Thursday, March 17, 2022
Artist: Shamir
Presented by: Kosha Dillz Presents: Oy Vey
Set time 12:35 am – 12:55 am
Venue: Empire Control Room
What more do you want from Shamir? He’s still coming off the 2020 release of his acclaimed self-titled LP that cemented his legacy as a songwriting dynamo; he just dropped a 2021 release of a chapbook of essays which focus on his paintings; and he shepherded a 2021 collaboration between his Accidental Popstar Records imprint with the inimitable Macy Rodman out in the world… Now just 27, the polymathic Las Vegas native and current Philadelphia resident is releasing his 8th full-length album, Heterosexuality. His 2015 debut, Ratchet, focused on the prospect of youth; the following several records helped navigate difficulties with mental health. The new record is the first to confront head-on Shamir’s queerness explicitly in album form. Yet, instead of a pure confirmation of a certain gender politics, he chooses a radical refusal of any sort of categorization–at all. It’s a floating point of rebuff, erasing any ideological identification, further confirming Shamir as the everything-for-everyone antihero of the indie underground.
Artist: bbymutha
Presented by: Kosha Dillz Presents: Oy Vey
Set time 1:35 am – 2:00 am
Venue: Empire Control Room
Hailing from Chattanooga, Tennessee, rapper and vocalist bbymutha is one of underground hip hop’s most daring and admired talents. Their track “Rules” went viral in 2017 and earned them praise from the likes of Erykah Badu, Björk, Earl Sweatshirt, SZA, Kehlani, actress Amandla Stenberg.
In Sept 2022, bbymutha released their debut album Muthaland with a raving reviews. They have performed and collaborated with the likes of: Bree Runway, Baby Tate, Earl Sweatshirt, SOPHIE, Rico Nasty, Kelis, Trina, Zelooperz, Fly Anakin, and Liv.E to name a few. Having finished a EU/UK 2021 tour in the Fall, bbymutha returns to North American stages with a 26-city tour.
Artist: alexalone
Presented by: Polyvinyl / Double Double Whammy / Keeled Scales
Set time 9:00 pm – 9:40 pm
Venue: Cheer Up Charlie’s
The sounds of alexalone will usher you into warm, fuzzy, lonely spaces, then shock you alive with pulsing energy. But, alexalone’s first full-length album, ALEXALONEWORLD, isn’t merely about the sound, it is an exercise in world-building, and a portrait of the artist cradling and nurturing their emotions as they create, navigating labyrinths of pain as they search for exits, and hoping for a haven where they can survey the damage and regroup.
ALEXALONEWORLD’s gravitational center is Alex Peterson’s (they/them) musical vision and authorial voice, the wayfarer through a forest of moods. As a live member of Hovvdy and Lomelda, Alex is no stranger to performing with other musicians. ALEXALONEWORLD marks their official release as a fully formed act, featuring Sam Jordan (he/him, percussion), Mari Rubio (she/her, various instruments), and Andrew Hulett (he/they, various instruments).
Artist: IAN SWEET
Presented by: Polyvinyl / Double Double Whammy / Keeled Scales
Set time 11:00 pm – 11:40 pm
Venue: Cheer Up Charlie’s
Jilian Medford, better known by her stage name Ian Sweet, is an American indie rock musician from Los Angeles, California. For Medford, reciting mantras – leaning into the repetition, retraining your brain, and learning new realities is a way to fight through her anxieties.
Show Me How You Disappear, IAN SWEET’s 2021 album, is a haze of tangled, inverted pop. Mesmeric and kaleidoscopic, shimmering with electrified unease, it is both an exercise in self-forgiveness and an eventual understanding of unresolved trauma. Medford’s third record as IAN SWEET unfolds at an acute juncture in her life, charting from a mental health crisis to an intensive healing process and what comes after. How do you control the thoughts that control you? What does it mean to get better? What does it mean to have a relationship with yourself?
Dizzying and enthralling, Show Me How You Disappear is the sound of someone coming apart and putting themselves back together — the moment an old mantra, repeated into the mirror time and time again, finally clicks. To look at your reflection, and finally feel seen.
