Now Hear This is a monthly A&R column that provides you with exciting new sounds we discovered through the innovative new music discovery platform Groover.
Each month, you can expect a varied bouillabaisse of songs from a vast spectrum of artists from all over the globe, regardless of genre or geography.
For October, SPIN has selected 15 artists who deserve your attention, including the experimental German electro-pop of Karlo Bromsen, Brett Schieber’s Sun Studio sojourn, the transportive electronica of Oo KiDo, the Nilssonesque orch-pop of Kramies, the ska-kissed hard rock boogie of Soul Smash, the LA hyperpop of Shalaka, the dark Seattle Americana of Crooked Notes, the cosmic roots rock of CS Hellman, the psychedelic worship music of John Van Deusen, the experimental trip-hop of Analog Future, the feral feminist punk of The Secret Plan, the Washington, D.C. heavy prog of Facing Mayhem, the transcendent alternative jazz-rock of Silverhours and the
Who knows, your next favorite act could just be a read away.
Karlo Bromsen
Sounds like: A German take on the Ween approach that blurs the line between quirky indie pop and experimental electronic bliss.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
I would describe my sound as slightly odd, melancholic and, at the same time, deeply positive.
My songwriting usually begins with a melody that appears while I’m going about my day. I try to record it immediately, often singing in complete nonsense words. The story and lyrics usually take shape later, although some of those first instinctive sounds often remain, simply because they already feel inseparable from the melody.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
The name Bromsen was invented many years ago during a rather chaotic train journey to a concert in Munich with my previous band. Richard and I always loved the name, so we later kept it for our duo, Bromsen.
Combined with Karlo — a name partly inspired by my lifelong appreciation of Bud Spencer — it became my artist and songwriter name, which I have now carried into my solo project as well.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
John Lennon, Kurt Cobain and Luka Bloom have probably all found their way into the mix, together with a faint touch of Ennio Morricone. As for albums, a few lasting favourites would be Pet Sounds, Rubber Soul, Turf, Definitely Maybe and, naturally, Brothers in Mind.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
Music is always exciting, but I’ve heard rumours that Bromsen may soon return to making music after a little breather, which is naturally very exciting to me.
And then there is the Mombatz from the Moon, who may yet decide to record a single with Bumpo and Papito. The future remains unpredictable.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
I think music will become increasingly interactive, and artists will need to become even more capable of managing every aspect of their careers within an ever more virtual landscape.
But beneath all of that, a song will still be a song. It will remain the heartbeat and the foundation of music culture.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
To borrow a line from Bromsen’s “Merryman,” music is a quiet island “in the eye of a hurricane.”
Brett Schieber
Sounds like: A multifaceted rocker stripped down to the bare essence of his sound inside the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
I approach music differently with every song that I write and, fortunately, I have my hand in several different projects to keep my restlessness, curiosity, or ADHD at bay. I generally write a song for one project, then write another for a different one, and so on. My personal, or solo, music (the one I sing on) is generally all written on the acoustic guitar and then embellished afterwards. I like my lyrics to be meaningful and tell an emotional story, whether from my perspective or a character’s. My other outlets: 1 – a more pop “rock & soul” project with other singers and rappers, 2 – Arcanum – experimental electro-acoustic music, with my friend, Tree, 3 – Mark D. Pencil and Friends – educational music for children, and 4 – a new and yet untitled project with the Bittersweet Machines that brings our mutual love of new wave together.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
It’s my given name (pronounced /She brrr/).
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
Duran Duran, Sufjan Stevens, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Silverchair/Daniel Johns, Tears for Fears, New Edition, The Bee Gees, The Beatles, Nile Rodgers, Lifehouse, Jump Little Children, Panic! at the Disco, Kool and the Gang, etc, etc. One album that had a major impact on me and which I think informed what I do musically, is Duran Duran’s The Wedding Album. It’s quite a diverse album, with acoustic, electronic, rock, and funk, all in one, and it’s held together by abstract and artistic lyrics with amazing melodies. That one will always hold a special place in my heart.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
As a fan, I really love Conan Gray’s Wishbone album, in particular. Emotional and creative music, especially done acoustically with orchestration, always excites me. As a musician, I still think it’s exciting that it’s possible to get music “out to the world” so readily. However, that’s a double-edged sword because the overwhelming mass of music out there makes it so difficult to get heard.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
It’s so difficult to get heard and independent musicians, like myself, just can’t “feed the machine” of the streaming apps and sites like AI can. We were already buried under the mass of others, and we’re all just getting buried even deeper. All the apps care about is “content”. This is a great concern of mine, not just because of the frustration of trying to be heard, but for music, itself. Music is magic. It hurts me when it’s devalued, underappreciated, and if I know that the music doesn’t come from the heart and soul of someone. I just don’t see the point of it, otherwise. I hope there will be a resistance to all the AI-generated and AI-written music. I most definitely won’t write or make music with AI assistance because that’s not why I do this. It’s more important to me than that.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
Listening to music can transport and comfort. Writing songs can help to express and even predict where your life is and where it’s going. Playing music simply brings joy. Everything about music is magical, like I said. It’s always necessary, especially, during this crazy and uncertain time that we’re living in.
Oo KiDo
Sounds like: Transportive electronic music from Bordeaux, France, that pulses along a stream of synths reminiscent of Gorgio Moroder’s music for Midnight Express.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
I compose as if I were telling a scene. Even if my music is instrumental, it carries a story: my questions, what I have come to understand, what I want to change, what I hope for. The form has to take an emotion from one state to another.
I work by fusion — of what has actually stirred me: rock energy, electronic textures, a jazz habit of turning where you are not expected.
And by contrast, to give the emotional arc its relief: from a held breath to ignition. But fusion and contrast are more than compositional tools for me. They are integral to my aesthetic, to the way I think about sound, and ultimately to my sonic signature: Always light and shadow.
That is what I have tried to do across my tracks, and through the concept album Odyssey.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
The O‘o is the staff of the goddess Pele in Hawaiian mythology – the stick she uses to stir molten lava. I found that image on Kīlauea. The word reached me on a land of fire, in the middle of the ocean. I liked the parallel with how I work: a taste for fusion, for mixing what was not meant to sit together.
KiDo comes from my tender relationship to childhood: freshness, curiosity, the capacity to remain amazed.
The name holds both: the heat of the mix, and the openness that makes the mix possible.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
Jazz on stage gave me a taste for performance – following a theme, then turning where you are not expected: Julian Lourau’s Gambit, Érik Truffaz’s The Dawn.
Rock and progressive rock gave me energy, melodic abundance, and a way to tell a story in the form itself: Tool’s 10,000 Days, Genesis’s Selling England by the Pound.
Electronic music gave me texture, pulse, movement – the space where those influences can actually meet: SebastiAn’s Thirst, Jon Hopkins’ Immunity. Those three rooms are still the ones I walk between.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
The most exciting thing, to me, is that we are touching a limit. How music is consumed. How stories end up sounding the same. How a surface can appear without someone behind it. More and more branding and tagging…We usually change when we reach the edge. And here we are. That is the good news: we are living that change, and we have the chance to be part of it.
It puts the value back on the table: intention, a singular expression, whether a piece makes you feel, think, or move. If the flood makes that distinction sharper, then this moment is useful. This is the time music can regain its freedom – and the freedom it inspires.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
In the next five years, I see a growing ask for genuine expression – an experience you can enter, an emotion you can use, a message that can inspire. That can already travel through more immersive entertainment.
So the useful work, for me, sits there: building forms people can inhabit, telling something that holds, keeping a point of view. It holds if the authenticity and the intention are there.
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
Listening helps me make up for what I cannot quite give myself. It lets me manage temperature: cool the system down, or push the adrenaline up. It can hold me in the present, or let me step out of it for a while.
Creating is something else. An outlet and a refuge – a passage. A way of seeing more clearly, in myself and around me.
Kramies
Sounds like: Orchestral pop in the vein of Harry Nilsson and David Bowie, only with twice the level of dark humor.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
I have no real approach to creating. It all comes from a feeling combined with strange tunings and stories I make up out of nowhere. It ends up sounding somewhere between Willy Wonka and J.R.R. Tolkien.
I can say that this time around I enlisted my good friends Derek Lee LaJoie, John Panza & David Goodheim to quickly help me do this song/EP. I believe this song “We’re All Dead” took less than two days.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
It’s an old world nickname given to me by my great grandmother, who convinced me as a young child that I was raised in the forest by witches and wolves. When I was very young, she called me over to her. She asked “do you want to know how I’ve lived to be 100 years old?” Then she said “don’t drink and don’t smoke”… As she was drinking whiskey and smoking a cigar…. I was frightened by her.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
I had some old Dutch Christmas choir records I found as a kid in my parent’s collection of vinyl, as well as an old Disney Halloween record that I would listen to over and over. Yet my very first and favorite song that haunted me as a child was “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” by Tchaikovsky. It’s my first memory of music.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
Artists having to find their authenticity and having to rely on their hearts.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
I have a very optimistic view of the future.
I know we are all going through strange times, but I think the lighthouse will eventually draw us all back into doing the work, because we have lit candles in our blood that won’t burn out. It’s who we are here to be.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
It creates worlds and sparks that help me to sit in the stillness.
Soul Smash
Sounds like: A perfectly Canadian combination of upbeat, brassy ska and wooly hard rock.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
Our approach is mainly to play from the heart and soul, and with all the passion and energy we can muster from there. We can feel the difference in our sound when our energy is high and we think our audience can too. It’s mainly punk rock with a lot of blues, folk, and almost everything else. We’ve always tried to avoid boxing ourselves into one genre. Mostly, it’s all out rock ‘n’ roll!
How did you come up with the name of your act?
Playing music is a big part of what’s in our souls, and a strong way to connect to the souls of others. We strive to make that connection and deliver the most hard hitting live experience possible. In our early days of learning together, we’d take breaks from practicing to play Super Smash Bros. and we’re big fans of Dark Souls games, too. Most of all we like to have fun and keep things exciting, and we feel we found a name that fits us in more ways than one.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
We all grew up listening to punk and classic metal and basically learned to play from that. Bands like The Ramones, AC/DC, NOFX and artists like Ozzy Osbourne had a huge part in shaping the way we play and finding our sound together. We got a lot of our chops playing the real old classics too, stuff like CCR, Elvis and The Beatles.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
We think it’s exciting that it’s so easy for people to release music themselves these days, it opens up all kinds of possibilities and opportunities for small, local artists like ourselves. We’ve had songs from our new EP featured on a few Spotify playlists in the past few weeks and that’s been pretty exciting for us!
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
Honestly with all the AI stuff happening, and the state of the world economic and political climate it’s hard to say. Our hope is that no matter what happens, there is still space for artists who play instruments live and we continue to live in a world where we’re lucky enough to keep doing it.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
It gives us purpose, which is kinda what’s always kept us going. It feels better to focus on our own goals when the world outside is so noisy and chaotic. Playing shows, writing and releasing more music gives us something worth living for and we’re grateful we get to do what we love.
Shalaka
Sounds like: LA-based hyperpop dripping with a detached cool that pulls you in like Kim Gordon’s recent solo work with Justin Raisen.
Interview:
How did you come up with the name of your act?
The name of my act is my birth name, Shalaka. I’ve gone through a few incarnations, like Shalantal, but ultimately I chose Shalaka because it’s my name in its entirety.
I’ve always imagined myself as Shalaka. It feels like something I can live up to. I don’t entirely know what it means to be Shalaka yet, so I think part of my journey is exploring that.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
There are so many, but 21 by Adele was a big album in my life. It informed my heart and my understanding of love. ANTI by Rihanna really informed my sensuality.
I’m also inspired by Rina Sawayama, Peaches, Lady Gaga, Nelly Furtado, Sophie, and Madonna. Die Another Day was a particular inspiration for this record, along with a lot of songs from the early 2000s.
I tend to be more inspired by individual songs than entire albums. I love artists who are bold, bombastic, audacious, and willing to take risks.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
I think music is looking for its next direction and its next voice. We’re coming out of the very soft-spoken sound of the 2010s, and I think people are searching for something different. The 2000s have come back swinging for sure. People crave for simpler times. At least what they perceived as simple.
What excites me most is the accessibility of music. Almost anyone can make music now. But I think the artists who are willing to be vulnerable and honest are the ones who really connect with people.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
I think music production is going to get extremely interesting. We’re going to see people experimenting with sound in ways we haven’t heard before.
I also think every music scene will develop its own direction. The more creative producers become, the more possibilities artists will have.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
It’s my Bible. It’s how I metabolize life, and it’s how I’ve always made sense of the world.
Life can feel very strange, and poetry is the way I process that. If life’s pain isn’t poetry, then I don’t quite know what the point of any of this is.
Crooked Notes
Sounds like: Dark Americana from Seattle, Washington, that’s rooted in punk rock and reminiscent of American Recordings-period Pete Droge.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
Clint: I approach the music I make first as a songwriter. I’m always collecting little experiences or turns of phrase to grow into a song. The songs usually start as lyrical ideas, or parts of life I can’t let go of until they’re written out. Then the band takes the ones we all like and jams on ’em until we like what they become.
I’d say our sound doesn’t really fit into any box too well. We’re a little too punk for the alt-country crowd, a little too country for the folk-punk crowd, and a little too weird for the straight-up Americana crowd. Best I can say is what would happen if Rancid had a stroke and thought they were a bluegrass band who watched too many horror movies.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
Clint: I was playing lap steel in another band a few years ago. My son was six at the time, and he said to me, “Daddy, play me some crooked notes.” I was like, hell yeah, little dude. It’s been the name of my songwriting and music project ever since.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
Clint: I think a lot of my music comes from the late ’90s and early 2000s punk I grew up with. I love Rancid, and my first bands butchered so many covers of their songs. Social D is a huge influence too. “Ball and Chain” was the first song I ever learned to play on guitar.
I also pull a lot from the writing style of Townes Van Zandt. His use of plainspoken language to sneak poetry and depth in through the back door is something I’ll always aspire to.
Tom Waits is another huge inspiration, not just vocally. His writing is amazing. He creates these worlds that feel so alive, and I just want to find the dirty little secrets hiding in every corner.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
Clint: I gotta say, this is a tough one for me. At first I’d say I don’t feel like a lot of excitement is happening in music right now. It seems like we all know why we play and why we like live music, but we don’t think that much about how we play or how we offer live music to people.
But now that I’m thinking about it, I’d say DIY music and merch feel like they’re coming back in a big way. I’ve been really hyper-fixated on making short-run, handcrafted stuff, almost like art installations disguised as merch, because ordering a bunch of shirts and swag just doesn’t feel that meaningful to me.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
Clint: That’s a tough one, especially with AI being such a new player. My guess is there’s gonna be a pretty big split in terms of what people want.
I think some people are really going to need authentic human music. That could open the door to moving away from perfectly quantized and pitch-corrected studio albums with ten million effects on everything, toward something that feels like it was actually made by people who have day jobs outside the studio.
On the other hand, it’s hard for me not to think the opposite end of the spectrum is gonna go just as hard. But I don’t wanna be the guy predicting the rise of the completely AI-generated alien-human hybrid pop star. That would just make me sound crazy.
All I really know is Terence McKenna was right when he said novelty is increasing at an exponential rate, and it’s just gonna get weirder and weirder.
Bass: Authenticity. Analog. Anything that has physically been made by hand. A way to be part of the music and feel connected to it.
I feel like nobody really owns the music they have anymore. Everyone is just streaming it, and it’s all jumbled up somewhere in the cloud. There are so many choices it’s hard to even make one.
One of my favorite things is sitting with a friend and listening to a record from front to back. Talking about the music and really feeling it. There’s something about picking a physical album off the shelf, putting the needle down, and hearing the piece the artist created from beginning to end.
Look around. Record stores seem to be doing pretty well to me. I have two on the street I live on.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
Bass: Music has always been a source of balance for my emotional state. It has helped me through every aspect of my life.
The music we listen to can change our brain chemistry and get us out of our own heads. It can calm you down when you’re mad, hit you in the feels when you need to cry, all sorts of fun stuff, ya know?
That’s why I play music, honestly. To help anyone who listens find some happiness or relief in it.
Clint: I’d say writing is what helps me explore uncertainty and, in a way, make peace with it. I mean uncertainty in the world, but also uncertainty in our own lives.
Living authentically is a really vulnerable experience, in my opinion. You open the door to having to make changes in your life that are inconvenient and maybe even destructive, but sometimes that’s the price you pay.
It sounds more melodramatic than I mean it, but we all know how easy it is to sleepwalk through life when you’re comfortable enough.
I guess music keeps me awake.
CS Hellman
Sounds like: A rustic yet majestic variation of alternative roots rock that’s reminiscent of Grandaddy and Sparklehorse by way of Wilco.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
My songs usually begin with an acoustic guitar in hand, strumming through some chords or hearing a melody idea and ironing it out on guitar. That’s always been my natural go-to for making music, and guitar really trumps all other instruments for me. Over the last decade or so, I’ve developed a close relationship with my acoustic guitars that really opened the door to songwriting and naturally lent itself to a more folk-oriented songscape.
It’s funny, when I try to explain my sound, I sometimes have trouble myself because it seems to be constantly evolving. But the root of almost everything I do is still a song written on acoustic guitar. Whether I add synthesizers and drum samples or intricate lead guitar lines with heavy effects, the soul of the song is usually still there in the acoustic guitar. I think that helps tie all of my music together.
When I first started this solo project, my first single, “Hurt,” had more of an industrial ’80s post-punk vibe, and I carried some of that sound through my earlier recordings. Lately, though, I’ve really leaned into the honesty of what a song played on acoustic guitar can convey to an audience. “The Weight” is a good example of that.
That approach has carried into the way we record too. Jared Corder and I have been using his TASCAM 388 quite a bit and trying to capture performances rather than manufacture them. I’ve become less interested in making everything perfect and more interested in capturing those moments when musicians are actually responding to one another.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
CS stands for my first and middle names, Christopher Scott, so CS Hellmann is essentially just my full name with the first two names reduced to initials. I was thinking of artists like M. Ward when I first started out and thought there was something unique, classic and maybe a little poetic about it. Of course, I thought of C.S. Lewis too and liked that parallel.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
Lately I’ve spent a lot of time revisiting the influences I had growing up as I evolved into a musician and later a songwriter. I was feeling a bit stuck – not necessarily writer’s block, but more the feeling of, “I don’t really have anything to say right now.” Sometimes I think it’s important to dig back into whatever got you going in the first place.
For me, one of those artists is Van Morrison. Astral Weeks is one of my favorite records. There’s this incredible combination of musicianship and spiritual poetry – death, love, memory and transcendence, and the music feels like it’s being discovered while you’re listening to it.
Then there are records that immediately take me back to a particular time and place. Songs like “Night Moves” and “Mainstreet” from Bob Seger’s Night Moves are like putting a comforting blanket around your soul. They make me think everything is going to be okay, you’re hanging out at a dive bar with your friends, playing pool and darts, and for a little while that’s enough.
But what really got me started as a songwriter was Wilco. Those early records A.M., Being There and Summerteeth became my bridge from The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and The Clash into more contemporary indie folk and rock music. I really connected with Jeff Tweedy’s earnestness and vulnerability.
Then I dove into Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, A Ghost Is Born and Sky Blue Sky, and what really stuck with me was that they seemed to get better while continuing to evolve. That’s rare among commercially successful bands. There’s always pressure to recreate the record that made people love you, but Wilco kept asking what else they could become. That has probably influenced me as much as any particular sound.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
The most interesting and probably most uncertain thing happening in music right now is AI. There’s naturally a lot of fear among artists. It’s already incredibly difficult to make a living making music, and there are legitimate concerns about AI taking another piece of those already modest earnings or lesser-known artists having their styles absorbed into a much bigger machine. There’s also understandable resistance to using AI creatively because people worry about generating huge quantities of soulless music, or the overused term these days, “AI slop.”
On the other hand, I think it can become an extremely useful tool for artists. I don’t necessarily mean asking it to write your melody, riff, chord progression or lyrics. I’m more interested in ways it can speed up the process around the artist and stretch limited resources further.
I was actually listening to a program on WMOT here in Nashville recently where one of the guests mentioned a veteran songwriter who has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and uses Suno. That really sparked my curiosity. The way he described it, the songwriter was using it to create a basic track rather than paying someone every time he needed a demo built out.
That kind of application interests me. For an independent artist like myself, resources are limited, and you have to stretch your dollar and your creativity as far as they’ll go. I think the interesting question is going to be where we draw the line between technology serving the artist and technology replacing the artist.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
As I mentioned with AI, I think it’s going to become much more prominent, not only on the artistic side, but throughout the way the music industry operates. With any major technological advancement, there’s disruption, but there’s also opportunity.
I think artists are going to have a greater capacity to write, record and release music independently and at a faster rate. Contrary to the idea that this automatically means music will get worse, I think we could actually see an increase in the quality and diversity of music being made because more people will have access to tools that were once prohibitively expensive.
We’ve seen versions of this before. Napster and the digital revolution completely disrupted the old model, but independent artists ultimately flourished in the world that followed because the traditional gatekeepers could no longer completely dictate what music got released. The transition from tape to digital recording and Pro Tools did something similar—records could suddenly be made faster and with resources that would have been impossible for many artists in a traditional analog studio.
The funny thing is that while all this technology keeps moving forward, I’ve personally been moving backward in some ways. I’m recording more to tape and becoming more interested in capturing complete performances instead of editing everything into perfection. Maybe the future is some combination of the two—using new technology to give artists more freedom while holding onto the human things technology can’t replace.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
Music is what always keeps me grounded and focused. Holding a guitar, strumming, singing a song or working on something new is just what makes me tick. It’s what gets me through difficult times.
It’s basically why I started CS Hellmann. I was at a point in my life where nothing really made sense anymore. Things I thought were important and people I thought were important in my life turned out not to be what I thought they were. It sort of shell-shocked me when I realized the way I had been looking at my life was completely wrong.
Music got me through that period, and I feel like I came out of it a much stronger, hungrier and more focused person. I think I’ve carried those themes throughout my music ever since.
And uncertainty has basically been a constant throughout my entire adult life – the financial and housing crisis, COVID, inflation, wars and everything else happening around us. It sometimes feels like you can never quite catch a break before the next thing happens.
But if this is the madness I have to live through for the rest of my life, at least I have my music, and no one can take that away from me.
John Van Deusen
Sounds like: Worship music for psychedelic people rooted in Northwestern experimental music.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
I just try to write honest and true music that I would actually listen to; my metric of success is: “do I like this? Is it true?” It’s difficult to describe my music to people because sometimes my music is loud, noisy bedroom rock with lyrics about depression (as an example). And other times I record overly long DIY records about my Christian beliefs that feature field recordings and sound collage. It’s actually quite confusing unless you’re looking for that niche. It’s a terrible business model.
How did your new album, There Is A Way Home, come together?
Growing up in Anacortes, Washington, I was surrounded by great DIY artists like The Microphones and Karl Blau. I think ‘There is a Way Home’ is me tapping into those influences. I love the noise on this song. It includes a terrible screeching coal train that I recorded in Bellingham, WA while suffering from a mental health crisis. It excites me that a song about the mysteries of faith can and should include these elements, because faith-based music rarely welcomes such creative choices.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
Previously mentioned PNW artists and friends have influenced my art a lot. I really love the band XTC; they’re probably my favorite of all time. Lately I have been loving the new singles that DIIV has been releasing. They feel fresh to me.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
I see younger artists and fans embracing noise music and dissonance within art. I find that super exciting and gives me hope for the music of the future.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
I think human made art, especially music that allows for human mistakes and imperfections, is going to grow in influence as AI tools that promote shortcuts to “perfection” become standards of the industry.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
I don’t exactly know how to answer this question. But I think the moments when my kids are playing in the living room and a good record is playing in the background… those moments really heal me.
Analog Future
Sounds like: Experimental electronic music recorded with guitar and modular synth that is reminiscent of Endtroducing-era DJ Shadow and Tricky.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
My sound currently, is best described as psychedelic grungy indie electronic trip-hop.
I have always approached making music with essentially no guidelines, which can birth some unique stuff, but can also be really hard to organize and bring to fruition. My approach is based mainly on a jam with myself, I find that I make my best music when I’m improvising live on my own productions, whether that’s on my modular synths or guitar.
I hit a block a few years ago when I tried programming everything in the box, it just doesn’t work for me. I started craving instruments again, physical interaction, a rejection of everything digital and simulated. Getting off the damn screen, really sucks the life out me.
A quote I love: “We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops” – John Cleese
This process really helps me translate that human emotion directly on to the page. I’m excited to continue to evolve this sound into the elements i’m inspired by that I haven’t been able to bring to fruition yet.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
‘Analog Future’ is the name of one of my favorite bands’ tour in 2013. Pretty Lights called it the “Analog Future Band Tour.” I was in a block to choose a name for a long time, it really halted things as it does for many young artists. I’m not sure what the turning point was for choosing it, but it seems to really resonate with people. The name also comes from a profound love for film photography, audio tape recording, and all things analog, particularly marked by a passion for analog modular synths.
The name is now so reflective of our times, and I have fully grown into it. I’ve been starting to see articles written about it this year, and people are catching on.
‘The Future Is Analog’ – it’s evolving into an ethos, a way of life, an idealistic evolution of human kind, a place where nature and technology coexist in a symbiotic relationship. Where we value human processes that enhance human existence rather than dull it with exponential technological advancements with no regard to what benefits the human brain.
A world where we still have a connection to physical human processes.
What started as an homage to one of my favorite artists is now a way of life for me, which I’m sure he meant it in that way too, I’m just carrying the torch over.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
Too many to count
Pretty Lights’ Glowing In The Darkest Night is an album that expresses a feeling like no other — that searching, that yearning for a glowing light in the deepest of darkness. A glimpse of hope.
Massive Attack’s Mezzanine: Just sonically so timeless
Portishead’s Dummy: Another absolutely timeless blend of genres, styles, sounds, and influences, endlessly influencing everything I do.
Tame Impala’s Inner Speaker. This really shaped my teens, raw energy, emotive, powerful, lonesome lyrics. Kevin Parker is a guy I’m endlessly inspired by, as many of us are.
Nirvana: Never stops for any of us. If you ask me in a year I’ll give you a different answer, ever evolving.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
The resurgence of the grunge rock and shoegaze sound brought into a new experimental light. Along with the resurgence of the trip-hop sound of the 90s early 2000s.
I have recently rediscovered my love for both, (trip-hop/downtempo never really left the iPod) and it seems I’m not the only one to do so. I think both of these sounds are very reflective of the times right now, or it’s that 30 year cycle theory, either way you look at it.
In general a push to a more experimental emotional expressive sound is what our world is craving right now, along with that ethereal escape of trip-hop downtempo music (introspective and thought provoking).
Last year I had the opportunity to do a bunch of deep listening vinyl sessions at some of the best listening rooms in New York, where I dove deep into my favorite trip-hop and downtempo records, which brought me so much closer to the sound, and reminded me of my unwavering love for it.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
The obvious elephant in the room is what will happen when AI advances so much in art, what will happen to art? Even though I can be a very pessimistic person, I’m also very optimistic on the inside. I see this whole AI creation as a thing that propels us into sweaty tiny clubs with kids jamming their fucking hearts out and expressing themselves. That’s something machines will never be able to replace. I want something raw, physical, expressive, I want to feel the moment, I want to feel the humans pain, love, and fear.
We connect through live music and community, thats where things are heading even more so than ever. And in a way thats fucking beautiful.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
Music is everything, when you grow up listening to music, and then you start making it, it becomes your lifeline.
Sun up to sun down music is playing. Helps me focus my mind, helps me look deep inside, and helps me face things I’m not dealing with.
Listening to music solves a lot, but when I’m super overwhelmed in life I know it’s because I need to get in the studio and get some things out on the page, it just comes out. A friend of mine (an incredible musician) said, “If I didn’t make music, I think I would die at this point.” I relate to these words more and more each day.
The whole ‘analog future’ project started for me after a life change, an injury, and a huge shift in my life. In many ways it saved me and continues to every day, giving me the release I need.
At this point I believe I’m far better at expressing myself through music than through words. It seems to be a constant for most artists in any field, I think it is why we do what we do. Just an antenna sharing the human experience through our lens of life, for your consideration.
The Secret Plan
Sounds like: A new world take on Smell The Magic-era L7 type feminist rage that will rip a hole through your soul.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
If we like what we’re hearing we’ll listen to a song, a riff, or a poem a million times and we let that obsessive loop guide us as we write new stuff. We’re chasing the feeling of something really satisfying. That’s what we’re after with this music. We wanted a sound that charges forward. We’re all pissed and we want a better world. This album is about being pissed.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
We (Elena and Pebbles) formed The Secret Plan while living in West Texas. At the time we were heavily into psych rock, specifically Spacemen 3 and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. We took our name from a Spacemen 3 song called “Mary Anne” (which is actually a cover of a song by Juicy Lucy). Lyrics from the song: “The desert sand/ The secret plan/ Lord’s own knowledge is in your hand/ Grab a hold and ride that freight/ Be yourself don’t hesitate.”
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
We are big fans of Amyl and the Sniffers, Die Spitz and Mannequin Pussy. Respect to those who paved the way: Iggy and the Stooges, Black Sabbath, L7, Hole. We also take inspiration from poets like Arthur Rimbaud, Alejandra Pizarnik and Cecilia Vicuña. And then Psychic TV gets a nod on the record with our song “Godstar TV.”
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
All over the world, we’re seeing musicians use their platforms to call out fascism, genocide, and the cowardly politicians who condone human rights violations. Bob Vylan, Kneecap, Lambrini Girls, Mannequin Pussy, Amyl, Pussy Riot, the list goes on. It’s exciting because it feels like music has the power in this moment to turn into political action, social change. It’s a global movement plus these musicians make resistance look sexy and fun.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
It’s pretty clear that we live in a pay-to-play world. Just trying to get our band off the ground has taught us that. Those who start with the biggest treasure chest will end with an even bigger one, while many may never make it past the algorithm. We come from a DIY space and it gives us great hope to see people like the All American Rejects build projects like Playhouse to help cut touring costs and prevent ticket gauging. Music itself will always remain.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
It’s helping us put our frustrations to work and we really enjoy that bit. We’re getting it out in the music and through the performances, hugging it out with sweaty moshers at the merch table after. It’s really quite the experience. Shout out to our bassist Maya Singh and our drummer Anthony Schillaci too. We love a sweaty show.
Facing Mayhem
Sounds like: Propulsive, progressive hard rock from Washington, D.C. crafted in the spirit of Iron Maiden and early Queensryche.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
Andrew Bird — Founder, Guitar
Honestly, our sound is hard to pin down. There’s a lot of hard rock in it, a lot of alt-metal and progressive metal, with some of that straight-up metal edge. But we also pull in the lyricism you’d hear in alternative rock, and a really honest way of expressing whatever the song is about.
Our approach is simple. Sometimes we start with lyrics, sometimes with music, and we pair them together in whatever way best serves the theme of the song. The song leads, and we follow it.
Chad Nelson — Drums
Our approach is quite simple. We write songs about real experiences, real struggles, and the strength to keep moving forward. As for the sound, think of it as the melodies of classic metal, combined with the punch of hard rock, combined with the emotional honesty of alternative metal.
Matt Johnson — Bass, Fire Lieutenant
As a bassist, my approach started when I was playing in church almost 30 years ago. Songs could go on for 20 minutes or more, so I learned quickly that having almost an ESP with your drummer is imperative. I find the pocket, lock in, and stay there.
If I’m doing my job right, I’m probably not the guy standing out. In Facing Mayhem, my job is to keep the bottom end tight, punchy and locked in with the drums, or with the guitars when we’re playing something riff-driven. I’ll throw in a flourish when the song gives me room, but I’m much more interested in making the whole band sound bigger and tighter than in standing out.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
Andrew Bird — Founder, Guitar
It came out of a back-and-forth with Chad, who landed on Facing Mayhem. It fit all of us. Life isn’t easy at any age or in any generation. It’s chaotic. Every one of us is facing mayhem every single day.
For me it’s my past as a Marine in combat and everything that came after. Chad works in mental health as a doctor. Matt’s a firefighter, running into burning buildings. Bravo’s a teacher, and every kid needs something different from him. We’re all facing mayhem daily, and really that’s no different from anyone else on the planet. That’s what the name means.
Chad Nelson — Drums
We wanted a name that reflects what life is truly like. Both personally and professionally, everyone faces chaos, setbacks, and uncertainty at some point. Facing Mayhem is about confronting those moments head-on instead of running from them. That’s what our music is about, finding strength in the middle of the storm.
Matt Johnson — Bass, Fire Lieutenant
I joined after the band had already been playing and recording under that name, so I can’t take credit for where it originally came from. But one connection that gets made often is that all of us either currently work, or have worked, in professions where we quite literally face mayhem on a regular basis.
Andrew is a Marine combat veteran. CJ, who recorded our current catalog, is active-duty Air Force, stationed overseas. Chad is a clinical psychologist who works with children in need of intervention. Bravo, our vocalist, is a teacher, and I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone willing to argue that teachers don’t face their share of mayhem. I’m a fire lieutenant, so in my case it’s pretty literal: fires, car wrecks, hazardous materials, medical emergencies. Whatever happens, our job is to show up and deal with it.
So regardless of the original intention behind the name, I think it has come to symbolize something about the people in this band: helping others, keeping your head when things get chaotic, and facing whatever mayhem gets thrown at you head-on.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
Andrew Bird — Founder, Guitar
I grew up on music from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. My early influences were Alice in Chains and Nirvana. Late 90s I got into a lot of Christian rock. Then in the 2000s, nu-metal was taking hold and starting to fade at the same time, and that’s when I really started finding my own way.
I actually learned guitar out of a book of trucker songs, so my foundation is rhythm and blues, working on rhythm, locking in with the bass. That’s shaped me more than blazing guitar solos. In my opinion the singer is the one who should be out front carrying the melody. We put leads and solos in where they serve the song, but rhythm and feel is my creative direction.
Chad Nelson — Drums
For me, Iron Maiden has been a big inspiration. The storytelling in their songs is amazing.
Matt Johnson — Bass, Fire Lieutenant
When I was starting out, my bass teacher introduced me to James Jamerson, so his entire body of work has had a deep, almost subconscious influence on my playing for the last 28 years. Beyond that I listen to a wide range, hard rock, funk, reggae, classic country, ska, so it’s hard to point to one artist and say that’s what shaped me.
What I can say for certain is that I wouldn’t have kept the same drive to get better if I hadn’t seen Victor Wooten perform live with his brothers a couple decades ago. I don’t try to emulate him, but to me he represents everything a great musician should be. Technically absurd, endlessly creative, jaw-dropping showmanship, and a genuinely good human being, humble and charitable, someone who has spent his career teaching and inspiring other bassists. He’s had a huge impact on me.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
Andrew Bird — Founder, Guitar
We’ve reached a point technologically where recording in a studio is almost a waste of money. You can get a cost-effective computer, a decent mic, the right equipment, and record your own music. That’s what we’ve done. We invested in the gear that works for us instead of paying someone who doesn’t fully understand our vision. We make the music we want, the way we want it.
And AI is going to give people who aren’t technically or even musically inclined, but who still have a message or a voice, a way to get it out. Whether it’s good remains to be seen. But the fact that a band like ours can record and master our own music now is really exciting.
Chad Nelson — Drums
Two things, especially for bands like us. First, there are now so many opportunities for independent artists to release their music and grow a fanbase. From social media to independent channels, it’s great that bands like ours can be heard globally. Second, recording has become more affordable. As a band that records, mixes, and masters our own music, it’s nice to produce high-quality recordings without the expensive studio fees that used to be required.
Bravo Reds — Vocals
One of the most exciting things about music right now is the unique expression of today’s young artists. I love their honest, bold, and unapologetic approach to exploring love, life, pain, identity, and everything in between.
What stands out is the fresh perspective they bring, the willingness to challenge conventions, experiment with sound, and tell stories in ways that feel deeply personal and authentic. There’s something exciting about witnessing a generation create music on their own terms, and I love being able to experience and learn from that creativity.
Matt Johnson — Bass, Fire Lieutenant
The most exciting thing to me is accessibility. I played in bands from about 1998 to 2005, then spent 20 years raising my kids and mostly playing bass in my room. When Andrew reached out last year and asked if I still played, I joined and was blown away by how much the world had changed.
When I learned bass, I was sitting with CDs, replaying the same section over and over, or paying for lessons and hoping my teacher wasn’t sick that week. We recorded our first demo on a Tascam four-track cassette recorder, and the next one cost us an arm and a leg. Now nearly anything you want to learn is available immediately, and we make professional-quality recordings collaboratively, each of us working from our own homes. If you’d told 20-year-old me that, I’d have thought you were insane.
What excites me most isn’t the technology itself, it’s what it makes possible. A kid who doesn’t have money for weekly lessons or studio time isn’t automatically excluded anymore. More people can learn, record, collaborate, and put their music into the world without rich parents or a record deal. That means more people get the chance to create. I think that’s awesome.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
Andrew Bird — Founder, Guitar
More bands, more independent artists coming out. And a lot of AI music. I think it’s going to get genuinely hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t. But that’s something we’ll deal with when we get there.
Chad Nelson — Drums
I’m hoping that over the next five years the genre lines keep disappearing. That lets musicians avoid being boxed into one category and lets listeners experience new types of music. It also keeps the door open for collaboration among musicians from a variety of genres.
Bravo Reds — Vocals
Over the next five years, I believe AI will inspire traditional musicians to create more often and explore their craft in ways they never imagined. Rather than replacing the musician, AI has the potential to become a powerful creative partner, helping artists experiment, overcome creative blocks, and discover new possibilities in their sound.
Most importantly, I believe it will lead musicians to a renewed appreciation for what makes music truly human: emotion, interpretation, imperfection, connection, and personal experience. As AI evolves, traditional musicians may find themselves not moving away from their craft, but falling even deeper in love with the art of making music.
Matt Johnson — Bass, Fire Lieutenant
I don’t pretend to have special insight, but if I had to guess, the next five years will involve a lot of difficult conversations about AI and creativity. I’m not anti-AI. I use it regularly. But there’s an important distinction between using technology as a tool and using it to replace the human creative process entirely.
I’ve wrestled with that myself. I’ve experimented with AI-generated music and art just for my own amusement, and some of the criticism around it made me rethink how I use those tools. Recently I started learning to create my own artwork in Adobe Fresco, while still using AI to help teach me how, which pretty perfectly illustrates how complicated the whole discussion is.
My hope is that we find ways to use these tools to make people more creative and give more people access to creativity, without devaluing or replacing the human beings who make art worth caring about in the first place.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
Andrew Bird — Founder, Guitar
I’m not sure any time is more uncertain than another. Every year of my life has been an uncertain time. Twenty years ago, now, twenty years from now, it’s all uncertain. Music is where people go to escape that, to escape their own mayhem.
There’s music out there to commiserate with, to relax to, to let loose to. Every decade is going to be uncertain in the world we live in, and there’s always going to be music there for somebody to reach for in those moments. That’s what makes it matter.
Chad Nelson — Drums
Music has always been an escape. In times of stress, chaos, conflict, or personal loss, it’s a way to make sense of emotions and find clarity in the ones that are difficult to process and express. It also has a positive effect. By channeling creativity and building community, music creates a sense of connection and belonging.
Matt Johnson — Bass, Fire Lieutenant
I’m not sure I fully agree that these times are uniquely uncertain. Franklin wrote back in 1789 that nothing is certain except death and taxes. Uncertainty is pretty much inherent to being alive on this space rock.
That said, engaging with music is one of the most cathartic things a person can do. Music is tied so closely to memory that a song can instantly transport you to another season of your life, or one specific moment. It can help you process pain, calm you down, or make you want to run through a brick wall. Whenever someone asks what music I like, my answer is, anything that makes me feel something. The worst kind of music is boring music.
And sometimes music does something much more important. I lost two of my siblings unexpectedly several years ago. When I’m missing them, I’ll find somewhere to be alone, put in my earbuds, and listen to songs that remind me of them. For a little while, those songs take me back to a time when they were still here. I have a good cry, honor their memory, and then get back to life. Music is probably the closest thing we have to a universal language, and it helps me in one way or another every single day.
Silverhours
Sounds like: A brilliant, transcendent blend of searing jazz, Warp-born electronics and soaring post-rock harmonies that call up to the heavens.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
I tend to think of songs less as fixed structures and more as places you can enter. I’m interested in repetition, tension, silence and small changes that gradually alter the emotional weight of a piece.
If I had to describe the sound, I’d probably call it cinematic art rock with elements of chamber music and spiritual jazz. Melody is important, but the atmosphere carries just as much weight.
I like music that reveals itself slowly rather than trying to make an immediate impact, just like the good wine, you have to be patient and it will open up 🙂
How did you come up with the name of your act?
One of my favourite bands, Chairlift, had a great song called “Amanamonesia” — the lyrics in this song had the word Silverhours:
“Is it amnesia? Amanaemonesia?
Mistaken for magic?
(Mistaken for magic)
Silver hours, silver hours
Becoming a habit?
(Chasing the rabbit)”
I felt like it was exactly the right word for my project.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
Late period Radiohead works, A Moon Shaped Pool in particular, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood project, the Smile, Anohni’s My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross and, of course, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ album Push the Sky Away was also a big influence. For the last four years I was listening to lots of jazz records: Alice Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson and Pharoah Sanders were my usual companions. At the same time I was always attracted to synths and electronic music – Oneohtrix Point Never and Boards of Canada are among my all time favourites here.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
For me, it’s the collapse of some of the old boundaries between genres. You can hear artists combining jazz, orchestral arrangements, distorted guitars, electronics, field recordings and very raw vocals without feeling the need to explain which category the music belongs to.
At the same time, I think there’s an interesting reaction against perfection. After years of music becoming increasingly editable and quantised, I hear more people becoming interested again in performance, room sound, mistakes and the personality of individual musicians. That feels very exciting to me.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
I think technology, and particularly AI, will make technically competent music incredibly easy to produce. Because of that, the things that are difficult to manufacture may become more valuable: identity, taste, human performance, unusual decisions and a genuine connection between an artist and an audience.
I can also see artists becoming less dependent on one traditional route to success. There will probably be more direct relationships between musicians and smaller but much more engaged communities. In that environment, having a distinctive world around the music may become just as important as chasing scale.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
Music gives me somewhere to put things that I don’t necessarily know how to articulate directly. A lot of what I write starts with anxiety, contradiction or a feeling that I can’t quite explain, and making a song gives that feeling some kind of shape.
There’s also something reassuring about the physical process of making music with other people. Musicians playing together in a room, reacting to tiny changes in timing and dynamics, is completely immediate. In a period when so much of life can feel abstract, accelerated and mediated through screens, that kind of concentration feels grounding.
Pale Ramon
Sounds like: The next wave of Brooklyn art rock that feels like MGMT collided with Parquet Courts.
Interview:
Describe your approach to music and how you would explain your sound to others.
Pale Ramon is a purely collaborative thing. A song can arrive at any moment — a voice memo, or a fully produced idea that came together over two or three hours of hypnotic repetition and experimentation. We treat those sessions like we’re librarians of our own ideas, capturing everything as it happens in real time, then sifting back through it and holding onto the moments that feel like they could become a Pale Ramon song.
How did you come up with the name of your act?
When we launched the project, we started writing immediately, and over a few weeks we’d collected a lot of songs. In those first sessions, we labeled our Dropbox folder “The Emperor of Ice Cream” — from the Wallace Stevens poem Emanuel was reading at the time — and that stuck as our name for a while. Eventually we changed it. “The Emperor of Ice Cream” was provocative enough that it seemed to get a rise out of the crowd at every show. So we went to another Stevens poem, “The Idea of Order at Key West,” which has a character named Ramon Fernandez. At one point in the poem, he’s addressed as “pale Ramon.” We liked how it sounded, and that became the name.
What are some artists and albums that have informed your creative direction?
The Beatles, Abbey Road. Radiohead, Kid A. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin III. Pink Floyd, Animals and The Dark Side of the Moon. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House. Björk, Homogenic. Beck, Sea Change. Miles Davis, In a Silent Way. Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home. St. Vincent, Actor. Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral. Beach House, Bloom.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in music right now?
Everything feels a little fractured right now — it’s hard to tell who and what is connected anymore. In the meantime, we’ve been listening to a lot of ’50s jazz.
Where do you see the music world heading in the next five years?
Hard to say. AI will find its way into composition and production — it’ll be obvious in some hands and sneakier in the hands of clever producers. Our hope is there’s a backlash, too: a solid number of musicians so deeply dedicated to mastering their instruments that they end up being the fresh air.
How is music helping you during these uncertain times?
Music always helps in uncertain times. Composition is an endless maze, and it’s always exciting when someone can lead a listener’s mind through a new alleyway.
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