, in 2005. After relocating to Philadelphia and signing to Sub Pop, they released Hope for Men in 2007, and then King of Jeans in 2009. Honeys--recorded by Grammy nominee Alex Newport--is an ode to the misery and shackles of being a responsible adult, and the shame of one's own narcissism. Pissed Jeans trucks in menacing songs about insecurity, and nobody has ever done it better.
Trash Talk
Trash Talk is an American hardcore punk band from Sacramento, California, formed in 2005. They have toured all around the world including, as well as performing at many festivals in support of their releases. Trash Talk recently signed to Odd Future Records and released their new record, 119.
Merchandise
Merchandise is the result of years and years of hallucinatory heat and musical quarantine in the skinhead mecca of Tampa, Fla. A trio-gone-duo-gone-trio again, the band has been active since 2008, releasing numerous cassettes and CD-Rs, along with two full-length LPs on Katorga Works. Its members (RCC, PDB, DMV) all have strong roots in the underground punk community, having released records and toured with too many acts to mention. They recently released their album Children of Desire, which saw the band take their 'gazed out post-punk blueprint and incorporates elements of krautrock throughout, creating their most cohesive piece of music and, undoubtedly, their best work yet.
Metz
Canada’s METZ are a return to everything that’s good about loud, ecstatic live music; a frantic nod to Nation of Ulysses, Shellac, the Pixies, the Jesus Lizard, and Public Image Ltd. at their most vicious, while carving out some heavy new business. METZ have been around for over three years, sharing stages with Mission of Burma, Mudhoney, Oneida, and NoMeansNo. Their debut METZ was produced by the band and recorded by Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck) and Alexandre Bonenfant. METZ articulate with deafening clarity what we've known for some time: The world of good music needs a new power trio, and this is it.
Blood Orange
Devonté Hynes has produced a lot of music. Some for himself--Testicicles, Lightspeed Champion--and some for others, including Basement Jaxx, Florence + the Machine, Theophilus London, Solange Knowles, Sky Ferreira, Cassie, and Diana Vickers. Somewhere in between all of this, Blood Orange was created. Hynes has lived in New York City for the past three years where he has concentrated on writing and producing for other artists. He simultaneously worked on songs in his bedroom, compiling them onto mixtapes that he would listen to while traveling around the city at night, letting its nocturnal ecosystem seep into the music through his headphones. Informed by Chris Isaak, Billy Idol, Yellow Magic Orchestra and French singer F.R David, Hynes took the songs that formed his most recent album, Coastal Grooves, on a trip to the West Coast where he turned the ideas into an album with producer Ariel Rechtshaid in L.A. Hynes also drew inspiration from the identity-blurring work of transgender icons such as Octavia St. Laurent and the playful high-gloss nihilism of Gregg Araki movies. Blood Orange is the music of a seedy yet inspirational New York night time.
White Lung
White Lung are known for their furious yet melodic approach to punk. Since adding guitarist Kenneth William in 2009, Mish Way (vocals), Anne-Marie Vassiliou (drums) and Grady Mackintosh (bass) have received nothing but critical acclaim for their distinct brand of punk and their tight, live stage shows. White Lung’s debut LP It’sThe Evil (Deranged Records) was Exclaim’s “Punk Album Of The Year” in 2010 and the band was nominated for Punk/Hardcore Artist/Group of the Year at the 2011 Canadian Music Week Indie Awards.
KEN Mode
The recent recipients of the JUNO Award (Canada's Grammy-equivalent) for "Metal Album of the Year", KEN mode have been destroying audiences for years in the underground but finally began to pop on a broader scale with 2011's Venerable. The album saw the band put a heavy focus on touring the globe, which inevitably helped spread the legend of their devastating noise rock. Now, KEN mode are back with Entrench, which was released in March by Season of Mist and New Damage/Dine Alone in Canada. The album is the most vicious offering and well-received to date for the Winnipeg trio. 2013 is going to be really fucking loud and KEN mode is at the heart of it, you've been warned!
Tree
Tree is a producer, artist, and musical visionary from Chicago. He is the embodiment of Chicago’s legacy of hustlers--a city established on creating a way when no other way exists. Tree paints a vivid picture of a place where cunning and caution are as quintessential as charisma and class. The future is now for Tree and his sound is as progressive as the new generation. The ability to create a vision through music is what separates the talented from the rest, and in a forest of artists so alike, Tree stands alone. Having been an avid student of music since a young age, growing up in the Cabrini-Green projects of downtown Chicago, Tree always knew he would be a standout producer and rapper. Emerging from the drill scene, where music is heavily influenced by trap drums and heavy bass, Tree learned the inner workings of creating music and developed his own self-proclaimed sound, “soul trap”. Following a very successful 2012 and the critically acclaimed mixtape, Sunday School, Tree is currently working on the follow up, Sunday School 2, featuring appearances from a number of surprise guests along with production by himself, Frank Dukes, and Keys N Krates.
Daughn Gibson
Daughn Gibson hails from the Cumberland Valley town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The charismatic crooner and sound sculptor’s music sets his subversively witty and colorful tales against an engaging blend of electronic music, country, and blues. Gibson’s spirited, DIY approach is informed by his time spent playing in punk and metal bands and stints as a cross-country truck driver. His deep baritone adds to the allure, which posits the handsome balladeer in territory explored by the greats. He’s earned comparisons to the likes of Lee Hazelwood, Scott Walker, and Arthur Russell, and contemporary artists like Nicolas Jaar, the Magnetic Fields, and James Blake. Daughn will release his second LP and debut for Sub Pop Records in 2013.
Frankie Rose
Frankie Rose and the Outs’ 2010 debut album was heralded for its gorgeous girl group mantras and the intimate immensity of its Spector-like walls of reverb. Rose’s most recent album, Interstellar, marked a transformation into a wholly other kind of pop. It floated free of its maker's history--time spent with Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, and Crystal Stilts--and offered the listener something strangely other, both alien and familiar, compelling and enchanting.
DJ Rashad
DJ Rashad has been instrumental to the creation and evolution of Chicago Juke music and has been lifelong friends with other key players on the scene, such as Paul Johnson, DJ Gant-Man, DJ Spinn, DJ Godfather, and Jammin Gerald. He has the ability to blend elements of house, ghetto house, disco, juke, and ghettotech together with a knack for creating sparse, snappy tracks that manage to convey a physicality and funk with a spectacular precision. Along with his teammates DJ Spinn and DJ Gant-Man, DJ Rashad has become notorious for making juke anthems that have made fans outside the world of Chicago mix cds. He’s DJ’ed across Europe and released records on Juke Trax and Databass records earlier on in his career and some big remixes and collaborations are in the pipeline.

Features

Chirp Record Fair

Flatstock

Coterie Craft Fair

The Book Fort

Shop for records between sets! The Chicago Independent Radio Project brings you vinyl selections from indie labels, local record stores, and independent vendors. Buying direct from labels without shipping fees will save you a few pennies and sellers often dig out rare catalogue items for the event. Get there early on Friday if you want to score the best finds!

DONATE YOUR RECORDS TO CHIRP

Have you been thinking of getting rid of your collection of old vinyl? We have a solution! You can donate your unwanted records to the Chicago Independent Radio Project. Free up some space and help support this community radio station! We can even arrange pick-ups.

If you'd like to donate your vinyl to CHIRP, please email the Record Fair Team at recordfair@chirpradio.org.

Friday: 3PM to 10PM. Saturday and Sunday: Noon to 10PM.

chicagoindieradio.org/recordfair
The country’s best show-poster artists gather to share their work and sell prints at Flatstock, hosted by the American Poster Institute. An art show, poster sale, and community event, Flatstock offers festival-goers the chance to view the work of printmakers from Chicago's vibrant scene and beyond. Stop by the Flatstock tent to meet the artists and take home a handcrafted poster celebrating one of your favorite bands!

www.americanposterinstitute.com/flatstock/
Coterie brings craft art and design to the Pitchfork Music Festival, and the work of 40 jury-selected artists will be for sale. Locally designed clothing, handmade jewelry, unique paper goods, original home furnishings, and much more -- there’s something for everyone and all of it is one-of-a-kind.

coteriechicago.com/
The Book Fort at Pitchfork Music Festival melds the iconic and wildly popular outdoor festival with quality writing and innovative, indie publishing. The literary equivalent to all the music staged on festival grounds, The Book Fort consists of a vendor area for literary presses and magazines publishing some of the most exciting work today, and will include a dynamic and intimate program of readings and panels that will feature musicians-turned-writers and popular young experimental authors, focusing on the intersection of music and writing, indie lit, and music journalism.