As a part of Treefort 10’s Deep Dive Series, we’re diving into Treefort 10 artists that our team recommends if you like (RIYL) Treefort Alums Mt. Joy (2014, 2015, 2019), Wilderado (2019, 2022), Angel Olsen (2017), Generationals (2015) + Tennis (2012).
Which Mt. Joy set at Treefort is your favorite? Were you at Treefort 2012 when Tennis played? Angel Olsen played such an amazing Main Stage set at Treefort 2017, we’re still thinking about it!
If you love all of that, then you’ll love these Treefort 10 artists below.
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FLIPTURN
( fernandina beach , florida )
Friday, March 25th 8:00p – 8:40p @ Egyptian Theatre
There is nothing held back while flipturn is performing. The chemistry and talent shared between the bandmates allows for a total release of inhibitions, and their songs are written in an artfully understandable way that makes flipturn the storytellers for a generation of people who were never told what to do next.
The flipturn roll call is Dillon Basse (lead vocals/rhythm guitar), Tristan Duncan (lead guitar), Madeline Jarman (bass), Mitch Fountain (synth), and Devon VonBalson (drums). Fans are drawn to the rarity of both strong female and male presences within the band that foster a sense of inclusion in the musical experience. The fever dream energy of their live shows has positioned flipturn as a metaphorical musical sun, holding fans in a trancelike orbit.
flipturn’s music has spread to a national and international audience of music lovers entirely through organic word-of-mouth and grassroots efforts. With over 30 million streams on Spotify and sharing the stage with the likes of Mt. Joy, Saint Motel, and Wilderado, the band shows no signs of slowing down.
FRENCH CASSETTES
( san francisco , california )
Thursday, March 24th 11:10p – 12:10a @ The Olympic
French Cassettes music is filled with winding melodies that pop up unexpectedly but grab hold and don’t let go… and may leave you asking “who needs hands with hooks like these?”
The harmony-driven power-pop quartet’s new LP, Rolodex, was conceived beneath a stairwell in the band’s adopted hometown of San Francisco, where frontman Scott Huerta spent months staying up until 4 am, obsessing over elaborate demos that would eventually become his band’s sophomore album. “I adopted the mentality, which was probably unhealthy, that every song I wrote needed to be my favorite song,” he remembers. “I lost my mind so many times in the middle of the night.”
The album was self-recorded by lead guitarist Mackenzie Bunch in just about every corner of the Bay Area, and the songs that were eventually stitched together are hook-filled and rooted in pop. But they’re also layered and intricate recordings: complex vocal harmonies and counter-harmonies, Rob Mills’ inventive percussion, Thomas’ (Scott’s brother) honey-coated basslines, and every shade of clean and fuzzy guitars stacked up like an orchestra. These uncommonly majestic, esoteric pop forms serve as the perfect delivery service for Huerta’s playful and verbose lyrics, which are often presented as semi-autobiographical puzzles.
Taken together, the eight tracks and 24 minutes that make up Rolodex are an epic statement of purpose in a decidedly taut package. One that brought a band back together, more mature and ambitious than ever.
PRÓXIMA PARADA
( san luis obispo , california )
Saturday, March 26th 6:30p – 7:20p @ Payette Brewing
Próxima Parada’s music uplifts listeners, encouraging them to let loose, dance their butts off, and invite in some introspection. Their songs reflect on their own growth and speak to the people they are working to be. And the more personal the story, the more universal it becomes. This can all be heard on their new album, Second Brother—out now.
What began in 2012 as a group of college friends wanting to spread joy to their community in San Luis Obispo, CA has led to national tours and their songs reaching a global audience online. It’s already been an incredible journey, and it feels like things are just getting started.
GEOGRAPHER
( los angeles , california )
Wednesday, March 23rd 11:10p – 12:20a @ Sonic Temple Blue
Over a decade, Geographer frontman Mike Deni released three full-length albums. They were thoughtful and gorgeously nuanced: Innocent Ghosts (2008), Myth (2012), and Ghost Modern (2015) levitated through the unbearable lightness of being. His latest, Down and Out in the Garden of Earthly Delights (out November 12, 2021, Nettwerk Records), however, brings Geographer back down to terra firma, into a thicket of emotions, both rueful and hopeful, confronting the all-too-human realities around us. This, as it turns out, has been creatively liberating for him.
The gravitation back to Earth started when he moved from San Francisco to LA in Summer 2018. “I hit a ceiling in San Francisco. I was writing a lot more songs with people in LA, so I moved down,” says Deni. He quickly fell into a funk despite outsize success headlining tours, playing festivals, and hearing his work in countless projects (by Pixar, MTV, The CW, Apple, Lionsgate, and more). “I didn’t really have any friends and just spent way too much time alone, making music. I became very, very weak. I wasn’t thriving, I was surviving. Once you achieve success, not hanging onto it is the hardest thing.”
“Everything feels possible here. Everything should be wonderful. That’s the vibe of LA: You’ve made it to paradise!” remarks Deni. “You should be really happy…and then nobody is. There’s a lot of darkness — you have to sift through everything to find your own path.” While recording his album, engineer Jules de Gasperis showed him an image of the famed, 15th-century triptych painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” depicting alternate realities of paradise, hell, and reality. “It’s like, why are we all so bummed out? We are all miserable. And we’re in paradise.” And thus, Down and Out in the Garden of Earthly Delights — recorded between Spring and Winter of 2019 — was born.
FRUIT BATS
( usa )
Friday, March 25th 5:30p – 6:30p @ Main Stage
Eric D. Johnson, the creative force behind Fruit Bats, doesn’t spend a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror. “Maybe it speaks to some Midwest thing,” he says. “Don’t be overly reflective or navel- gazing. And as a songwriter, you always want to be looking forward, not backward.” But with the 20th anniversary of his first Fruit Bats release (2001’s Echolocation) on his mind, it seemed as good a time as any to take stock of his work—and he’s doing so in the form of Sometimes a Cloud Is Just a Cloud: Slow Growers, Sleeper Hits and Lost Songs (2001–2021), a two-disc collection that tracks the history of Fruit Bats from its earliest days to right now.
Thoughtfully compiled by Johnson himself, this set is split in two distinct halves. Set in reverse chronological order, the first disc cherry-picks from Fruit Bats’ official releases, including fan favorites—“Humbug Mountain Song” from 2016’s Absolute Loser and “The Bottom of It” from his 2019 Merge debut Gold Past Life—alongside some of Johnson’s more personal choices like “Glass in Your Feet” from Echolocation. “I was 25 when I made that record,” Johnson remembers. “I was even younger than that when I wrote that song. I think I hadn’t yet learned to write from the heart. I was trying to create a sound. It wasn’t even so much about the song at that point.”
TYPHOON
( portland , oregon )
Saturday, March 26th 5:50p – 6:50p @ Main Stage
Typhoon is a rock band and utopian social experiment based in Portland, Oregon. Strings, horns, existential themes. A little something for everyone.
SEDONA
( brooklyn , new york )
Saturday, March 26th 8:00p – 8:40p @ The District
Conjuring up female leads like Stevie Nicks and Madonna, Sedona aims to fuse past hurts with a contemporary feel. Her sound emerges from the nostalgic undertow of hook-filled pop antics. Founded and named after the lead singer’s alter ego we’ve come to know and love as Sedona, the project has evolved into an amoeba of many creative minds. With Merilyn Chang on keys, Claire Gilb on guitar, and Tia Cestaro on drums, camaraderie is at the heart of all things Sedona. The group has played sold out shows at some of NYC and LA’s most popular music venues including Rough Trade, Elsewhere, Baby’s Alright, and The Echo just to name a few.
ACID TONGUE
( seattle , washington )
Wednesday, March 23rd 4:20p – 5:10p @ Main Stage
The members of Seattle rock & roll outfit ACID TONGUE are quite literally bouncing off the walls. In fact, it’s hard to even call them a “Seattle band”. There’s the core duo of songwriter GUY KELTNER and drummer/vocalist IAN CUNNINGHAM—currently based in the Pacific Northwest—but with numerous touring and studio musicians scattered between Paris, New York, London, Mexico City, Los Angeles, & Austin, the rotating roster seems to grow larger by the day.. The band’s latest album ‘Arboretum’ takes things in the next logical direction: part glam-rock opus, part mixtape, this LP from Acid Tongue marks a significant step forward for a band well-versed in straddling the line between psychedelia and power-pop.
Guy Keltner, the primary songwriter for Acid Tongue, took a rough couple of years and turned them into libretto. “I became incredibly depressed and started spending a lot of time at the Arboretum in Seattle. I had just moved home and was spending all day absorbing this diversity of plants and sounds at the park. I poured myself into writing some deeply personal songs, heavily influenced by the artists in my immediate orbit.” During the recording of Arboretum, Keltner was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and decided to get sober from alcohol. “Kicking booze helped me focus in the studio, but I needed help finishing this album. I was incredibly fortunate to work with musicians that I actually listened to and enjoyed. They individually elevated each song to be something beautiful and unique.”
OKEY DOKEY
( nashville , tennessee )
Thursday, March 24th 12:40a – 1:40a @ The Olympic
Three best friends from Nashville, TN who just happen to make music together.
COLLEGE LEVEL
( boise , idaho )
Wednesday, March 23rd 12:30a – 1:30a @ Linen Building
Thursday, March 24th 8:50p – 9:40p @ The Olympic
College Level is Taylor Howard, Alex Smith, Joel Hroma and Jared Smith. Indie rock-pop-alternative shoe gaze-dream pop-dance four piece from Boise, Idaho. After 2 EP’s, College Level’s first album ‘Class Act Shit Show’ is out and ready for love and affection.
THE PHETS
( los angeles , california )
Thursday, March 24th 8:00p – 8:40p @ Boise Brewing
With their dynamic rock and roll sound, THE PHETS are bringing the 3-piece back. The magnetic stage presence transforms the band into a larger than life experience. Passion pours from their music, enveloping the audience, immersing them into each song and making each performance an unforgettable journey. THE PHETS embrace the darkness of life and transforms it into something beautiful. Their music is a chance to be vulnerable, a chance to see the beauty in life.
Formed in 2017, the Boise trio — bassist/vocalist Hayden McCandless, drummer Cameron Elgart, and guitarist/vocalist Thomas Salazar — released their debut EP “Dark Again” two years later, an EP exploring the cyclical nature of life and its absurdism. In those two years, THE PHETS created a reputation of providing an experience like none-other. An experience that transcends age, gender, and race, an experience that is inherently human and vulnerable. From this, THE PHETS have found themselves in a community founded upon the idea of being incredibly and freely yourself.
THE PHETS performances do not center around the music on stage, but the relationship between the audience and the band itself. “My big thing is, the audience has just as big of a role in the show as we do,” says Salazar, “all we want to create is an environment where we can all come together, put on our dancing shoes, and escape into the night.” That eagerness to bring a community together — the desire to sweep the audience off their feet but also make them feel lovingly included — is what supports the very essence of THE PHETS.
LUNA LUNA
( dallas , texas )
Thursday, March 24th 10:40p – 11:30p @ Linen Building
With the release of their shimmering debut EP For Lovers Only, Luna Luna combined the innocence of teenage love with dreamy retro synthpop and gave us slow-burning indie pop hits like “80s Tune” and “For You.” The record cemented them as a crew of hopeless romantics, playing house parties across Texas and building a fan base eager to turn up, swoon, and slow dance. Luna Luna is no doubt one of the buzziest acts in Dallas today with an undoubtedly bright future and with ambitions to get back in the studio and tour both coasts. It seems their delightful sweetheart jams will remain the soundtrack of homecoming dances for years to come.
Drawing inspiration from Mac DeMarco to Random Access Memories, Luna Luna is back with their latest, “Golden.” The Dallas, TX based four-piece have bested the local climate, bending the scorching Texas sun to their will across emotion-drenched, euphoric throwback synthpop grooves. “Golden” is just the latest taste of the sort of boundless glee and abandon found on their 2019 Carousel EP, a delectable trot through their breezy, perilously infectious world. There’s simply no denying what’s at play here: a perfect summer risk worth taking. It’s no wonder so many have begun to take notice.
MAITA
( portland , oregon )
Friday, March 25th 9:00p – 9:40p @ Linen Building
There are few things as chilling as attempting to parse the emotional tone of the punctuation in a text message from a partner–a period, a single dot that at once can mean so much. On her latest album with MAITA, Maria Maita-Keppeler digs into that crippling oxymoron of modernity, the constant bombardment of communication paired with utter disconnection. Due February 18th via venerable indie label Kill Rock Stars, I Just Want To Be Wild For You grasps passionately for a world that too often seems at a gauzy distance.
Splitting time between her mom’s Japanese-speaking home and her father’s English-speaking home, Maita-Keppeler found an expressive avenue out of her childhood shyness through music. The Portland-based singer-songwriter tapped into that grand yet intimate reverence for MAITA’s sophomore album, from the churning twinkle of “Pastel Concrete” to the riotous give-and-take of “Honey, Have I Lost It All?”. In those moments of disconnect, of confusion, of isolation, I Just Want To Be Wild For You thunders ahead, forging unexpected connections along the way.
