UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA

(Portland, OR // Auckland, NZ) 

Where are we headed? What are we consuming, how is it affecting us, and why does everything feel so bad and weird sometimes?

These are some of the questions posed on Ruban Nielson’s fourth album as Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Sex & Food – a delightfully shapeshifting album that filters these real-deal serious themes through a vibrant sonic lens that spans battered drum-machine funk, doomy and thrashing rock, and pink-hued psychedelic disco. Recorded in a variety of locales from Seoul and Hanoi to Reykjavik, Mexico City, and Auckland, Sex & Food is a practical musical travelogue.

Over the last decade, Nielson’s established himself as one of the most inventive sonic travelers currently working, and Sex & Food is the most eclectic and expansive Unknown Mortal Orchestra release yet, from the light-footed R&B of “Hunnybee” to the stomping flange of “Major League Chemicals.” The adventurousness is all the more impressive considering that there’s a bit of DNA from the past UMO discography in Sex & Food: the soft-focus psych of the project’s 2011 debut LP, the lovely melancholia of 2013’s II, and the weirded-out funk of 2015’s virtuosic Multi-Love.

MARGO PRICE

(Aledo, Illinois)

Margo Price has something to say but nothing to prove. In just three remarkable solo albums, the singer and songwriter has cemented herself as a force in American music and a generational talent.

A deserving critical darling, she has never shied away from the sounds that move her, the pain that’s shaped her, or the topics that tick her off, like music industry double standards, the gender wage gap, or the plight of the American farmer. (In 2021, she even joined the board of Farm Aid.)

Now, on her fourth full-length Strays, a clear-eyed mission statement delivered in blistering rock and roll, she’s taking on substance abuse, self-image, abortion rights, and orgasms. Musically extravagant but lyrically laser focused, the 10-song record tears into a broken world desperate for remedy. And who better to tell it? Price has done plenty of her own rebuilding – or as she shout-sings in explanation on “Been to the Mountain,” the set’s throat-ripping opener, “I have to the mountain and back alright” – and finds herself, at long last, free. Feral. Stray.

Rock and roll, psychedelic country, rhythm & blues, and even bright shiny pop, they’re all there on Strays, but as each refract through her artistry, that delicate vocal and unhurried delivery, they come out sounding singularly her. While the last few years have seen remarkable moments of acclaim – a Best New Artist Grammy nomination, Americana Music Honors, a Saturday Night Live performance, and just about every outlet and critics’ year-end Best Of list – Price is still hungry. “I still have a lot of drive inside of me,” she says. “I have a chip on my shoulder. It feels like I still haven’t been able to fully realize all my dreams yet, and that eats me up.” Just wait.

CAUTIOUS CLAY

(Cleveland, Ohio)

“Ever since I started playing music, it was always about the feel,” says Josh Karpeh, AKA Cautious Clay. “There are a lot of things in art that you can learn by practicing or studying, but feel’s not one of them. It’s something you’ve just got to have.”

It’s that feel, that deep emotional intuition that fuels Cautious Clay’s sound. Blending R&B, hip-hop, and experimental indie, his productions are dark and engrossing, built upon a unique combination of organic instruments, digital programming, and soulful vocals. He writes with unflinching honesty, engaging in deeply personal self-reflection with boldly vulnerable and vividly poetic lyrics. At times recalling contemporaries like James Blake or Sampha, Cautious is a profoundly modern songwriter and a forward- thinking producer, but he’s also steeped in the past, quick to cite Burt Bacharach as an idol and credit Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones as ever-present influences in his artful arrangements.

Originally from Cleveland, OH, Cautious began his artistic journey at the age of seven when he picked up classical flute. His studies led him deep into the worlds of blues and jazz, and by the time he hit college in Washington, D.C., he’d added a number of other instruments to his repertoire in addition to songwriting and production. Now based in Brooklyn, Cautious is consistently working on music for both his own project and for others.

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR

(Montreal, Quebec)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor released a string of albums from 1997-2002 widely recognized as redefining what protest music can be, where longform instrumental chamber rock compositions of immense feeling and power serve as soundtracks to late capitalist alienation and resistance.

The band’s first four releases—especially F#A#∞ (1997) and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (2000)—are variously regarded as classics of the era and genre.

Godspeed’s legendary live performances, featuring multiple 16mm projectors beaming a collage of overlapping analog film loops and reels—along with the distinctive iconography, imagery and tactility of the band’s album artwork and physical LP packages— further defines the sui generis aesthetic substance, ethos and mythos of this group. GY!BE has issued two official band photos in its 25-year existence (the second, below, a 2010 recreation of the first from 1997) and has done a half-dozen collectively-answered written interviews over that same span. The band has never had a website or social media accounts. It has never made a video. Few rock bands in our 21st century have been as steadfast in trying to let the work speak for itself and maintaining simple rules about minimizing participation in cultures of personality, exposure, access, commodification or co-optation. 

Following a seven-year hiatus that began in 2003, Godspeed returned to the stage in December 2010 (curating the UK festival All Tomorrow’s Parties) and the band’s post-reunion period has now lasted over a decade, marked by hundreds of sold-out live shows and three additional albums, all of which have been met with high acclaim. 

G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! – the band’s fourth post-reunion album (and eighth overall) – was released April 2021.

LADY WRAY

(Atlanta, Georgia)

Like most artists, Nicole Wray’s life in music has always reflected her real life. As a fifteen-year-old in Virginia, she auditioned for Missy Elliot in her mother’s home.

Even then, with her voice so full and arresting – Missy signed her on the spot. Later, in 1998, merely two years after that tryout, she had a debut solo album and a single that smashed up radio and TV, quickly going gold. But back then – young and unsure – Nicole was essentially following someone else’s lead, signing the lyrics they wrote for her and in the way they wanted them sung.    

Fast forward to now, after a few fits and starts with other labels and projects, and you’ll find a very different Nicole Wray. Today, she’s a mother, a wife, and living for herself and her family. So naturally, this evolution followed into her music: she sings how she wants to, expertly writing lyrics for herself and others. To hear her tell it, it’s these things—and most importantly, an unflinching self-belief—that help lead a young and raw Virginian singer named Nicole to become Lady Wray.  

The latest step for Lady Wray is her new album, released on Brooklyn’s Big Crown records. Called Piece of Me, the record is—on the one hand—a continuation, picking up where Lady Wray and label co-owner/producer Leon Michels left off with Queen Alone. But Piece of Me is also a kind of homecoming for Lady Wray. That first record sonically showcased the dexterous range of Lady Wray’s voice and songwriting by leaning toward soul and R&B with tinges of hip-hop. On Piece of Me, it’s still R&B with a heavy dose of soul, but you’ll hear boom-bap-smacked drums and chunky basslines front-and-center, all creating a head-noddingly dense backdrop for Lady Wray to traverse—much like the era in which she was first introduced to us. In some ways, Piece of Me is like a Big-Crown-ification of late 90s R&B—and Lady Wray is right at home.  

With past albums like the Lady project and Queen Alone, it’s hard to not acknowledge that Lady Wray plus Leon Michels production equals magic. But this magic is also coming from the fact that Lady Wray is now squarely herself, calling her shots, and singing to help heal first—everything else is secondary. “It’s a beautiful thing I’ve always wanted in my career, and now I have it,” Lady Wray says. “They encourage me to be me all day long.” This is Lady Wray at her finest, and she’s giving us all a piece of where she’s at these days. 

CELISSE

(Oakland, California)

Celisse is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, performer, and spoken word artist.

Her deep and varied career has seen her in concert with many notable musicians such as Mariah Carey, Graham Nash, Melissa Etheridge and is a founding member of Trey Anastasio’s Ghosts of the Forest. In addition to her time on tour, she has performed alongside Kesha at the 60th annual Grammy Awards, Jon Batiste on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series, and played lead guitar for Lizzo on Saturday Night Live. Celisse has also starred in the recent revival of Godspell at Circle in the Square Theater and the Broadway national tour of Wicked. On television, Celisse has appeared on PBS’s The Electric Company, 30 Rock, Rescue Me, The Big C, White Collar and more. But it’s her prodigious talents as a singer-songwriter and musician that have defined Celisse the most as an artist. Her original music, powered by her soulful voice, is hard-rocking and blues-tinged with infectious hooks that stay with you.

HERMANOS GUTIÉRREZ

(Zurich, Switzerland)

“When Alejandro and I play together, it’s like we are driving a car,” says Estevan Gutiérrez, one half of the guitar duo Hermanos Gutiérrez.

“It’s like we are taking a road trip. Sometimes we’re driving through a desert. Sometimes we’re traveling up the coast. But always we are in nature, and we see the most beautiful landscapes, sunrises, sunsets.” The music these two brothers make evokes expansive plains and rough wildernesses, saguaros and surfs, spaghetti westerns and Morricone soundtracks, Lynch and Jarmusch. With their guitars they travel through landscapes haunted by vaqueros, cancioneros, wanderers, fugitives, lovers, family—and whatever ghosts their listeners bring to the music. “Each album is a journey on its own,” says Alejandro Gutiérrez. “We just have to go with the music, trust in ourselves, and see where it takes us.”

El Bueno Y El Malo, is their most epic journey yet: Working with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach at his Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville, they’ve crafted ten vivid compositions that highlight their intimate guitar playing, where one brother’s rhythms and the other brother’s melodies twine around each other so that they become inextricable. Together, they generate what Estevan calls a “deeper, darker energy” defined by complex arrangements, sophisticated playing, and most of all their very close relationship. “We have such different personalities and such different approaches,” says Alejandro,” but in the end we have a strong balance. Because we’re brothers and because we love each other, there’s always this connection.” 

DUMBO GETS MAD

(Reggio Emilia, Italy)

Dumbo Gets Mad is the psych-rock project from Italian duo Luca Massaro and Carlotta Menozzi.

The project started out when Massaro & Menozzi relocated to Los Angeles in 2010. Their debut album, Elephants at the Door, received numerous positive reviews and reached over 100k digital downloads.

Soon after forming, the duo was joined, live, by two additional members: Andrea Scarfone (bass) – also a member of Italy’s acclaimed rock-band Julie’s Haircut – and Lorenzo Rotteglia (drums), and performed in different venues and festivals around Italy; including Circolo degli Artisti in Rome and MI AMI festival in Milan. In 2012, they opened Neon Indian’s concert in Padua at Summer Student Festival and played at Find Out Festival in Marseille with Bleached and The Black Lips. 

In 2019, the band released two digital singles – ”Makes You Fly” and “Voodoo on Gold” (Nice Guy Records) – and contributed music to the Versace Jeans Couture 2019 ad campaign.

SON ROMPE PERA

(​​Mexico City, Mexico)

Born and raised in the deep outskirts of Mexico City, the Gama brothers are keeping alive the rich legacy of marimba music running through their family with their latest project, Son Rompe Pera.

While firmly rooted in the tradition of this historic instrument, their fresh take on this folk icon challenges its limits as never before, moving it into the garage/punk world of urban misfits and firmly planting it in the 21st century. They grew up performing alongside their father at weddings, birthday parties and in the street, but their teenage years were full of rebellion, and they left the marimba behind to play in various punk, rockabilly and ska bands. Now they’ve come full circle and the marimba is once again leading the way at the head of a true rock mestizo band, combining folk with their unstoppable garage-marimba-punk-cumbia repertoire of Mexican, Peruvian, and Colombian classics, original material, and a specialty of surprise cover versions.

Their debut album was released on ZZK/AYA records in February 2020, right before the world shut down and forced them to cancel their whole cycle of touring, including stops at the historic WOMAD UK fest and a selection to the WOMEX conference in Budapest. But that didn’t stop the band, as they reverted back to their roots, becoming a main-stay in the streets, parks, and plazas of Mexico City, the only place where physical shows can happen. And they quickly figured out their digital and streaming presence, participating in dozens of live-stream festivals around the globe, as well as in various music conferences, and producing multiple online ticketed shows where they upped their game with tricks such as live international musical guests, audience interaction, and new songs and visuals, to keep giving something new to their fans stuck at home.

No one knows where their marimba will take them next – more than likely around Mexico for the foreseeable future – but you can count on them to keep performing, whether it’s for some workers in the streets, a house party or wedding, or at the world’s biggest festivals.

COVET

(​​San Jose, California)

Covet started in 2014 as a bedroom project by guitarist Yvette Young, who at the time, was balancing writing music part time with working as an art teacher.

Over the years, the project has certainly grown beyond its “Bay Area garage band” roots and has been fortunate enough to reach people all over the world – enough so that Young eventually left her teaching job to pursue making music with a band full-time. 

With a background in visual art, art therapy/education, and classical piano/violin, Young aims to write emotive songs that capture colorful imagery, uplift, and tell stories. Their sound can be described as “instrumental progressive rock” but the music draws influence from many genres like Midwest emo and shoegaze and doesn’t try to adhere to one main sound. Young’s fluid and polyphonic fingerstyle approach to guitar is often described as very piano-like, and although her playing at surface level is technical and intricate, the music still aims to make people feel something and make people want to dance. 

The band has released an EP Currents, an acoustic EP, and 2 full length albums Effloresce and Technicolor. Over time the sound has really transformed from its twinkly mathrock origins to a more evolved, fuller, more melodically complex sound that incorporates a myriad of tones and textures. There is currently one new album in the works, which the band will be playing songs from at Treefort 11.