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 American Football (2019), Joyce Manor (2015), Tigers Jaw (2019), From Indian Lakes (2015), Camper Van Beethoven (2013), Built to Spill (2012-2022).
Did you catch American Football and Tigers Jaw at Treefort 2019? Or what about Camper Van Beethoven way back in 2013? If you’ve been to Treefort, you’ve certainly seen a Built to Spill set or two (and loved every second).
The Treefort 10 artists below won’t disappoint if this sounds like your vibe.
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JEFF ROSENSTOCK
( los angeles, california )
Saturday, March 26th 12:30a – 1:40a @ Linen Building
NO DREAM is the fourth full-length from Jeff Rosenstock. It comes at a time of unparalleled chaos and confusion, division and despair, the depths of which would have been impossible to predict when much of it was being written over the course of the last few years. And yet the record feels prescient, unexpectedly and uniquely suited for this moment. “It was feeling like a very personal record for me,” says Rosenstock, newly settled in Los Angeles after a lifetime on the opposite coast. “A lot of it was stemming from the anxiety I was feeling from the last two years, this existential crisis of wondering who I am.” Rosenstock has found himself in a surprising position. As he puts it simply: “I didn’t expect to be doing well, in my life, ever.” After building a cult following with the acerbic ska-punk of the Arrogant Sons of Bitches and DIY heroics of Bomb the Music Industry!, Rosenstock’s first proper solo record, 2015’s We Cool?, was a step into uncharted territory, fully untethered from genre and expectation. Followed by 2016’s WORRY. and the surprise New Year’s Day launch of POST- in the early hours of 2018, Rosenstock was facing down that least punk of opportunities: a career playing music.
JOE VANN
( yosemite, california )
Saturday, March 26th 11:00p – 12:00a @ Sanctuary
Joe Vann’s new record is a literal and spiritual homecoming. The singer-songwriter’s debut solo LP, Found In The Smoke, is an intimate rummage through his past: it weds the freewheeling experimental aesthetics of his beloved indie band, From Indian Lakes, with the music traditions on which he was reared while growing up in a trailer on an acreage in rural northern California. The result is an emo-meets-outlaw Americana love letter—like Justin Vernon and Townes Van Zandt locked in a cabin in the Sierra Nevada for months—with phosphorescent synths, hushed vocals, and hardy guitar work.
HEY, ILY
( billings, montana )
Thursday, March 24th 11:20p – 12:00a @ The Shredder
Hey, ily (pronounced “Hey, I Love You”) is what happens when wannabe competitive Smash Bros. players try to create music. Combining influences from Nintendocore, Emo, Powerpop, Shoegaze, and anything else the band can get their grubby mitts on.
GULLY BOYS
( minneapolis, minnesota )
Wednesday, March 23rd 9:20p – 10:00p @ The Shredder
The Gully Boys origin story plays out like the perfect domino effect. While sorting vintage clothes in a Minneapolis-area Ragstock in 2016, Kathy Callahan (she/her) shared her dream of becoming a vocalist with Nadirah McGill (they/them). After encouraging a friend from middle school, Natalie Klemond (she/her), to join the trio on bass, Nadi picked up a pair of drumsticks and counted off a cover of Best Coast’s “Girlfriend.” From there, they had to master their instruments on the fly, growing as creatives while blossoming with their first material. After their debut EP landed online a year later, Gully Boys released their debut LP Not So Brave in 2018, earning Best New Band honors from their hometown City Pages and sharing the stage with everyone from The Hold Steady to Third Eye Blind. The band’s Phony EP arrived in late 2019 on the edge of a screeching halt.
INDIGO DE SOUZA
( asheville, north carolina )
Thursday, March 24th 4:00p – 5:00p @ Main Stage
Indigo De Souza is a singer-songwriter from Asheville, North Carolina. Indigo is known for creating catchy, genre-bending songs that pull from rock, pop, neo-soul, and grunge influences. This sonic range is unified by Indigo’s strikingly confessional and effortless approach to songwriting, a signature first introduced in her debut, self-released LP, I Love My Mom. “I feel very much like a shape-shifter with my music, I’m always trying to embody a balance between the existential weight and the overflowing sense of love I feel in the world.” It is exactly this balance that Indigo strikes in her Saddle Creek debut, Any Shape You Take, released in August of 2021. A listening experience that gives back, as you shed and shape-shift along with her.
SLOTHRUST
( los angeles, california )
Wednesday, March 23rd 11:40p – 12:40a @ The Shredder
Leah Wellbaum has never been afraid of her own humility or honesty. But she’s never quite examined it the way she has now with Parallel Timeline.
On Slothrust’s latest album, bandleader Leah Wellbaum pushed herself to try and understand her own spirituality on a deeper level, putting a lens on the core wound of the human experience, the idea that we’re alone. With Parallel Timeline, Wellbaum explores the feeling of being trapped inside her own consciousness while simultaneously searching for a meaningful connection to the universe, and all the mysteries it contains.
During the writing process, Wellbaum sought to connect with her inner child – a voice that allows ideas to flow freely and without censorship. Ultimately, it allowed her to find poetic catharsis. The album’s artwork and visuals reflect that ethos as well. For her, inverted colored rainbows and orbs became a gateway to exploring the illusory things we see and experience in everyday life. The iconography of this record explores the space where science and the whimsical intersect, and where the unfamiliar becomes hardly recognizable.
THE DISTRICTS
( philadelphia, pennsylvania )
Wednesday, March 23rd 11:20p – 12:20a @ Neurolux
Great American Painting, the fifth full-length from The Districts, is the rare album that shines a bright light on all that’s wrong in the world but somehow still channels a galvanizing sense of hope. With equal parts nuanced observation and raw outpouring of feeling, the Philadelphia-based band confront a constellation of problems eroding the American ideal (gentrification, gun violence, the crushing weight of late capitalism), ornamenting every track with their explosive yet elegant breed of indie-rock/post-punk. Threading that commentary with intense self-reflection, Great American Painting ultimately fulfills a mission The Districts first embraced upon forming as teenagers in small-town Pennsylvania: an urge to create undeniably cathartic music that obliterates hopelessness and invites their audience along in dreaming up a far better future.
QUASI
( portland, oregon )
Sunday, March 27th 10:30p – 11:20p @ El Korah Shrine
Quasi (Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss) is the enduring perennial Portland two-piece indie band behind 9 beloved albums and countless raucous performances. Although both band members have been in many other seminal musical outfits throughout the past several decades (Sleater-Kinney, Heatmiser, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Elliott Smith, The Hitmakers, etc), Quasi remains their centerpiece for creativity and camaraderie. Quasi’s distinctive perspective, vocal harmonies, and off center personal lyrics run throughout their almost 30 year history. They are currently working on new songs for their 10th record coming soon.
WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS
( edinburgh, scotland )
Sunday, March 27th 11:00p – 12:00a @ Linen Building
Driving melodies, searing vocals, and heart. We Were Promised Jetpacks arrived on the indie landscape with a bang in the late 00’s, and since then have consistently produced music that hits the core of every fan.
Adam, Darren, and Sean have been friends and band mates since high school, growing up in Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh. Ever since they cruised to victory in the school battle of the bands, they never looked back.
With monster albums These Four Walls (2009), In the Pit of the Stomach (2011), Unravelling (2014), The More I Sleep the Less I Dream (2018) in the back catalogue, this year’s Enjoy The View was added to the list, released to great acclaim in September.
NATION OF LANGUAGE
( brooklyn, new york )
Sunday, March 27th 10:10p – 11:10p @ Neurolux
Brooklyn-based synth auteurs Nation of Language entered 2020 as one of the most heralded new acts of recent memory, having only released a handful of singles but already earning high-praise from the likes of NME, FADER, Stereogum, Pitchfork, etc.. Now in 2021, they continue to turn heads having released one of the most critically acclaimed debut albums of last year ‘ Introduction, Presence’ ) and recent breakout single ‘A Different Kind of Life’. The band’s ability to blend the upbeat with a healthy dose of sardonic melancholy made it a staple on year-end ‘Best of 2020’ lists, led PASTE magazine to dub the album ‘The most exciting synth-pop debut in years’ , and landed the band major radio play from The BBC, KCRW, KEXP, SiriusXM and countless others. Inspired by the early new-wave and punk movements, the band quickly earned a reputation for delivering frenzied nights of unconventional bliss to rapt audiences, and established themselves as bright young stars emerging from a crowded NYC landscape.
THE MUCKERS
( new york city, new york )
Thursday, March 24th 12:40a – 1:50a @ Neurolux
Friday, March 25th 11:00p – 12:00a @ Sonic Temple Blue
The Muckers‘ debut album, the aptly titled Endeavor, comes on the heels of frontman Emir Mohseni‘s journey – nothing short of an odyssey: first, as an immigrant taking refuge in New York City from his native Iran to have the right to perform rock music, then as a band caught in the global pandemic who’s had to let go of their greatest strength: thriving on any stage – from supporting Pond on the road in 1000-cap rooms to making the crowds dance and sweat in the divey bars of Brooklyn. One of their performances, at Treefort Festival, had caught KEXP‘s Cheryl Waters eye who commended them for “captivating the crowds” on her Music That Matters show.
The band’s ethos can be heard in tracks like the unrelenting “Roll The Dice” which Mohseni says is about “risking everything you have in life for that one thing that you love the most.” In the face of adversity, The Muckers have never let up their ambition, cutting through the noise with what Rolling Stone praised as “a call to fans to kick the dust off of their souls and boogie.”
IAN SWEET
( los angeles, california )
Saturday, March 26th 6:40p – 7:30p @ KIN
Sunday, March 27th 5:10p – 6:00p @ Linen Building
IAN SWEET has been the source of and solution to many of Jilian Medford’s deepest anxieties. Medford processes these anxieties by pushing herself to experiment with new musical directions that inspire her, while digging for raw honesty and emotional depth that is shown through her lyrics. Medford’s third record as IAN SWEET, Show Me How You Disappear, 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?
Recorded with Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Empress Of) and Andy Seltzer (Maggie Rogers), among others, Medford approached this album as a curator. She handpicked the producers that fit each song, which explains the range and experimentation showcased. Medford then recruited Chris Coady to mix and tie everything together into one cohesive piece.
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.
ENUMCLAW
( tacoma, washington )
Saturday, March 26th 7:40p – 8:30p @ Linen Building
Hailing from Tacoma, Washington, and weighing in at a combined total of 607 lbs, Enumclaw have quickly established themselves as upstarts of the indie scene. Aramis, Nathan, Ladaniel, and Eli met playing shows around Seattle and bonded over their shared love of Nirvana, ‘90s R&B, and Drake.
Within one year of their first band practice, the band received acclaim from Pitchfork, Stereogum, KEXP, PASTE, FADER, and many others. Now signed to Luminelle Recordings, Enumclaw is well-positioned to go triple diamond.
The band recently joined Nothing on tour and in 2022 they will be touring with the Naked Giants, doing a headline run in the UK, performing at their first SXSW, and more they can’t yet announce. The self-proclaimed “Best Band Since Oasis” has a lot to live up to. Their first single with the label, the already platinum Gabe Wax-produced “2002”, comes out February 22nd. Keep an eye out for their debut album coming this summer.
DEERHOOF
( san francisco, california )
Sunday, March 27th 4:30p – 5:30p @ Main Stage
Over eighteen boundless albums as experimental as they are pop, Deerhoof has continuously quested for daring storytelling and radical sounds, creating a new shared language of revolution. 2020’s critically acclaimed, overwhelmingly prescient Future Teenage Cave Artists explored fairytale visions of post-apocalypse, welding intrinsic melodies with absurdist digital recording methods. Its immediate sequel Love-Lore, a live covers medley, channeled futurist mid-century artists – Parliament, Sun Ra and Stockhausen, to name a handful – into a patchwork love letter to the anti-authoritarian expressions that inspire the band. “We suddenly felt extra free and non-judgmental towards ourselves,” says drummer Greg Saunier of their audience’s enthusiastic reception to these records. Galvanized, they landed on their next record’s concept: This is Deerhoof’s “baroque gone DIY” LP. “We wanted our own working person’s version of highbrow, with all the operatic flourishes and twinkles and sparkles,” says Saunier. Deerhoof set to scheming, using their agility, wit, and outlandishness to create this exuberant ode to unexpected growth.
THE REGRETTES
( los angeles, california )
Saturday, March 26th 7:20p – 8:20p @ Main Stage
The Regrettes continue to solidify their reputation for unapologetically honest pop songs with the release their new song, “Monday,” their first new music since the release of their sophomore LP, How Do You Love?, which NPR Music proclaimed “a terrific culmination of a band that has been honing and perfecting their sound.” The song was inspired by and written over the last year’s pandemic lockdown, and Lydia Night of the band reveals, “as LA locked down, I felt a huge part of my Identity and ego being stripped away because of no touring, and no connecting with people at our shows. I’ve been touring since about age 12, so I had to come up with a new way to function in the world. It was really rough, and still is rough, but I found writing this song to be super therapeutic. It’s special that this is the first song we’ve put out in a while because it’s an important moment in time for me to mark. Part of the healing process for me is really learning and trying my best to keep on dancing the pain away so I hope people can relate to that and dance with me, even if it’s not at a show and in the safety of their own kitchen.”
