Washed Out‘s fifth and most audacious album to date, “Notes From A Quiet Life” arrives 6/28! The music of Washed Out has always levitated over a timeless frontier. You can sense it in his immersive, amorphous vocals, expansive soundscapes, and wistful storytelling. In 2021, Washed Out’s creative force, Ernest Greene, left Atlanta to return to the countryside he knew growing up. Where escapism once flooded his thoughts, today, he is preoccupied with the universe of wonder in the reality around him. He named the former horse farm he moved to “Endymion” (after the pastoral John Keats poem about a lovesick shepherd — its opening line: “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever”). It has shaped all that he’s created there, from his music to his albums’ creative direction to his planned large-scale visual-art experiments. That purity of vision is what makes “Notes From a Quiet Life” so potent. It’s the first album Greene wholly self-produced, with mixing assistance from Nathan Boddy (James Blake, Mura Masa) and David Wrench (Caribou, Florence + the Machine). Unabashed and unafraid to pioneer and incorporate new technologies within his art, Greene enlisted multi-disciplinary Artist, Writer, and Director Paul Trillo to direct the music video for the album’s lead single, “The Hardest Part.” Created using OpenAI’s Sora, “The Hardest Part” marks the first collaboration with an artist and filmmaker to be generated entirely utilizing this technology. Australian group Girl and Girl will release their debut full-length, “Call A Doctor,” on 5/24! The album is the full-length follow-up to the band’s 2023 digital release “Divorce +,” an eight-track EP that featured the standout singles “All I See” and “Dance Now.” “Call A Doctor” is an unforgettable first bow from Girl and Girl, an audacious and aggressively tuneful blast of a record from this Australian four-piece garage rock outfit. It features frontperson Kai James and his Aunty Liss on drums, longtime friends Jayden Williams on guitar, and Fraser Bell on bass. Call A Doctor was recorded at Sundowner Sound in Melbourne, a two-story industrial complex where the band ate, slept, and made music in marathon sessions for two weeks straight with producer Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett, Julia Jacklin). “‘Hello’ is the story of a young man who requires daily consults with health professionals in order to rationalise his self-destructive thoughts and routines. It’s about romanticizing your own misery. Letting those deep, dark, dirty thoughts take over. Understanding that even if you could pull yourself out, you wouldn’t because the constant stress and worry are all too familiar and comfortable.” -Kai James/Girl and Girl As “Sofa King” continues to build at Alternative, SubModern’s #2 Artist Of 2023, Royel Otis’ “Heading For The Door” is Now the new music airplay chart’s First #1 Single Of 2024 (#1 Album Too!)!!! With more reveals off the debut album “PRATTS & PAIN”, we’re So Excited The Aussies Will Finally Be Heading To The States For The First Time This Spring (check our Tours page for more)!!! Melting together their penchant for melody with DIY mess-thetics, Royel Otis have sketched out a singular sound. New single ‘Heading For The Door’ is a case in point. At times effervescent, there’s a slight tinge of darkness in its helter-skelter indie pop format. Royel Otis have finessed their sound, making each note count. A catchy, tongue-in-cheek indie burner—CLASH Produced by Grammy Award-winning producer Dan Carey (Wet Leg, Geese, Squid), “PRATTS & PAIN” is the first jewel in the crown for Otis Pavlovic and Royel Maddell. Their resulting efforts swing between melodic, pop-inspired indie and woozy psych that never stays in one lane. Handbraking towards psychedelic weirdness and dissonant noise, Royel Otis have no issue keeping all who listen on their toes. After the release of three EPs that took the band on a fast-track ride to global notoriety, “PRATTS & PAIN” unites the record for their next chapter, adventures abound with no limits. METZ is out with “Up On Gravity Hill,” their first album in 4 years! The album was engineered by Seth Manchester (Mdou Moctar, Lingua Ignota, Battles, The Body) and features guest performances from Amber Webber of Black Mountain and composer/string arranger Owen Pallett. METZ, a band once known for blowing out eardrums with songs of joyous rage, have, over their past few records, begun exploring ways to turn abrasiveness into atmospherics, the evolution of their sound not only a reflection of the maturing of the band themselves but also of a changed world that demands nuance and compassion to comprehend and to survive. This is so on their latest effort, “Up On Gravity Hill,” which finds the band continuing to bend the raw power of rock music to its most delicate, intricate ends. Delivering a deep, detailed, and unyieldingly personal collection of songs that are fused together to form not only METZ’s most powerful record to date but also their most beautiful. To spotlight this evolution, the band has shared two new contrasting singles: the stomping motorik “99,” and the charging and deeply melodic, “Entwined (Street Light Buzz)”, that offers a dreamier Swervedriver-esque guitar sheen never before utilized by the Canadian trio. METZ frontman Alex Edkins says, “These songs couldn’t be more stylistically and thematically dissimilar. ‘Entwined (Street Light Buzz)’ is a song about the deep connection humans can foster with one another and how we carry people with us forever, even after death. ‘99’ is about the scourge of corporate greed and bottom-line thinking that runs rampant in modern society. Anything for a buck is the message being sent to younger generations.” As the 2023 Breakthrough ‘Artist Of The Year’ ARIA Award Winners have embarked this month on a North American tour (see Tour page!), Australians Teenage Dads also have delivered their punchy and riff-tastic new anthem “Weaponz,” perfectly capturing the high-energy chaos of what to expect from their live show! “‘Weaponz’ is about finding personal empowerment through creative expression. I can take a lot of strength to get what you want and sometimes you need to take a bullet (or weild a bazooka) to see your vision come to life.” – Teenage Dads + SPOTIFY – Over 360K monthly listeners + ARIA Breakthrough Artist Of The Year – WINNER (‘Midnight Driving’ EP debuted #2!) + Triple J Added All 6 Singles To High Rotation + 2023 Festivals Included Splendour In The Grass’ main stage (performing Laneway Festival This Year) + 10K tickets sold across Australia in 2023 with 94+ Global Shows under their belt Pissed Jeans’ “Half Divorced,” is their incredible 6th album – and the band’s also shared the official video for indelible lead single “Moving On” from director and frequent collaborator Joe Stakun (“The Bar Is Low,” “Bathroom Laughter,” “Romanticize Me”). Pissed Jeans’ “Half Divorced” is the follow-up to 2017’s “Why Love Now,” an album that took aim at the mundane discomforts of modern life. The album and its singles received praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The Guardian, Uncut, Stereogum, and more. The twelve songs of “Half Divorced” skewer the tension between youthful optimism and the sobering realities of adulthood. Pissed Jeans’ – Matt Korvette (vocals), Bradley Fry (guitar), Randy Huth (bass), and Sean McGuinness (drums) – notorious acerbic sense of humor remains sharper than ever as they dismember some of the joys that contemporary adult life has to offer. “Half Divorced” includes the previously mentioned “Moving On,” the omnidirectional piss-take “Everywhere Is Bad” (Spoiler alert: “Seattle is soaking wet”), shrinking debt-to-credit ratios in the bracing “Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt,” and the harsh truth-telling in the bruising “Cling to a Poisoned Dream.” “Half Divorced” was produced and mixed by Pissed Jeans and Don Godwin and engineered by Mike Petillo at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, Maryland, and mastered by Arthur Rizk (co-producer and mixer for “Why Love Now”). Additional live dates will be announced soon, so keep checking back! Having wrapped a historic 2023 for the band, and the long-running Alt Radio powerhouse’s ‘Pointfest’ already on the books to kick off summer in St. Louis (more shows TBA!), New York City’s pioneers of the modern genre-blending revolution Oxymorrons return! It’s a full on, joyous banger too, in the memorable and bittersweet new single “Moon Chasers” — an undeniable heart on the sleeve bit of nostalgia, that’ll hang around your brain long after you’ve given it your first ears! Oxymorrons relentless exploration of new sonic territories while staying true to their rebellious spirit and unapologetic authenticity has garnered them a dedicated and rapidly growing global fan base. Their new album “Melanin Punk” personifies the community they are curating, as the concept derives from melanin as a unifying force transcending mere skin tone. The band is built on the ethos of inclusivity and embracing the beautiful complexities of human existence. Through their music and performances, they aspire to create positive change, break down societal barriers, and inspire unity among diverse communities. “Gen Z find themselves much less hung up on the strict boundaries between genres…’Melanin Punk’ is the strongest fusion of punk rock and hip-hop I have ever heard. If that sounds like a bold statement, it’s because it is.” — New Noise “Oxymorons have the city’s multilingual street chatter running through their veins…the audacious marriage of swaggering hip-hop and nostalgic pop-punk—bringing metalheads, rap fan, and pop-punkers all into the same mosh pit”— Alternative Press (‘Rising Artists You Need To Know’) “hybrids owe much to the the turn-of-the-millennium period when rapped lyrics, arena-ready hooks and ferocious beats were fast friends, with the addition of elements borrowed from contemporary trap and electronic music.” — Washington Post Bully aka Alicia Bognanno has shared “Lose You,” a new, gorgeous and fuzzy melancholic rocker. Recorded in 2022, at MMK Studios and Alicia’s House in Nashville, mastered by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound, and features vocal harmonies from Sophia Allison aka Soccer Mommy. Bognanno says, “When ‘Lose You’ came about it was the first time I’ve considered having someone else sing on a Bully song. I love Sophie’s voice and have always admired everything she does so to me it was a no brainer. Watching her soar out of the Nashville scene and dominate indie music world wide has been a joy. Writing ‘Lose You’ was a way for me to work through the pain and reality of impermanence. It doesn’t make it any easier but reflection is often followed by growth and to me that’s what life is all about.” Bully has announced new tour dates for the Spring and Summer of 2023. Highlights for this run of shows include: March 16th in Nashville opening for The Breeders, April 15th at the High Water Festival in North Charleston, SC, UK & EU dates May 20th-28th, and a 13-date run as main support for the Pixies and Franz Ferdinand June 8th-25th. See a full list of dates on our tour page.
Listen: Washed Out – “The Hardest Part”
Listen: Girl and Girl – “Hello”
Listen: Royel Otis – “Murder On The Dancefloor”
Listen: Metz – “Entwined (Street Light Buzz)”
Listen: Teenage Dads – “Weaponz”
Listen: Pissed Jeans – “Sixty Two Thousand Dollars In Debt”
Listen: Oxymorrons – “Moon Chasers” (clean edit)
Listen: Bully – “Lose You (feat. Soccer Mommy)”
Artist Development and Exposure–Specializing in Modern Rock Radio Promotion
