Kino’s ‘I Think I Think Too Much Tour’ Will Kick Off In The US

Name: Emma-Jean Thackray
Start: 2025-1-8T20-20-00-00
End: 2025-1-8T23-23-59-00
Location: MilkBoy

Courtesy of Naked Agency

january, 2025

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wed08jan8:00 pmwed11:59 pmEmma-Jean Thackray8:00 pm - 11:59 pm MilkBoy, 1100 Chestnut Street

Time

(Wednesday) 8:00 pm - 11:59 pm

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Emma-Jean Thackray is one the U.K.'s genuine musical enigmas. She wears many hats: trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, bandleader, producer, beat-maker, radio host, videographer, club DJ, and-Worldwide FM DJ. She also runs her own Movementt imprint under the Warp Records umbrella. Musically, she is the standard-bearer of a spiritually minded sound that readily channels the inspirations of 1970s jazz-fusion/jazz-funk and stitches it to broken beat and house in a particularly dancefloor-oriented take on modern jazz. Her creative philosophy is, "Everything I release is based around the mantra 'music to move the mind, move the body, move the soul.'" Her earliest recordings, including 2016's Walrus EP (named for her quintet) and 2018's Ley Lines, received enthusiastic notice from Gilles Peterson, Theo Parrish, and Jamie Cullum. The Rain Dance EP appeared in March 2020, In June, she released the live-in-studio, straight-to-vinyl Um Yang/Nightdreamer EP. After appearing on BBC Two's Later.... With Jools Holland, she was signed by Warp. Yellow, her debut long player, appeared in July 2021 and topped the British jazz charts. Though Thackray currently calls Catford in south east London home, she was raised in the northern rural environment of Yorkshire between Wakefield and Leeds. The region has a long tradition of music made by brass bands. As a child she learned to play cornet her parents bought her second hand from a music shop, and played in a brass band that, she asserts, taught her how to make a beautiful sound on the horn, as well as one she could make playing with others. By the time she was 13 she was principal cornetist in a local brass band. At 14 she taught herself to play trumpet and piano (guitars, bass, various samplers, synths, and keyboards came later). While downloading brass band recordings, she came across the Gil Evans arrangement of Miles Davis' reading of Joaquín Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" on Sketches of Spain. It not only blew her mind, it changed the direction of her life. Though Thackray had absorbed almost any music she encountered, from the '80s soul and pop her mother loved to Fela Kuti's and Roy Ayers' jazz-Afrobeat encounter on Music of Many Colours, to folk and blues. Another part of her musical aesthetic was developed from learning from her father about Taoism; he also taught her to meditate. After her encounter with Davis and Evans, she began collecting jazz voraciously. After secondary school, Thackray studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with composer/pianist Keith Tippett. She was also discovering the beat constructions of Afro-futurist hip-hop creators like J Dilla and Madlib, Detroit techno and Chicago house music alongside her studies in hard bop, improvisation, and classical music. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in music, she relocated to London and studied for a master's in jazz orchestral composition at Trinity Laban alongside Moses Boyd and Nubya Garcia, but she still felt like an outsider. She received her advanced degree but never forgot her brass band roots. She formed her own Walrus quintet, and by 2016 she'd issued a self-titled eight-track EP (mixed by David Holmes) with brass (including tuba), B-3 organ, Wurlitzer, synths, and drums. The group played rapturously well-received shows across London. As much as Thackray loved making music with others, she discovered her core sound alone in an instrument-packed home studio in a South London flat. She recorded 2018's Ley Lines EP by playing all the parts herself, including a clarinet she'd picked up for the first time just ten minutes before recording. The set was received enthusiastically and she was presented with an opportunity to perform with and conduct the London Symphony Orchestra at the London Jazz Festival. She also performed at Winter Jazz Fest in New York and multiple times at Glastonbury. She worked alongside Junius Paul, Angel Bat Dawid, Nubya Garcia, and Theon Cross in Makaya McCraven's London workshop bands and contributed the track "Too Shy" to his Where We Come From (Chicago x London Mixtape) and in 2019 issued a 12" of the track with a B-side remix by Gilles Peterson. She toured Africa and South America, where she got to meet and work with Hermeto Paschoal in Sao Paolo. In early 2020. Thackray founded her Movementt label and in March issued the four-track Rain Dance EP, which included a pair of videos. It sold out instantly and was selected by NME as one of the year's best recordings. She followed it in June with the cassette single Um Yang/Nightdreamer. That fall, after being pursued by many labels, Thackray decided on Warp, which allowed her to retain Movementt as an imprint. In July 2021, Thackray released the self-produced Yellow, her debut long-player. Intended to sound like a "psychedelic trip," it wed the jazz-funk fusion of George Duke, Donald Byrd and Ayers to Parliament Funkadelic, the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra, and the gorgeous orchestration of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds to house music. The album went to number one on the U.K. jazz albums list a week after its release.

thu09jan6:00 pmthu11:59 pmaja monetNYC Winter Jazzfest 20256:00 pm - 11:59 pm (le) poisson rouge, 158 Bleecker Street

thu09jan7:00 pmthu11:00 pmEli Shane7:00 pm - 11:00 pm Mercury Lounge, 17 E Houston Street

Time

(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Location

Mercury Lounge

17 E Houston Street

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Born in Queens, NY and having a father who worked professionally as a drummer, Eli was constantly surrounded by music, especially to the sounds of Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Billy Joel, and Regina Spektor. He would often spend his days exploring the massive iTunes library on his family computer, opening his ears to whatever titles or album covers caught his eye. Whether it be the unique look of The Best of Edgar Winter or the allure of Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me, Eli gained a passion for discovering new music from a young age. This hobby became particularly impactful around his middle school years: after hearing Björk’s music for the first time, he began digging deeper into the world of art pop and 90s alternative, which has since provided a well of inspiration. After several years of bouncing around local open mics, Eli began releasing music as a teenager with his first EP, Flip on Fiona, and the single “The Lindsey Song”, a sweet ballad with shining vocals. Promoting the EP and single, Eli played numerous local shows in Long Island, and has additionally performed at festivals in Boston and California. Eli began writing his debut albm, therein lies the garden, in late 2020 and simultaneously began recording it while pursuing his bachelor's degree in studio composition at SUNY Purchase. The seven-track set was released in March 2022; York Calling said in regard to the record: “Rich with lived detail and emotion [...] you’re completely lost in Eli’s world.” As Shane was surrounded by instrumentalists and collaborators while at music school, the record boasts a hearty list of credits. Shane’s proclivity for open tunings and large arrangements are demonstrated on tracks like the bittersweet “You and Me” and triumphant “Greed & Travel in Four Parts”. The record also features more electronic-influenced tracks like “Another Verse”, a dreamy electropop track, and “See You in New York”, a hauntingly comforting ambient song. Aside from performance and producing his own music, Eli served as PR manager and eventually director of WPSR Student Radio. While in that position, he worked to refocus the station on uplifting the school's music community, and worked closely with artists to put together shows, release events, and promotional strategies. He was also a host and curator of his own show on the station, Caught in the Middle, for six seasons. Eli began playing the harp in his second semester at SUNY Purchase, after a lifelong fascination with the instrument and dream to play. Immediately after picking it up, he knew it was the instrument he was meant to play. He instantly felt like it truly was the instrument, the vessel, for the creative energy he had built up in his life and studies. Picking up the harp as an adult allowed him both a discipline to commit to learning, and a fearlessness to explore the instrument and its endless sonic capabilities. That exploration has since characterized his playing; Shane is primarily interested in showcasing the expansive sonic profile of the harp and frequently employs extended techniques and unconventional approaches in his writing. “Liaison”, his first single on harp which was released in May 2024, is loosely based off of a short story by Lydia Davis and is about jadedness in domesticity and routine. To sonically reflect that, the track is built around loops, anxious layered vocals, and electroacoustic manipulation of the harp and cello. Playing the harp has also opened doors for Shane to pursue many new paths in music, including more improvised and contemporary performances. In 2023, he was a performer in acclaimed artist Nao Bustamante's BLOOM at the Neuberger Museum of Art, a project for which Bustamante won the highly-coveted Rome Prize. As part of his undergraduate senior project, Shane enlisted percussionist Diego Zavaleta for a series of improvised sessions; one of which, titled Is There Enough Time in the Day?, was released in 2024. He has additionally been a session harpist for various independent artists, including Avangelia, Brigid Hart, Luna Starr, and DøR5N. Eli is currently pursuing his master's of music in Contemporary Musical Arts at New England Conservatory, and is working on an EP of songs written on harp over the past two years.

fri10jan8:00 pmfri10:15 pmDaryl Johns8:00 pm - 10:15 pm Baby's All Right, 146 Broadway

Time

(Friday) 8:00 pm - 10:15 pm

Location

Baby's All Right

146 Broadway

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Los Angeles-based bassist and songwriter Daryl Johns announces his self-titled debut album, Daryl Johns, out November 22nd via Mac’s Record Label, along with a video for its lead single, “I’m So Serious.” Johns writes euphoric pop music “of a certain Irish quality.” His earnestly hopeful TV show theme music, bent over the knee of New Jersey “diner rock”—his “pop for victory”—his “champion pop,” his “sped up pop”—sometimes his sunny “bubblegum country” or his coke-eyes “motivational jazz fusion”—all find their home on the artist’s debut. The record presents these musical landing points in a cohesive 14-track collection: sugar-powered anthems for the everyman. On “I’m So Serious,” we are at the high school social. We are hopeful in a New Jersey basement with burger and milkshake in 1982. It is summer—but overcast. Daryl Johns is a clarion call for a new style: as Johns says, “I wrote a bunch of this music before I even knew what Americana was. They brought it out of me. Burgers, shakes, fries. They ooze Americana. A love for 60s music. But my music is just TV jingle memories and I don’t avoid the obvious. Every melody a logo, every melody a zinger.” Since moving westward to join the band of the reigning king of indie rock, Mac Demarco, Johns has found footing in a community of artists that includes 70s soft-rock revival band, Drugdealer, and various new wave jazz musicians such as Pedro Martins and Chris Fishman. Born to jazz musician parents—and with many celebrating Johns previously as the foremost jazz upright bassist of his generation (having created a unique sound so far eluding imitation)—Daryl is known and beloved for his performance and recording work with Pat Metheny, Martins, Vijay Iyer, The Lemon Twigs, Macy Gray, and Immanuel Wilkins to name only a handful. He has steadily built notoriety as a solo artist; and, with this debut, Daryl Johns, Johns offers, “I just made it cuz I like it. I just wanna have fun.” He continues, “Let’s have a good time.”

fri10jan8:00 pmfri11:59 pmCabin Fever8:00 pm - 11:59 pm World Cafe Live - Philly, 3025 Walnut Street

fri10jan8:30 pmfri11:59 pmHalf WaifSee You At The Maypole Tour8:30 pm - 11:59 pm MilkBoy, 1100 Chestnut Street

Time

(Friday) 8:30 pm - 11:59 pm

Location

MilkBoy

1100 Chestnut Street

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The searching, artful indie rock of New York's Half Waif serves as an outlet for the thoughts and experimentation of classically trained singer and keyboardist Nandi Rose Plunkett. Working with various collaborators over time, including some of her Pinegrove bandmates, she debuted the project in 2013 with the EP Future Joys. With their cinematic sound growing incrementally more expansive with time, Half Waif had a critical breakthrough with 2018's Lavender. Fifth album Mythopoetics juxtaposed a vulnerable hopefulness with their most dramatic synth atmospheres yet in 2021. Both loss and healing informed 2024's more collaborative See You at the Maypole, whose instrumentation added warmer textures like harp and clarinet. Raised in Williamstown, Massachusetts, by an American father of European descent and an Indian refugee mother, Plunkett's lyrics often address themes like displacement, human connection, and the life cycle. She relocated to New York before collaborating with bassist Greg Chudzik and drummer Thomas Alton Crane on the Future Joys EP, released in 2013. The next year's KOTEKAN saw her joined by a string quartet and horns, and Pinegrove drummer Zack Levine first recorded with Half Waif on Probable Depths, which received a cassette release by DZ Tapes in 2016. Cascine issued the album on vinyl a year later. In the meantime, Plunkett contributed vocals to Jaye Bartell's Light Enough album, and Pinegrove had a critical breakthrough with Cardinal, which landed on some prominent year-end lists. The Half Waif EP form/a followed on Cascine in 2017 with an official lineup of Plunkett, Levine, and bassist/guitarist Adan Carlo, also from Pinegrove. With production by David Tolomei (Nymph, Effi Briest), Half Waif's third album, 2018's Lavender, featured the same trio and provided a critical breakthrough of their own. Pinegrove delivered their third and fourth albums, 2019's Skylight and the following January's Marigold, before Half Waif returned with The Caretaker in March 2020. A stylistic and thematic follow-up to Lavender, The Caretaker was also informed by Plunkett's multigenerational family history of being uprooted. Co-produced by Plunkett and Tolomei, it marked the project's debut for Anti-. With themes of persevering in imperiling times, the still lusher Mythopoetics followed on Anti- in mid-2021. After another pair of Pinegrove LPs (2021's Amperland, NY and the next year's 11:11), Half Waif's third album for the label and sixth overall, October 2024's See You at the Maypole was intended to be a departure from the darker material of her most recent output; however, losses including a miscarriage and a family cancer diagnosis ultimately informed its more complex character, which also held themes of healing. Produced by Plunkett and Mythopoetics' Zubin Hensler, See You at the Maypole was recorded with collaborators including Pinegrove alum Josh Marre and mixed in part by Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Bon Iver). - Biography by Marcy Donelson

sat11jan8:00 pmsat10:00 pmAna Roxanne8:00 pm - 10:00 pm Zone One at Elsewhere, 599 Johnson Avenue

sat11jan8:00 pmsat11:59 pmSpeedy Ortiz8:00 pm - 11:59 pm World Cafe Live - Philly, 3025 Walnut Street

Time

(Saturday) 8:00 pm - 11:59 pm

Location

World Cafe Live - Philly

3025 Walnut Street

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“Rabbit rabbit” is a superstitious incantation repeated on the first of each month to bring good fortune—a belief practiced by Sadie Dupuis, the guitarist, singer and songwriter of the Philadelphia rock quartet Speedy Ortiz. As a child with OCD, she followed arbitrary rituals, a coping mechanism commonly triggered by early trauma, and “rabbit rabbit” was one that stuck. When Dupuis began to parse difficult memories for the first time in her songwriting, it felt like kismet to name her bandʼs resultant fourth record after an expression of luck and repetition: Rabbit Rabbit. Instead of re-treading old routines, the record finds Speedy Ortiz interrogating conventions, grappling with cycles of violence and destructive power dynamics with singular wit and riffs. Rabbit Rabbit finds Speedy Ortiz at its most potent: melodically fierce, sonically mountainous, scorching the earth and beginning anew. Speedy Ortiz debuted as Dupuisʼ home-recording outlet in 2011, but the solo project quickly blew up into a full-fledged band beloved around the world for its pointed lyrics, disarmingly hooky choruses, and musical ingenuity—as well as its activism. The group graced festival stages from Bonnaroo to Primavera, supported heroic artists from Foo Fighters to Liz Phair, and brought acts including Mitski and Soccer Mommy on some of their earliest tours. In 2016, the band relocated from Massachusetts to Philadelphia, with the lineup changing shortly thereafter to include sonically inventive guitarist Andy Molholt (Laser Background, Eric Slick), drivingly melodic bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides (Mal Blum, Little Waist), and heavyhitting drummer Joey Doubek (Pinkwash, Downtown Boys). Rabbit Rabbit is the first Speedy album to feature the longtime touring members as full contributors, and Dupuis and her bandmates blaze with unpredictability, their intrepid playing thrusting songs in exhilarating new directions. The gnarled guitars and imagistic lyrics that defined 2013ʼs Major Arcana, 2015ʼs Foil Deer and 2018ʼs Twerp Verse are still present, but Rabbit Rabbitʼs recordings feel as vast as a desert landscape. “As I was channeling scenes and sentiments from decades past, I wanted to honor the bands I loved when I first learned guitar, ones that taught me to get lost in the possibilities of this instrument,” Dupuis recalls. Speedy Ortiz delved into its membersʼ most formative musical favorites—post-hardcore, the Palm Desert scene, alternative metal—pushing the agile complexity of the guitars and forceful rhythmic interplay between the drums and bass to unprecedentedly tricky extremes. “Every voice has a narrative,” offers Doubek of the arrangement process. “There is so much feeling and melody to interpret, and so much room to express it.”

sun12jan7:00 pmsun9:15 pmNNAMDÏ7:00 pm - 9:15 pm Baby's All Right, 146 Broadway

mon13jan6:00 pmmon9:00 pmTom Grennan6:00 pm - 9:00 pm Mercury Lounge, 17 E Houston Street

Time

(Monday) 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Location

Mercury Lounge

17 E Houston Street

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While Tom Grennan first came to public attention as a guest vocalist on electronic duo Chase & Status' 2016 track "When It All Goes Wrong," his own material features a gritty-voiced mix of soulful pop and indie folk. A series of EPs and singles for Insanity Records led up the 2018 release of his debut album, Lighting Matches, which hit an impressive number five on the U.K. Albums Chart. In 2021, he topped the same chart with his sophomore album, Evering Road, before following it up with 2023's What Ifs & Maybes. Growing up in Bedford, England, Grennan initially pursued a football career before music became his primary focus. He spent several years cutting his teeth playing solo acoustic shows in London pubs before earning a contract with the Sony-owned imprint Insanity Records, which released his debut single, "Something in the Water," in 2016. The track was produced by Charlie Hugall (Florence + the Machine, Ed Sheeran, Kaiser Chiefs). After his collaboration with Chase & Status elevated his profile, Grennan delivered a trio of EPs -- Release the Brakes, Something in the Water, and Found What I've Been Looking For -- which helped introduce audiences to his own style. The year 2018 began with the snappy, string-laden single "Sober" followed by "Barbed Wire," with both singles signaling the direction of Grennan's debut album. Produced by Dan Grech-Marguerat (the Killers, Radiohead) and Fraser T. Smith (Stormzy, Adele), Lighting Matches arrived in the summer and made an impressive showing at number five on the U.K. Albums chart. The stripped-down acoustic single "City of Stars" appeared in 2019, followed the next year by the more elaborate pop-driven cuts "This Is the Place" and "Oh Please." Signifying the direction of his new material, which would encompass the spirit of soul and gospel, Grennan issued the tracks "Amen" and "Something Better" in 2020. His sophomore album, Evering Road, arrived in early 2021 and topped the U.K. albums chart. Grennan kickstarted 2022 with the anthemic track "Remind Me" before collaborating with KSI on the U.K. Top Ten single "Not Over Yet." Focusing on his third album, Grennan issued just a few more tracks in 2022, the World Cup-focused England anthem "Lionheart (Fearless)" with Joel Corry and "All These Nights." At the beginning of 2023 he issued the track "Here" as a precursor to the release of his third album, What Ifs & Maybes. - Biography by Liam Martin

fri17jan8:00 pmfri10:00 pmLotus8:00 pm - 10:00 pm Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street

sat18jan7:00 pmsat9:00 pmThe HauntNew Addiction Tour7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Mercury Lounge, 17 E Houston Street

Time

(Saturday) 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Location

Mercury Lounge

17 E Houston Street

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Anastasia Grace Haunt & Maxamillion Haunt, the sibling duo at the core of the quartet, craft shockingly resonant anthems infused with wistful elegance and raw nerve. At only 19, Anastasia is possessed with a voice and sensibility beyond her years, an old soul somehow channeling a timeless essence, with powerfully mature lyricism to back it up. Enigmatic, esoteric, and charming, Anastasia doesn’t just “relate” to teenagers in The Haunt’s audience who have been bullied or otherwise shunned. She quite literally is one of them. The Haunt is an invitation to the outsider, a blissful surrender to enchantment, melancholy, and disaffected beauty. It’s the soundtrack to the dark romanticism of otherworldly sentimentality. This is lush, theatrical, all-enveloping music outstretching its cold embrace to the overlooked. A swirl of Indie-Pop and Post-Punk with a devilish alchemy that summons both Blues and Beats, The Haunt wouldn’t be out of place at Vivienne Westwood’s late seventies London boutique; a new wave countdown on MTV’s “120 Minutes”; baking in the sun at Vans Warped Tour; or a dystopian dance club in space. The juxtaposition of Anastasia’s quiet offstage shyness with her commanding vocal preeminence is one of many artistic clarion calls beckoning an increasing number of like-minded devotees into the Haunt’s world.

sat18jan7:00 pmsat11:00 pmCaroline Strickland7:00 pm - 11:00 pm Union Pool, 484 Union Avenue

sat18jan7:00 pmsat11:59 pmThe Dirty Nil7:00 pm - 11:59 pm White Eagle Hall, 337 Newark Avenue

Time

(Saturday) 7:00 pm - 11:59 pm

Location

White Eagle Hall

337 Newark Avenue

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If there’s one rule people should follow when approaching the Dirty Nil, it’s this: Never tell them how to rock ‘n’ roll. Ontario’s Juno Award-winning trio is a finely tuned rock machine that is at its best when the members are pursuing their penchant for thrashy riffs, bashed out drums, and levels-to-the-max volume. And on their fourth album, Free Rein to Passions, the band followed their instincts down to the note to produce their most authentic work to date. The Nil’s back-to-basics approach was a direct reaction to their previous record, 2021’s Fuck Art, a creative process that brought too many industry people whispering in the band’s ears, telling them how to polish and tweak their songs to fit on the radio or streaming playlists or whatever other arbitrary whims the modern music machine demands. “There were all these expectations and pressures, people telling us to try this or that,” says frontman Luke Bentham.“We’re by no means the biggest band in the world, but in our ecosystem it became hard to try to make all these people happy. We were given challenges, and I think we met them, but getting to that place, it made me realize: ‘If we go any further in this direction, then I don't know what we’re doing anymore.’ It had gotten to a point where the creation wasn't very fun.” In order to incinerate their apparatus, they had to destroy it completely. So as soon as Fuck Art was in the can, the Nil got back to having fun and doing what they love. They jammed away in their practice space for weeks, not overthinking anything or taking any external input. They didn’t sweat the small details or fret over transitions and arrangements. Less second guessing, more reckless abandon. It’s the same approach to rock they’ve taken since they were kids. “We had the best time pulling these songs together. It made me feel like a teenager in my parents’ basement again,” Bentham says. What came out was the appropriately titled Free Rein to Passions, a palate cleanser for the Dirty Nil, and a reminder for them to stick to the fundamentals of rock and stay true to themselves. “What was it LCD Soundsystem said about trading in guitars for turntables and synthesizers?” Bentham laughs. “I’d say that’s unlikely for us.” Their youthful rock-worship approach is immediately apparent on the album’s opener“Celebration,” which cuts in via a chugging metal riff, a subtle ode to one of the Nil’s influences, Power Trip’s late frontman Riley Gale. From there, the band indulges their loudest, gnarliest inclinations, making casual nods to their more chaotic favorites, including everything from theJesus Lizard to the Blood Brothers. And on the album’s catchiest single, “Nicer Guy,” the Nil reminds listeners that they also still wield the power to stitch a perfect, infectious pop hook into their rock fabric. Free Rein to Passions keeps things simple lyrically as well, and doesn’t get bogged down withoverly complicated messaging. Nothing overwrought, nothing didactic. Just songs about working soul-sucking jobs, shredding on guitar, and striving to be a kinder person. “The only real central theme of the album is an acknowledgment of the crazy circumstances that we all occupy at this point in time, and being nice,” Bentham stresses. “It’s about being nice to everyone around you, and enjoying your silly little life and not getting too smashed down by prevailing negativity in the air.” The Nil again recruited longtime collaborative producer John Goodmanson to capture their sound at Jukasa Media on Ontario’s Six Nations Reserve. They also brought in new blood with bassist Sam Tomlinson, a friend and fellow product of the Dundas scene. “In some ways it feels like going back to our roots in Dundas, and Sam knows what that’s like,” adds drummer KyleFisher. “He’s cut from the same cloth as Luke and I.” That hometown feeling was the inspiration for the song “Blowin’ Up Things in the Woods,” an ode to the simple joys of fireworks, explosions, and pyrotechnic annihilation. Staring into the abyss of entertainment serfdom, the trio spat on it. They smashed the chalice of poison brought to their lips, grinding the shards under their heels. A rock and roll band is part religion, part small business and part pirate ship. Sabres were wielded and planks were walked for The Dirty Nil to bring Free Rein to Passions into this world. It was a battle well worth fighting.

sat18jan8:00 pmsat10:00 pmLotus8:00 pm - 10:00 pm Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street

sun19jan7:00 pmsun9:00 pmKinoI Think I Think Too Much Tour7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street

tue21jan(jan 21)8:00 pmwed22(jan 22)1:00 amTrevor JacksonIt's Complicated Tour8:00 pm - 1:00 am (22) The Fillmore, 29 E Allen Street

Time

21 (Tuesday) 8:00 pm - 22 (Wednesday) 1:00 am

Location

The Fillmore

29 E Allen Street

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Trevor Jackson juggles dual careers as an actor and pop-oriented R&B artist. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Jackson played Young Simba in the Chicago production of The Lion King before he moved to Los Angeles to be closer to the movie, television, and music industries. In 2010, he joined the cast of the SyFy network series Eureka, and in 2012 his role in Disney's hip-hop-themed movie Let It Shine provided the perfect stepping stone for a career in music. In 2013, after he signed to major-label Atlantic, he released the singles "Like We Grown" and "Superman," both of which landed on his New Thang EP later that same year. A handful of singles scattered across 2014 and early 2015 led to the mixtape In My Feelings, after which Jackson resumed acting work with a role on the series American Crime, appearances on Black-ish and a lead role in the film Burning Sands. Jackson inked a distribution deal with Empire and returned to music in 2017 with the singles "B&W (Benz and My Wallet)" and "NightTime," the latter of which appeared on his 2018 mixtape Rough Drafts, Pt. 1. By that point, Jackson had also joined the main cast of the Black-ish spinoff Grown-ish. A pair of singles, the slick "Warning" and the ballad "Puddles," appeared in 2019. - Biography by David Jeffries

thu23jan8:00 pmthu10:00 pmSophie Truax8:00 pm - 10:00 pm World Cafe Live - Philly, 3025 Walnut Street

thu23jan(jan 23)9:30 pmfri24(jan 24)1:00 amTrevor JacksonIt's Complicated Tour9:30 pm - 1:00 am (24) Baby's All Right, 146 Broadway Event Organized By: Move Forward Music

Time

23 (Thursday) 9:30 pm - 24 (Friday) 1:00 am

Location

Baby's All Right

146 Broadway

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Move Forward Musicinfo@moveforwardmusic.com

fri24jan6:00 pmfri8:00 pmSophie Truax6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Mercury Lounge, 17 E Houston Street

fri24jan7:00 pmfri10:00 pmEric CannataHolding Onto The Holy Release Show7:00 pm - 10:00 pm Union Pool, 484 Union Avenue

Time

(Friday) 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Location

Union Pool

484 Union Avenue

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Holding Onto The Holy marks the debut solo album for Eric Cannata – guitarist, songwriter, and founding member of Young the Giant, Coma Culture, and American Pets, as well as acclaimed producer of projects by Hannah Connolly and Kenton Chen. Cannata first dipped his toes into the solo stream with 2020’s Lonely Beast, a folk and psychedelia-tinged EP inspired by solitude. Now he returns with Holding Onto the Holy, a self-produced full-length collection about togetherness and how to love life while the world falls apart, sparked by his relationship with fiancé and musical collaborator Connolly. The project had its genesis during ten days of Covid quarantine, impelling Cannata to use a scratchy throat and an old microphone to find a new voice. Taking inspiration from such classic pop and rock icons as Roy Orbison, Harry Nilsson, and The Velvet Underground, the multi-talented instrumentalist and songwriter emphasized fun and exploration to chase other muses such as childhood cartoons, folklore, and daydreams. Cannata fleshed out his evolving sound with a range of instruments including 12-string acoustic guitars, a vintage Solina String Ensemble string synthesizer, and an old upright piano, with additional accompaniment from Kosta Galanopoulos on drums and father Ernie Cannata on piano, as well as a few trusted voices in Connolly and longtime friend and collaborator Jon O’Brien, who handled mixing and additional engineering. Eric Cannata may have started Holding Onto The Holy searching for joy in a chaotic world, but he found it dancing by himself and recording with loved ones.

fri24jan7:30 pmfri11:00 pmPom Poko7:30 pm - 11:00 pm Ukie Club, 847 N Franklin Street

Time

(Friday) 7:30 pm - 11:00 pm

Location

Ukie Club

847 N Franklin Street

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Norway's freewheeling Pom Poko combine their jazz school training and experimental leanings into equally sugary and explosive music. Inspired by math rock, post-punk, West African music, and weird pop bands such as Deerhoof, the group introduced their loose-limbed, playful style on 2019's Birthday, then emphasized the contrast between their meticulous compositions and chaotic performances on 2021's bracing Cheater. With 2024's Champion, Pom Poko brought more maturity to their music without losing any of their spark. Named after a film by Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli, Pom Poko consists of Ragnhild Fangel Jamtveit (vocals), Martin Miguel Almagro Tonne (guitar), Ola Djupvik (drums), and Jonas Krøvel (bass). Tonne, Djupvik, and Krøvel met while studying at the Trondheim Music Conservatory and initially aspired to be a noise punk trio. However, when they were asked to perform at a literary festival in 2016, they added Jamtveit on vocals and quickly wrote a set of sugary pop-punk songs with unexpected twists. The band soon started playing gigs, including a support slot for their friends Broen. Simon Raymonde, the founder of Broen's label Bella Union, happened to see Pom Poko play at this show and signed them soon after. In February 2019, the label released the combo's debut album, Birthday, which was nominated for the Nordic Music Prize as well as two Norwegian Grammy Awards. That August, Pom Poko issued "Leg Day," a stand-alone song they recorded in a northern Italian village. Another track, "Praise," appeared in March 2020 and hinted at the more volatile direction of the band's second full-length, Cheater. Released in January 2021, the album was co-produced by Marcus Forsgren and took the sweet and combustive elements of Pom Poko's sounds to extremes. A year later, the band issued This Is Our House, an EP that combined old and new songs with sounds ranging from fuzzed-out to delicate. As Pom Poko made their third album, the signs of their growing maturity as musicians and people informed the songs they wrote. Self-produced and mixed by Ali Chant, August 2024's Champion paired a more spacious version of the band's music with topics like parenthood and personal growth. - Biography by Heather Phares

fri24jan8:00 pmfri9:30 pmAloe Blacc8:00 pm - 9:30 pm Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 W 3rd Street

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(Friday) 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm

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Blue Note Jazz Club

131 W 3rd Street

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Iconic R&B and soul vocalist Aloe Blacc has focused his career on putting positivity and beauty into the world. “I always want my songs to inspire people, motivate people, and help them dream bigger,” he says with that trademark warm smile. And this year will prove to be the gold standard in Blacc’s effort. In addition to the upcoming 10th anniversary edition of his landmark album Lift Your Spirit, 2024 will also see Blacc cover a variety of classic alt-rock hits on two EP-length volumes called Rock My Soul. The California native picked up trumpet in grade school, but dreamed of being an emcee—putting together hip-hop projects, including three records with producer Exile as Emanon. Later, a recording of Blacc singing Sam Cooke's "Change Is Gonna Come" lit up the indie label circuit. “My heroes were Bill Withers, Harry Belafonte, Stevie Wonder, people with messages that were self-affirming,” he says. Blacc’s beloved early solo hits like "I Need a Dollar" and "The Man" (from 2010's Good Things and 2014's Lift Your Spirit, respectively) followed powerfully in that tradition. The first taste of Rock My Soul, a regal take on Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”, finds Blacc on an interstellar funk rock journey. “That was a song that affected me the very first time I heard it—and it always will,” Blacc says. That personal connection permeates a bossa nova-indebted take on “Lithium”, a twitchy, Rhodes-driven version of No Doubt's "Don't Speak”, and a satin ballad take on RHCP's "Under the Bridge". “That’s what we did in hip-hop—we’d take from everywhere, interpret, and I love to see music growing that way,” Blacc says. “Grunge and alt-rock had a lot of the depression, anxiety, angst of their era. Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, the Isley Brothers, they took rock songs and transformed them into soul or funk songs, and found how to channel their emotions.” Ever tapped into the larger industry culture and American spirit, Blacc has felt the same transformations surrounding Lift Your Spirit. “It felt right to celebrate the 10-year mark, to tell people again that they deserve joy,” he says. The record’s opening track and lead single embodies that reminder, and after catapulting Blacc to the top of the charts worldwide in its first-released incarnation alongside Swedish DJ Avicii, the acoustic version of “Wake Me Up” further elevates the calls for harmony. The Deluxe reissue of Lift Your Spirit will also feature three additional tracks initially released on retailer-specific editions or international markets. And as if all that weren’t enough, Blacc has his eyes set on another album release in February of 2025, with its first track dropping later this year. This time, though, he’ll match his philanthropic streak to the music, with each track inspired by a different nonprofit organization. And considering the tension and conflict that surrounds so much of every day, there couldn’t be a better time for the soothing balm of Aloe Blacc.

fri24jan(jan 24)10:30 pmsat25(jan 25)12:00 amAloe Blacc10:30 pm - 12:00 am (25) Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 W 3rd Street

Time

24 (Friday) 10:30 pm - 25 (Saturday) 12:00 am

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Blue Note Jazz Club

131 W 3rd Street

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sat25jan6:00 pmsat8:00 pmTall HeightsSoftly Softly Tour6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Mercury Lounge, 17 E Houston Street

sat25jan7:00 pmsat10:00 pmGreg Freeman & Ekko Astral7:00 pm - 10:00 pm Union Pool, 484 Union Avenue

Time

(Saturday) 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

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Union Pool

484 Union Avenue

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“Greg Freeman deals in biblical deluges, apocalyptic fever dreams, Floridian miscreants, and green mountain malaise. On his excellent debut LP “I Looked Out,” Gregs’s voice takes center stage, creaking, crooning, and cutting through clouds of static. The songs are linked together by a palpable urgency, whether it is the punch-in-the-face, careening momentum of “Tower,” the country-gazing guitar squall of “Souvenir Heart,” or the singalong finale of “Palms.” Careful arrangements and production choices bring out the best of the 7-piece band that ornament the album with pedal steel, horns, eerie strings, and tape warbles. Greg’s strong narrative songwriting is equally effective chronicling the demise of a 1920s ocean liner as it is documenting his own interpersonal uncertainties. The sounds on the record conjure up the feeling of driving around Chittenden County in the middle of winter, high beams on, slush on the floor mats. It’s hard for me to imagine a more promising debut record, and I can’t wait to see where this band goes next.” – Garrett Linck Like a more glittery version of the legendary generations of Washington, D.C. hardcore bands, Ekko Astral play a style of punk they call “mascara moshpit.” Debut album Pink Balloons became one of the year’s best-reviewed debuts, thanks in part to the group’s catchy, in-your-face melodies and lyrics that provided a necessary alternative to the more traditional doom & gloom of 21st century American life, from the climate crisis to attacks on transgender rights. Ekko Astral was founded in the nation’s capital in 2021 by two longtime friends, singer/songwriter Jael Holzman and guitarist Liam Hughes. Hughes, a grad student earning a master’s degree in audio technology at American University, realized he could access the college’s recording studio while studying, and collaborated with Holzman, an energy and climate journalist who spent the COVID-19 lockdown coming out as a trans woman. Inspired by a diverse clutch of bands from Arctic Monkeys and IDLES to the MC5 and Death Grips, Holzman and Hughes (alongside Pretty Bitter bassist Miri Tyler and drummer Stephen Yeager), put together the 2022 EP QUARTZ as part of Hughes' graduate thesis. The band began to evolve after its release; Tyler switched to drums, and the group added bassist Guinivere Tully and guitarist Sam Elmore. Their first album as a quintet, 2024’s Pink Balloons, explored the pain of death, decay, gender, class inequality, and lives augmented by a haze of internet subcultures and sharpened lyrical allusions to everything from Creedence Clearwater Revival to Carly Rae Jepsen. Instead of succumbing to empty platitudes and rote calls to action, the undercurrents of Pink Balloons push for hope and joy in times that felt short of either. The result was a rapturously reviewed full-length debut and waves of impressed profiles in music publications. - Biography by Mike Duquette

sat25jan8:00 pmsat9:30 pmAloe Blacc8:00 pm - 9:30 pm Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 W 3rd Street

Time

(Saturday) 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm

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Blue Note Jazz Club

131 W 3rd Street

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sat25jan8:00 pmsat11:00 pmBlind Pilot8:00 pm - 11:00 pm World Cafe Live - Philly, 3025 Walnut Street

Time

(Saturday) 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm

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World Cafe Live - Philly

3025 Walnut Street

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Oregon's Blind Pilot combines lush West Coast indie pop and elegant folk-rock to create a sound that's both intimate and panoramic. Emerging in 2005, the band found mainstream success in 2011 with the release of their Billboard-charting sophomore effort, We Are the Tide (2011), and elicited acclaim for 2016's And Then Like Lions, which reached the upper echelons of multiple Billboard charts. An eight-year hiatus preceded the arrival of the band's fourth long-player, 2024's In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain. Blind Pilot was founded in Portland in 2005 by singer/guitarist Israel Nebeker and drummer Ryan Dobrowski, who first banded together in college before combining their talents and touring the northwestern Oregon circuit. By 2006, however, they'd decided that a change of scenery might help their songwriting. Blind Pilot consequently relocated 90 miles north, where the duo spent three months inside an Astoria warehouse while recording demos for a full-length album. Afterward, Nebeker and Dobrowski launched a "bike tour" that saw them traveling from Vancouver to San Francisco on their bicycles, playing shows and selling EPs (not to mention saving gas money) along the way. They returned home to finalize their 3 Round and a Sound debut, which was released by Expunged Records in June 2008. While playing shows supporting 3 Round and a Sound's release, Blind Pilot added four new members to the touring lineup. This swelled the band's sound, making 2011's acclaimed We Are the Tide a more fleshed-out, lush affair. The group then signed with ATO for their third LP, which would be five years in the making. Still operating as a six-piece, they released And Then Like Lions in the summer of 2016. The LP cracked the Top Ten on the Billboard alternative, folk, indie, and rock charts. Artistic crises marred Nebeker in the years to come, with a particularly sinister bout of writer's block driving him to desperate measures. After reading, therapy, and writer's trips failed, he challenged himself to compose the band's long-gestating fourth album in a single month. Produced with sonic heft by Josh Kaufman, the resulting In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain was released in 2024.

sat25jan(jan 25)10:30 pmsun26(jan 26)12:00 amAloe Blacc10:30 pm - 12:00 am (26) Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 W 3rd Street

Time

25 (Saturday) 10:30 pm - 26 (Sunday) 12:00 am

Location

Blue Note Jazz Club

131 W 3rd Street

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sun26jan8:00 pmsun9:30 pmAloe Blacc8:00 pm - 9:30 pm Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 W 3rd Street

Time

(Sunday) 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm

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Blue Note Jazz Club

131 W 3rd Street

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sun26jan(jan 26)10:30 pmmon27(jan 27)12:00 amAloe Blacc10:30 pm - 12:00 am (27) Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 W 3rd Street

Time

26 (Sunday) 10:30 pm - 27 (Monday) 12:00 am

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Blue Note Jazz Club

131 W 3rd Street

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tue28jan7:00 pmtue9:00 pmPom Poko7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Baby's All Right, 146 Broadway

Time

(Tuesday) 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

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Baby's All Right

146 Broadway

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tue28jan7:00 pmtue11:00 pmElsa y Elmar7:00 pm - 11:00 pm Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street

Time

(Tuesday) 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm

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Bowery Ballroom

6 Delancey Street

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The six-time Latin GRAMMY-nominated singer-songwriter and producer, Elsa y Elmar, has announced her third studio album PALACIO, out 30th August 2024 via her independent label, Elmar Presenta. Much like the sea for which she named herself, the essence of Elsa y Elmar moves with the tides. Yet the anchor to her genre-meandering "spiritual pop" is her unsparing, confessional approach to songwriting. In PALACIO, she plumbs the depths of her soul, searching for a bigger meaning in her most personal anxieties and romantic mishaps; she surfaces with pearls of synthy, alt-pop wisdom to share with others wading in the same deep waters. "It's very complex, the spiritual dimensions of us millennials," says the CDMX-based, Colombian-born artist, whose real name is Elsa Margarita Carvajal. "I try to capture that in my music. We're all about giving others a space for their feelings. That's a pretty spiritual experience!" Produced in collaboration with Latin GRAMMY-winning musical director Julián Bernal (Sebastian Yatra, Kali Uchis), PALACIO serves as a creative sanctuary for Elsa, who teases out her emotional and musical metamorphosis in 11 dynamic songs. Guided by guitars and sparkling with Elsa's pop flair, the album includes only one feature: a cameo from Spanish vocalist, Álvaro de Luna who revels in the alternative contours of "Visto." "Each song is its own genre, a planet in the solar system whose axis is my obsession with knowing myself, exploring myself and improving myself," explains Elsa. "I made PALACIO as an act of trust [in] life, creativity, art, and as an act of rebellion towards the structure and demands of the current music industry," she adds. "In PALACIO, beauty and error, seriousness and play, happiness and sadness, love and heartbreak coexist — but above all, freedom." Born in the Andean town of Bucaramanga, Colombia, the 30-year-old singer-songwriter grew up playing guitar and the flute; she was encouraged to start making music professionally after writing witty, personalized versions of Shakira songs for her friends. Yet upon entering the recording studio for the first time, 16-year-old Elsa felt alienated by the pressure to conform to the industry standards for Latin pop. "These producers not only wanted me to use songs already written for me by a stranger in Miami," she says, "But they said I'd look prettier if I took off my braces. I knew there had to be another way, so I went to school for music." Elsa braved the unforgiving Boston winters to study at the Berklee College of Music, where she graduated in 2015 with a Bachelor's degree in music performance. There she recorded a 2013 EP titled Sentirnos Bien — from which her song, "Me Viene Bien," won the Grand Prize in the Latin category of the 2014 John Lennon Songwriting Contest. She followed up with her 2015 debut album, Rey, an early sketch of her signature electro-pop sound. In 2019, Elsa pumped up the volume with her Caribbean-faring pop album, Eres Diamante, and landed a nomination in the category of Best New Artist at the Latin Grammys that year. In 2020, she was nominated for Best Pop Song, thanks to her work as a co-writer on the Ximena Sariñana single, "Una Vez Más." After releasing her 2022 LP, ya no somos los mismos, Elsa counted three more nominations that year, including for Album of the Year and Best Engineered Album. After surviving the earth-shattering breakup that triggered ya no somos los mismos — and a serious health scare that landed her in a hospital — "I woke up with nothing to lose and full of desire to live and create," says Elsa. She spent the summer traveling with friends in Europe, searching for a more adventurous Elsa. "I went from Berlin to Tenerife, Italy, Madrid," she says. Instead of kissing a procession of hot foreign strangers, as planned, the journey led Elsa back to the songs that built PALACIO. The summer yielded her the Balearic house-inspired track, "Lento Violento," as well as the melancholic dance cut "Drogado de Emociones." In order to bring balance, she pulled back the polish with her angsty punk-pop of "Ke mAL;" and in "A Ella," she cautions the future lover of her abusive ex, with an otherwise light, amiable tone that evokes Cibo Matto. "I don't like to imitate what I hear, so I have to put it through my world," she says of her blended pop sound. "In indie music, you grab the guitar and you just go: 'Wah-wah-wah!' Together with Julián Bernal, my musical partner, we produced the PALACIO songs one by one, with [respect to] the naiveté [and] the impulsiveness of our first ideas." Released this year on March 1, the first day of Women's History Month, Elsa chose the single "entre las piernas" to become her first release in two years. What began as a revelation during the artist's moon time — "I was super PMSing," she says with a laugh — culminated in a pulsating, feminist alt-pop anthem, in which her confidence soars higher than ever before. Directed by Frederick Venet and produced by Georgian animation studio The Crux, the music video depicts a lush, jungle environs populated with colorful vaginal blooms, illustrated in a style that evokes the enduring beauty of Pre-Columbian art. "Women truly carry the world," says Elsa. "How many women at any given moment will be walking around the city center, carrying a mountain of blood between their legs? Beyond blood, we carry so many burdens — we also carry the expectations of how you should behave, how you should look like, how you shouldn't get too angry lest you become hysterical. This is the body that I inhabit as an artist. This is my experience. I needed this to embody myself." Draped in pink and peach chiffon, Elsa becomes the living centerpiece of her own art exhibit, in the video for her latest single: the ethereal folk-pop theme of "palacio<3," a soul-baring invitation into the safe haven she describes as her "Interior Museum of Emotional Landscapes." "Elsa is your friend, your confidant, your diary," she says of the album. "The palace is OUR space, and music is our safe place."

wed29jan8:00 pmwed11:00 pmBlind Pilot8:00 pm - 11:00 pm Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street

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(Wednesday) 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm

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Bowery Ballroom

6 Delancey Street

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thu30jan7:00 pmthu10:00 pmJoy OladokunThe Blackbird Tour7:00 pm - 10:00 pm Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place

Time

(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

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Irving Plaza

17 Irving Place

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Observations From a Crowded Room Joy Oladokun gets emails. She meets people. There are DMs. Fans of the Arizona-bred singer-songwriter express how they feel before and after seeing one of her shows. Some say they have entered her gigs feeling depressed, unseen and scared, but they leave in a different headspace entirely — upbeat, acknowledged, more confident. Others explain that seeing people like themselves onstage—Black, queer, funny, all of the above — inspires them. With her seemingly bottomless well of melodies and conversational couplets, her inviting buoyancy and infectious guffaw, Joy Oladokun is a human mood elevator. “I think that's beautiful,” she says of receiving these missives. So beautiful in fact that Oladokun decided that she wanted to get in on that action and craft an album “that was a version of what I've been able to give to other people for myself.” Enter Observations From a Crowded Room, a 15 track collection of 12 songs and 3 interludes, written, produced, and largely performed by Oladokun, which build on and expand her pop-folk sonic palette with electronic flourishes and lush harmonies. The record was created at a critical juncture in Oladokun’s life. She was assessing her perch in the world and the industry after the success of previous albums (2021’s in defense of my own happiness and 2023’s Proof of Life) garnered universal high praise, a slew of famous fans and collaborators like Sheryl Crow, Jason Isbell, Noah Kahan and Chris Stapleton, sold out headlining tour dates and opening slots with John Mayer and Hozier. It also invited scrutiny. She began questioning whether she should pursue something else. “I think for me it was a pivotal moment of thinking, ‘I don't know what good there is in this for me anymore. I know what it does for my management. I know what it does for the fans. But I don't know what good this is for my heart and my head anymore,’" she recalls of the bleak place in which she began to find herself. Then she started recording Observations From a Crowded Room. “This album became a way for me to write things, feel things, process things,” she says. “Because, as the producer, I just had to sit with these songs for so long. It became really healing in a sense of, ‘I made this. I'm listening to an album that I genuinely love. All the sounds and bits and bobs came from me with the help of just an engineer.’ It was transformative. So it started out as, ‘I quit,’ and it has ended up as a fresh start.” “I used music to dig myself out of that hopeless headspace and land at a place that if my career ends tomorrow, for whatever reason, I made this record, I made the other records that I'm so proud of,” she shares. “And I did it in a way that was true to me, and now in a way that feels sustainable to me.” What was the inspiration for the title Observations From a Crowded Room? I'm a tried-and-true introvert, and this job, as much as I love it, requires me to walk a tightrope with my social energy tank. I think I spent a lot of time last year being in rooms full of people like me, full of people unlike me, and everything in between, and then I would come back to the back room of the bus or to a hotel and just sit and reflect on what this new phase of my career in my life meant for who I am and how I'm living. I just wanted to write about my life in real time as it's happening and dig into the ways that this job affects me, because I was starting to feel a lot of the repercussions. There is a sense of leveling up here, musically, lyrically, vocally, as your own producer. There are more electronic burbles, psychedelic sounds, an expansion of the range of your singing voice. What was your mission statement? I try to consider myself an artist that's only in competition with myself. I want the next record to be better than the last, and better can mean production, can mean songwriting, can mean anything, but it’s always intentional. I feel the mark when I hit it and I feel like for this record, what it meant to be better than Proof of Life was to increase the moment to moment, present vulnerability that I could bring. You also still love a big pop hook even as you’re experimenting with other moods. I sort of think of myself as a carpenter of songs. I’m not making an art piece that you watch go by and don’t participate with. I'm building a table for people to use, that you interact with every day. That's why I lean on catchy melodies, because it's part of what helps people remember. I hope that someone goes around and sings “Am I” and starts asking themselves, "Am I the only one who's losing the race, looking for grace?" I want people to have something musical that they can latch onto when they feel that way. There are two tracks on the album that seem to address you potentially moving on from Nashville, “Letter From a Blackbird and “The Birds.” Do you plan on leaving? I just wanted to be honest about what it was like to be Black and gay in Nashville in a time where everyone's saying that they're doing better, they're trying to be better, where I'm the face of progress that Nashville is supposed to be making, but a lot of those people have done everything that they can to make sure that I couldn't even get to this point. I have thought about leaving, but if half of my music is about how we all belong to each other, then part of what I'm doing throughout this album is challenging myself to say “I have to have the uncomfortable conversations too. I have to be in a room and bring these things up. I can't just sit in my house and smoke weed and hang out with the dogs somewhere in the woods.” What do you hope people take away from the album? That if they feel like feel like the world has gotten weird, that they are not alone in that. That is the overarching theme, specifically for this record. “Does anybody feel like it's getting hotter under the sun?” I do also feel that way and I'm just opening the conversation.

thu30jan8:00 pmthu10:00 pmSoccer Mommy8:00 pm - 10:00 pm EST Brooklyn Steel, 319 Frost Street

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(Thursday) 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm EST

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Brooklyn Steel

319 Frost Street

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Soccer Mommy is the stage name of Sophie Allison, a singer/songwriter who channeled the sound of 1990s indie rock into her own distinctive, conversational, and confessional style. Allison developed her voice on a series of self-released bedroom recordings, which she then parlayed into a record contract with Fat Possum. The label released her critically acclaimed debut album, Clean, in 2018. Color Theory -- the 2020 sophomore set released by Loma Vista/Concord -- found Soccer Mommy continuing to mine guitar-heavy indie rock, yet it also displayed some synth textures in its margins. Allison ventured down this atmospheric path on Sometimes, Forever, the 2022 album she made with Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never. Working instead with Ben H. Allen III (Deerhunter, Belle and Sebastian), she peeled back some of those layers in an effort to go more organic on 2024's Evergreen. While still guitar-centric, it incorporated instruments like strings and flutes. Born May 27, 1997, in Zurich, Switzerland, Sophie Allison relocated with her family to Nashville, Tennessee, when she was two years old. Drawn to music at an early age, she studied guitar while attending the Nashville School of the Arts. Upon her graduation, she adopted the Soccer Mommy moniker for the original songs she uploaded for online streaming, beginning with the Songs for the Recently Sad EP. While attending New York University, Allison continued to self-release Soccer Mommy music. Songs from My Bedroom arrived late in 2015, followed quickly by Songs from My Bedroom (pt. 2) in early 2016. Orchid Tapes released For Young Hearts in 2016. The mini-LP reached five on Billboard's Heatseekers Album charts, helping to pave the way to a contract with Fat Possum. For her first album for the label, Allison tweaked several of her early songs for Collection. After its release in August 2017, Soccer Mommy headed out on the road as a support act for the Drums and Jay Som. Allison teamed with Gabe Wax, a producer and engineer best known for his work with the War on Drugs and Fleet Foxes, for Clean, the first proper studio album by Soccer Mommy. Released in March 2018, the record garnered strong reviews and placed on several best-of-the-year lists. She promoted the album with tours supporting Stephen Malkmus, Paramore, and Vampire Weekend. Soccer Mommy moved to Loma Vista/Concord for 2020's Color Theory. Working again with Gabe Wax, Allison expanded her aural palette on Color Theory, drawing inspiration from old cassette tapes. The record reached 142 on Billboard's Top 200, peaking at seven on its Alternative chart. She switched producers for her third album, recording Sometimes, Forever with Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin. The change in collaborators resulted in an adventurous record that occasionally echoed dream-pop and shoegaze. Upon its June 2022 release, Sometimes, Forever reached 137 on Billboard's Top 200 and topped the Heatseekers chart. After collaborating with Sub Pop act Bully on "Lose You," Allison turned her attention to recording a set of cover songs released in 2023 under the title Karaoke Night. The five-song EP featured Soccer Mommy's take on songs by R.E.M., Sheryl Crow, and Pavement. For her fourth long-player, Allison dialed back the layers of atmosphere present on her previous album in an effort to shine the spotlight on songwriting. While still more textured than her debut, 2024's Evergreen favored more organic sounds, including acoustic guitars, strings, and flutes. Recorded in Maze Studios in Atlanta with producer Ben H. Allen III (Deerhunter, Belle and Sebastian), Evergreen arrived on Loma Vista that October. - Biography by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

fri31jan7:00 pmfri10:00 pmJoy OladokunThe Blackbird Tour7:00 pm - 10:00 pm The Stone Pony, 913 Ocean Ave N

Time

(Friday) 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Location

The Stone Pony

913 Ocean Ave N

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fri31jan8:00 pmfri11:59 pmReal EstateMore Tour8:00 pm - 11:59 pm White Eagle Hall, 337 Newark Avenue

Time

(Friday) 8:00 pm - 11:59 pm

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White Eagle Hall

337 Newark Avenue

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A band for 15 years now, with a half-dozen records to its canny name, Real Estate knows how the press cycle inevitably goes: Someone somewhere at last had a realization about what their songs needed to say and how they should sound, so (at least according to brief biographies like this one) they finally made the best album of their career. But here’s the thing: Real Estate has been so consistently compelling for those 15 years, with their coruscant indie rock shuffles perfectly reflecting the spellbinding glow of suburban ennui, that they know when they have done it. That is, they know when they have written songs that shimmer and fetch and radiate despite or because of the gloom lurking in their grooves. It is the gift and curse of self-awareness, of sticking together since childhood. So Real Estate, in turn, needs you to know that Daniel—their sixth full-length album, recorded in an ebullient nine-day spree in RCA Studio A, in Nashville with celebrated producer and songwriter Daniel Tashian—is quite possibly their best album. In 11 compulsively tuneful songs, they connect the uninhibited wonder of their earliest work with the earned perspective of adulthood. What more could you need from Real Estate at 15? Martin Courtney knew he wanted to write a pop record, a set of instantly accessible songs where the chorus arrived in, say, the first 40 seconds. During the last decade, or essentially since making Atlas, Real Estate did what was only natural for any beloved and freshly aging indie rock institution: They gently pushed back against praise as an effortlessly melodic and quietly radiant band. Colors darkened. Textures curdled. Songs stretched toward the six- and even seven-minute mark. But what if, as Courtney and cofounder Alex Bleeker often say these days, they again just “Let Real Estate be Real Estate,” to shimmer and fetch and radiate without hesitation or second guesses? Courtney actually learned of Tashian through his daughter, who adored an album he’d produced, Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour. The band reached out and spotted an instant connection despite their distinct wheelhouses—the Grammy-winning Nashville country-pop guy who’d helmed several smashes and the Northeast indie rock quintet with narcotic guitars. Real Estate had never really worked with anyone who wasn’t already a bud. There in Dave Cobb’s famous Nashville lair, Tashian was not shy with his outsider advice about how to boost this song or that one, even playfully throwing the occasional candy bar to emphasize he wanted to hear more. Real Estate had been thinking about R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People and ’90s “soft-rock radio,” the background music of their youth. Tashian helped lead them back toward it, toward an improved edition of the less self-conscious band they’d been at the start. Daniel certainly sounds like classic Real Estate, simply leveled up with the subtle but unabashed touches of a producer who has actually lived inside pop powerhouses. The chiming guitars and plaintive verses of “Haunted World” summon the band that first emerged to acclaim in 2009, with Courtney doing his best to sing his way around existential confusion. But in the chorus, dexterous instrumental harmonies (that’s Nashville ace Justin Schipper on pedal steel) and faint backing vocals propel the song anew, its tight hook snagging in a second. Tashian suggested they fortify the refrain, and he was right. Or there’s the marvelous thrum of “Airdrop,” with Bleeker’s busy bass and Sammi Niss’ insistent drums pushing Courtney into the wistful chorus as if he’s riding a hang glider. “The sun went down/We let it,” he sings four times to end the song, the lines essentially built to be cooed back at him from a crowd. “Never been so contented/I won’t ever forget it.” That’s Real Estate’s long-relatable smiling sadness, lifted in proper Music City style. Listen, too, for Real Estate’s squiggly versions of classic Nashville licks during “Flowers,” where the mercury of pedal steel and the twinkle of a Wurlitzer illuminate acoustic strums like stars in the night sky. A song of dislocation and constancy, it’s a reminder of the common way we use music no matter the genre or scene—to find our way forward. Daniel is a complete string of these compulsive moments: the crisscrossed harmonies of “Water Underground,” the delightful sway and rise of “Market Street,” the enchanting but deceptive simplicity of “Interior.” Real Estate manages the rarest of pop tricks here—to sound effortless but be artful, with all the flourishes and tricks tucked so smartly into songs that you only spot them when you unpack what makes all the tunes so winning and sticky. But this, of course, is not the Real Estate of their MP3-blog salad days. Four members are married, with Niss in a long-term relationship. There are actual kids in the equation now. And the world outside has darkened considerably in 15 years, in all those ways that require no recounting here. Time and again, Daniel wrestles with that juxtaposition—external alienation and madness, internal responsibility and hope. These are songs of confusion, of trying to find a way to be present and better in broken times. “Now and then, I can pretend the sun is shining,” Courtney admits during “Freeze Brain,” the keys of Matthew Kallman and guitars of Julian Lynch framing a lambent haze around him. “Let’s let some light in.” Ain’t that the struggle, to find some joy despite all the forces that filch it from us? In Nashville, all five members of Real Estate shared a rental, cutting up in close quarters after the imposition of separation of these last few years. Several days into recording, they were discussing album titles when someone suggested “Daniel,” simply because it seemed funny to bestow a human name upon a record. Was it for Daniel Tashian? Maybe. Was it a nod to The Replacements’ Tim? Possibly. Was it the sign of a band that has now been around long enough to take its music seriously without taking itself or its perception too seriously? Absolutely. Daniel is a record of wonderful pop songs, its string of hooks and stream of worry irresistibly connected in the way few bands have ever done better than Real Estate. But perhaps just as important, it is an expression of the self-acceptance that can come with maturity, with realizing it’s enough to be who you want to be. “What is it that you want to hear? There’s only so much time,” Courtney croons during “You Are Here,” Daniel’s ingenious and strutting finale. “Best we can do is be happy here/Sing another line.” It is a mission statement for Real Estate at 15, a reminder that they are the band of their childhood dreams and that is cool. To that end, they’ve never been better at being Real Estate than they are right now, on Daniel, their new best album yet.

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