We are so stoked to present the first wave of artists on the lineup for the 12th edition of Treefort Music Fest – March 20-24, 2024 in Downtown Boise, Idaho.
In this first wave of Treefort Music Fest 2024 bands, you’ll find emerging and renowned artists hailing from 23 US states and 14 countries – with even more to be announced next month!
For the second year, the Treefort Main Stage will return to Julia Davis Park, and as per usual, we’ll have over 20 venues throughout Downtown Boise poppin’ off with bands from all over the globe.
With over 100 artists already on the lineup, there is sure to be a band (or seven) to catch your ear while also leaving plenty of room to discover more!
Dive into the power of Detroit-techno-meets-Chicago-house artist Channel Tres, disco dance duo DRAMA, garage-rock maestro Ty Segall, swoon-worthy lyrics from Devandra Banhart, powerhouse vocalist and indie icon Neko Case, funk and electronic collective Franc Moody, three-piece indie rockers and Flipside Fest faves Dehd, the incredibly soulful Celisse, Ukrainian “ethno-chaos” folk quartet DakhaBrakha, the Bay Area beats of K.Flay, heartfelt crooner Briston Maroney, NY’s daring hip-hop duo Armand Hammer, catchy joyful tunes from Icelandic artist Daði Freyr, cinematic world-building sounds by Patrick Watson, punk-shoegaze meets atmospheric wall of sound A Place to Bury Strangers, theatrical pop artist Shamir, instrumental trio formed by former Fugazi members the Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis, cumbia fusion group Sonido Gallo Negro, plus follow along for Deap Vally’s final tour (yes, ever!), and soooo much more! Read all about it.
In addition to the music lineup, we are thrilled the legendary Janeane Garofalo is coming to Boise to headline Comedyfort 2024!
You may recognize her from starring in some of your fave 90s films (achem, Reality Bites), but Janeane began her career as a stand-up comedian and was a cast member on The Ben Stiller Show, The Larry Sanders Show, and Saturday Night Live. Not only has she has appeared in more than 50 movies, with major roles in The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Wet Hot American Summer, and loads more! She became everyone’s hero when her character invented the fast-burning cigarette in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997).
Janeane Garofalo is performing one night and one night only — Saturday, March 23rd, at the Egyptian Theatre during the festival. The show is included in a 5-day and 1-day pass or tickets can be purchased individually ($35-$55) for guaranteed entry. Passholders will have first come, first served seating on the second level/mezzanine of The Egyptian.
Tickets for Janeane Garofalo are on sale Friday, November 17.
🌟 See the full list of artists on the first wave of the Treefort 2024 lineup or get right to listening and download the official Treefort Music Fest app to start tagging your faves!
🌟 Want to see YOUR name on the lineup? Submissions are still open for Music, Comedyfort, Dragfort, Filmfort, Hackfort, Kidfort, Podfort, and Yogafort. Don’t wait – most submissions close on December 1st!
🌟 Passes for Treefort Music Fest are on sale now! Buy your passes now before prices go up in the new year. Also new this year… pass + hotel packages! Bundle your Treefort pass and hotel room and save up to 29% AND get 20% off Treefort merch. Whatta deal!
CHANNEL TRES
(Compton, CA)
Channel Tres blends the drive of Detroit techno and the silky-smooth grooves of Chicago house with the snarl of West Coast rap. His music is no longer the little secret that dance DJs maybe had wished it would stay.
He’s toured globally from major festivals to sold-out arenas and found fans in everyone from Elton John to Tyler, the Creator. For Channel, music is about reconnecting with his own history, whether it’s in his lyrics, or through influence and musical history, he uncovers in his productions. His last EP i can’t go outside debuted in Spotify’s Top 10 US Album Debuts with features from Tyler, the Creator and Tinashe.
BRISTON MARONEY
(Knoxville, TN)
After a semi-nomadic childhood spent between Tennessee and Florida, 25-year-old singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Briston Maroney settled in Nashville — cutting his teeth playing house shows and winning over fans one living room at a time.
Briston Maroney soon amassed critical acclaim from the likes of Billboard, NME, Vulture, Consequence of Sound, PAPER, Paste, American Songwriter and more, with NPR lauding Maroney’s skill for “writing powerful rock songs with grit and heart.”
His 2021 album Sunflower led to sold-out headline tour dates across the US, Canada, UK, and Europe; opening slots for Jack White, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Cold War Kids, and Noah Kahan; and festival appearances from Bonnaroo to Outside Lands to Pitchfork Paris. Maroney’s catalog has amassed over 430 million global streams across all platforms. He released his sophomore album Ultrapure in September 2023.
TY SEGALL
(Los Angeles, CA)
American songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Ty Segall is a garage rock maestro who has constantly released new music since he hit the scene in 2008.
His latest album, Hello, Hi is expansively rendered by Ty, mostly by himself, at home. The isolation suits the songs: you’re only ever as “at home” as you are with yourself in the mirror. Ty’s acoustic and electric guitars and vocal harmonies layer self upon self, forming a spiny backbone for the album.
Hello, Hi is Ty’s most relaxed and complete production to date, an ebb-and flow fusion of words and music offering abstraction and acceptance as it wrestles itself through a fucked-up time. Your life and what you make of it — throughout Hello, Hi, Ty Segall charts a passage through its enduring tangles honestly, with clarity and confusion.
DRAMA
(Chicago, IL)
The simple power of DRAMA’s musical expression is matched only by that of their work ethic.
This Chicago-based duo has bootstrapped a subtle rise on their own terms, self-releasing several EPs and mapping multiple tours with Midwestern grit. A multicultural collaboration between producer Na’el Shehade and vocalist Via Rosa, the project plays to the complementary dynamics of their unlikely pairing, blurring the lines between R&B and dance-pop, heartbreak and bliss. In early jam sessions the chemistry was clear; Rosa’s soulful delivery interlocked with Shehade’s chic Chicago house-infused production style. A lovesick sound emerged over two EPs, Gallows in 2016 and Lies After Love in 2018, and continued on to their debut album Dance Without Me in 2020.
K.FLAY
(Chicago, IL)
Based in LA and originally from Illinois, multi-platinum K.Flay, born Kristine Flaherty, started rapping and writing songs on a lark while attending Stanford University and soon began releasing her self-produced mixtapes.
In 2017, she released her major label debut album Every Where Is Some Where, earning two GRAMMY Award nominations for the album’s iconic smash single “Blood in the Cut” and sending her to arenas around the world with her kinetic live set. As a songwriter, musician, and producer, she’s lent her talents to numerous collaborations, working with Fitz and the Tantrums, Bishop Briggs, Tom Morello, Louis the Child, Kaskade, Walk the Moon, Imagine Dragons, grandson, The Regrettes, Two Feet, MisterWives, and more.
This past spring, she announced her fifth studio album MONO, which came out September 15th via Giant Music. The LP is her first since going suddenly and completely deaf in her right ear at the end of last summer. Although K.Flay’s hearing loss deeply informed her songwriting on MONO, the album marks the start of a new era for the artist, who explores an entire spectrum of existential questions and complex matters of the heart and mind on the LP.
DEVENDRA BANHART
(Caracas, Venezuela)
The free-spirited, free-associative Venezuelan-American Devendra Banhart is an avant-garde, alternative-folk singer-songwriter and musician hailing from Caracas, Venezuela and Los Angeles, California.
Devendra Banhart’s Flying Wig is a landscape of recurrent dualities; a can of paradoxes, a box of worms. What goes up, must come down, eventually. Battle-scarred by life and loss, Banhart found himself despondent, folded inwards; finding it difficult to speak, let alone sing.
“It’s about transmuting despair into gratitude, wounds into forgiveness, grief into praise” ruminates Banhart on his eleventh studio album. Gliding through the air, the whisper of two buoyant words symbolically and at times, literally appear — “and yet…” (inspired by ‘A World of Dew’ by 19th century Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa) — coloring in the melancholic outlines and replacing them with a bonded optimism. “The ‘and yet, and yet,’” Banhart explains, “is our ability to face despair with hope, to keep on failing and loving. My whole life has been filled with sadness. Everything I do in life is to help cope with that sadness.”
NEKO CASE
(Vermont)
Is there another songwriter so fearless and inventive?
Bending decades of pop music into new shapes, Neko Case wields her voice like a kiss and her metaphors like a baseball bat. With a career spanning over twenty years, she has famously collaborated with The New Pornographers and Case/Lang/Veirs in addition to releasing many critically acclaimed solo albums, including Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, Middle Cyclone and most recently 2018’s Hell-On.
She’s doing it on her own terms, but the legacy she’s building is one that can stand up to music made by any other solo artist in her lifetime. Don’t look away; you never know what might happen. “I’m just trying,” she says, “to be myself as hard as I can.”
FRANC MOODY
(London)
Franc Moody’s sound is contemporary funk, awash with electronic inspiration, human touches, and throbbing grooves.
Like Daft Punk and Jamiroquai before them, they draw from the sounds, styles and techniques of funk, disco and soul while simultaneously threading in electronic influences of the here and now. Their hypnotic and free-form live show has garnered a cult following, and over their short lifespan as a band they’ve shown a masterful knack for creating rich and textured bangers. Listen to their songs and you’ll hear salt shakers and mugs, dripping radiators, the sound of someone zipping their flies, and their own family playing strings. It’s this kind of DIY sound design and attention to detail that has made the new London duo such a curious and captivating proposition.
FLYANA BOSS
(Los Angeles, CA)
This duo’s rising popularity and memorable performances make them a must-see act in the hip hop scene.
Hailing from Detroit, MI and Dallas, TX – MCs and multi-instrumentalists Bobbi LaNea and Folayan met at a music college in Los Angeles, CA. They immediately hit it off and began collaborating, eventually naming their group, Flyana Boss, (rhymes with Diana Ross). Embodying the spirit of flyness and bossness, this fierce duo repping the vagina dynasty aim to entertain, make you laugh and always remind you that you are listening to the direct descendants of all the boss-ass bitches that came before them through generations of humanity, from Cleopatra to Harriet Tubman to Michelle Obama to Beyoncé! Their chemistry is palpable, two besties doing music together.
DAÐI FREYR
(Reykjavík, Iceland)
Known for his infectious electropop and dry humor, Daði’s music exudes genuine good feelings that make you want to dance.
Daði Freyr, the Icelandic icon, has released his highly-anticipated album I Made An Album. His musical journey started with influences from his musical family and the pop-rock sounds of Stevie Wonder and Sting. After discovering electronic music, he studied music production in Berlin. Eurovision played a significant role in his career, propelling him to fame with the viral hit “Think About Things.” Representing Iceland in Eurovision 2021 further solidified his fan base. With I Made An Album, Daði showcases his signature sound and explores themes of self-discovery. Having already sold out multiple shows across Europe and the US, Daði Freyr’s music has captivated audiences worldwide.
DEHD
(Chicago, IL)
Dehd’s fourth album Blue Skies is also the band’s second consecutive breakthrough, loaded with the most compelling, compulsive, and expansive songs of their career.
Blue Skies offers another jolt of timely hope, only with twice the power. These 13 hits feel like flashlights in the dark, acknowledging how difficult everything from love and sex to living and dying can be while supplying the inspiration of their own experiences. The moods are deeper, the swings between them more inspiring. But this is still Dehd, just more wild and wonderful than ever before.
“This is all we get,” Emily shouts with relish on the record’s last lines, during a song about the ways geologic deep time should free us all to live more. “Best to take the risk.” Heard, loud and clear.
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
(Brooklyn, NY)
Fans all over the globe know: Oliver Ackermann always brings surprises.
The singer and guitarist of New York City’s A Place To Bury Strangers has been delighting and astonishing his audience for close to two decades, combining post-punk, noise-rock, shoegaze, psychedelia, and avant-garde music in startling and unexpected ways. As the founder of Death By Audio, creator of signal-scrambling stomp boxes and visionary instrument effects, he’s exported that excitement and invention to other artists who plug into his gear and blow minds. In concert, A Place To Bury Strangers is nothing short of astounding — a shamanistic experience that bathes listeners in glorious sound, crazed left turns, transcendent vibrations, real-time experiments, brilliant breakthroughs.
POKEY LAFARGE
(Camden, ME)
Pokey LaFarge is an American renaissance man — an acclaimed musician, writer, actor, and designer.
Fusing the rustic sounds of the past with his wry humor and eclectic music sensibilities, singer/songwriter Pokey LaFarge is “an artful ambassador for old-time music.” (NPR’s Stephen Thompson)
DAKHABRAKHA
(Kyiv, Ukraine)
DakhaBrakha is a world music quartet from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Reflecting fundamental elements of sound and soul, Ukrainian “ethno-chaos” band DakhaBrakha, create a world of unexpected new music.
The name DakhaBrakha is original, outstanding and authentic at the same time. It means “give/take” in the old Ukrainian language. Accompanied by Indian, Arabic, African, and Ukrainian traditional instrumentation, the quartet’s astonishingly powerful and uncompromising vocal range creates a trans-national sound rooted in Ukrainian culture.
SONIDO GALLO NEGRO
(Mexico City, Mexico)
Sonido Gallo Negro is a band from Mexico City going back to the roots of psychedelic tropical music.
Using guitars, eccentric organs, analog synthesizers, theremin… they mix exotic rarity and esotericism which will alter your perception and force you to dance until you get exhausted. Add to it visual hypnotics and live performance by Dr. Alderete. Since 2010, they have had multiple tours around Europe and America, visited 20 countries and more than 50 cities. Five studio albums later, they became one of the most recognized bands of Mexico City.
PATRICK WATSON + BOISE PHILHARMONIC
(Montreal, Canada)
Patrick Watson is a singer, pianist, composer and frontman based in Montreal.
He invents uncanny musical landscapes, harmoniously mixing organic elements and electronic textures, cacophonic rock songs and pristine ballads, all held together by his omnipresent voice. The recipients of Canada’s Polaris Music Prize in 2007, in addition to JUNO and Polaris nominations, Watson and his band have toured on all continents, on occasion playing with full orchestras to bring the rich music to life. Raised and still living in Montreal, Watson has composed several scores for both film and television.
Patrick Watson will be accompanied by the Boise Philharmonic. Stay tuned for more details about this exciting collaboration!
MARNIE STERN
(New York City, NY)
It’s been a decade since we last heard from Marnie Stern…
… and in her absence, the indie music world has become overrun with an army of anti-Marnies i.e. corporate clones making banal playlist rock lacking in the whimsy, creativity, and virtuosity that made Stern’s take on rock music such a singular sound in the late 2000s. But when Stern’s guitar bursts in like a shower of stardust on The Comeback Kid, her long-awaited follow-up to 2013’s The Chronicles of Marnia, it’s like no time has passed. Marnie Stern is back—and not a moment too soon.
