“This is, like, our 15th time in New York,” MJ Lenderman told the crowd at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre on Thursday night. That’s only a slight exaggeration. This time last year, the North Carolina guitarist kicked off three nights at the 650-capacity Music Hall of Williamsburg in support of his breakthrough …
Read More »Water From Your Eyes Just Made the Perfect Album for the Surreal Summer of 2025
T hree years ago, in the spring of 2022, Nate Amos and Rachel Brown went on their first tour together as Water From Your Eyes. No one knew their experimental avant-pop music yet, money was scarce, and Amos was in his first year of sobriety. Also, they were exes who …
Read More »They Made It Big After a Tragedy — But Are Still Fighting for Royalties
J OHN SLAVIN WAS IN THE GREEN ROOM when he heard some great news that made no sense. An old buddy of his was playing a show in Austin, and the scraggly-bearded Slavin, also a musician, showed up. But all the friend wanted to talk about was Slavin’s old indie …
Read More »Rilo Kiley Sound Better Than Ever at First Concert Since 2008
Midway through Rilo Kiley’s reunion tour kickoff at the Fremont Theater in San Luis Obispo on Monday, Blake Sennett carefully scanned the GA pit. “I was wondering what our fans would look like in 2025,” the singer-guitarist said. He motioned over to his bandmate, Jenny Lewis. “She’s right. You really …
Read More »Lost 1980s Indie Rock Pioneers Salem 66 Are Getting Their Moment in the Sun
Think of the most iconic bands associated with the exploding U.S. indie-rock scene of the 1980s, and who comes to mind first? R.E.M., Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, and the Pixies, perhaps? Salem 66 were peers to all four of those groups. They shared a label with Sonic Youth, a recording …
Read More »Girlpuppy Has Her Eye on Forever
Becca Harvey, the 26-year-old Atlanta musician who performs as girlpuppy, speaks the same way she writes songs. She’s funny and sharp, talking with an air of whimsy and an earnest self-awareness that turns every almost-too-somber observation she makes on its own head. Just listen to her talk about her second …
Read More »Jasmine.4.t Is Boygenius' Favorite New Singer-Songwriter — And Maybe Yours, Too
A few years ago, Jasmine Cruickshank found herself adrift. After coming out as trans, the English singer-songwriter got divorced and decamped from Bristol to Manchester, where she slept on floors and discovered a new wellspring of inspiration: her true self. “I really struggled, in the years leading up to my …
Read More »Twenty Years Ago, 'The Sunlandic Twins' Changed Everything for Of Montreal
In the summer of 2004, Kevin Barnes was in need of some encouragement. After eight years and six albums, their Athens, Georgia-based indie band, Of Montreal, was just beginning to put together an audience. Barnes, newly married with a baby on the way, wasn’t sure it made sense to keep …
Read More »How Hannah Bahng Created Her Own Path
W hen Hannah Bahng arrives at Chicago’s Millennium Park, she makes a beeline for Cloud Gate — the massive, 33-foot-high, 110-ton public sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor that is known colloquially as the Bean. Bundled up in baggy everything, the singer-songwriter examines the Bean from multiple angles before picking a …
Read More »How Horsegirl Opened Up Their World
H ere they come now, bustling down the street in Brooklyn, three young musicians wrapped in winter coats and chatting animatedly among themselves as they approach the diner on the corner. It’s a chilly Friday in December, just a couple of degrees above freezing, but that’s nothing for this trio …
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