Dream-pop-rockers Cryogeyser return to the Rebel Lounge with their spaced-out, depressive guitar jams; juxtaposed against the sweet, clear vocals of lead singer Shawn Marom. Starling frontwoman Kasha Willett's reedy, slightly nasal voice soars over the heavy, distorted guitar chords and lugubrious basslines of the band, clear descendants of shoegaze pioneers like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine.
Los Angeles indie-pop band Dummy take their name from the celebrated Portishead album and aren't afraid to wear such influences on their sleeve, but they're more than shoegaze revivalists, interpolating psych-rock, glitch music, and vaporwave to create a thoroughly modern pop-rock aesthetic. "Making music shouldn't be fun" has served as the band's long-running mantra, and...
Cherry Glazerr alum Sasami Ashworth shares some of the indie sensibilities of her former band, but her solo project SASAMI ditches the lo-fi garage trappings in favor of a modern, electronic, girl-pop sound. A talented multi-instrumentalist, Ashworth delivers her emotionally raw lyrics in a rich mezzo-soprano that ranges from ironically detached to delicate and tremulous. When she sings "I'm such a cancer," one hopes she's comparing herself to the disease rather than indulging in her generation's weakness for astrology, an observation that encapsulates my crochety opinion of the pop cohort to which she belongs. Like Ashworth, Jia Pet's music draws heavily from Asian pop-idol aesthetics but skews more heavily toward break-beat, hyperpop and electronic sounds.
English duo King Hannah's wry, singer-songwriter aesthetic evokes contemporaries like Phoebe Bridgers, Courtney Barnett, and Sharon van Etten (a featured collaborator on the band's second album), but their titles and lyrics make clear that they trace their influences to slice-of-life Americana observers like Neil Young and, yes, John Prine. There's a strange menace lurking behind...