February '23 Roundup
Here's what you might have missed last month
February felt like a slow month for new music, but nevertheless there were still some really great projects I got to enjoy, hear them below! And remember, the 2023 Roundup playlist collects all the songs from these monthly posts to help you keep up, if you want to follow it:
Static Atmosphere - BxRod
6 tracks, 15 minutes
Released: February 9th, 2023
From: Vallejo, CA
Genres: R&B, Alternative, Pop, Electronic
Recommended For Fans Of: kezia, Take Van, Asi Kemera
Static Atmosphere, the debut EP from Bay Area singer BxRod, works strategically to let you sink into her world, while also making sure she’s there to guide you the whole time. Synths and washed out vocals create a haze of emotions you can lose yourself in, but whenever things start to get too hazy, a punchy kick or bass line comes in to snap you back to the present. BxRod calls her sound "fantasy wave," a blend of atmospheric R&B, pulsing electronics, and alt-pop with confessional singer-songwriter lyrics. The track by track breakdown she did for DMY gives a bit of insight to her influences, which range from Alice In Wonderland to Playboi Carti. The strange, exciting world of BxRod is not one to miss.
Standout Track: BBY
Root Cause - Cleo Reed
8 tracks, 22 minutes
Released: February 23rd, 2023
From: New York, New York
Genres: R&B, Soul, Alternative, Jazz, Experimental
Recommended For Fans Of: Jamila Woods, duendita, Nick Hakim
Cleo Reed’s ambitious new project swings for the fences, and the results are rewarding in displaying her vision and talent. Reed was born and raised between New York and Uptown DC, and that upbringing played a major inspiration to this debut album. Experimenting with unorthodox sounds, tempo switches, pitch bending, and non traditional song structure gives this project its unique style, providing insight to Reed’s experiences. As she notes on Bandcamp, “This is BLACK work, FEMME work, QUEER work. I’ll take you through a series of performances that guide you through what I feel being observed/objectified/assessed in this life I’ve lived…These songs are pained but there’s love in the truth they carry.” If one thing’s clear from listening to this, it’s the love that went into the music.
Standout Track: Slip Away
Slow Fiction - Slow Fiction
6 tracks, 24 minutes
Released: February 16th, 2023
From: New York, New York
Genres: Alternative, Indie Rock
Recommended For Fans Of: Remember Sports, The Beths
Formed through a combination of mutual friends and Craigslist ads, New York five piece band Slow Fiction have put together a slow burning and wildly replay-able debut EP. The project collects life’s messiness in a way that feels personal, while also easily relatable to anyone listening. And it’s going to make you want to move all the while. Take the track Jericho for example, which is, “fueled by tension and a persona that is utterly heinous and toxic,” Vassallo wrote. “The character we hear throughout the song could be your own conscience, your worst enemy, or both. The battle of Jericho is the struggle of determining how to tell the truth without the walls crumbling down.” Slow Fiction gives you the most dynamic and heartfelt backdrop for you to project your issues onto.
Standout Track: Top 10 Movie Scenes
Dizzy Spells - Faerie
6 tracks, 19 minutes
Released: February 24th, 2023
From: New York, NY
Genres: Pop, Alternative, Indie
Recommended For Fans Of: mazie, PROM, Mamalarky
Faerie, the artist name of self taught guitarist/pianist/vocalist Christine Lam, flexes her chops with her sophomore EP, Dizzy Spells. While Faerie’s music can be described simply as ‘pop,’ it touches a lot of influences under that umbrella with alt-pop, bedroom pop, dream pop, 60’s pop, and psychedelic pop all showing their faces at different points across the project. With Lam’s enchanting vocals taking centerstage, the songs here have a daydreamy, head-in-the-clouds feeling to them that will leave you feeling like the main character you are.
Standout Track: k-town
Are you still reading?
Other Things Worth Hearing
In case you missed the soft launch going on over the last few years, Rebecca Black is cool now. Her debut album Let Her Burn sheds whatever image of her you’ve been holding on to for Charli XCX-esque electric pop.
Nappy Nina released her latest project Mourning Due with thoughtfully introspective bars over some groovy skittering production.
Listening to Babebee’s new EP, Tainted In Our Memories, there’s obviously been a massive step forward in both the technical and creative for the electronic pop singer.
BIRD BRAIN, the debut EP from Andrew Garden, displays his knack for making a catchy indie rock track. If you like not dvr and Petite League, give this a listen.
Fuzzy Indie Rock bangers persist! with German rockers Power Plush’s debut album, Coping Fantasies (this might have gotten a full writeup if I had more time).
Goodreads
Artists say 260 per cent US visa cost increase will make touring impossible – but you can help Andrew Trendell for NME gives insight to how a proposed raise in touring visa fees for foreign acts could be detrimental to a live music landscape that is getting less and less affordable by the day.
Do You Want Another Playlist?
For some of last year, I had a running playlist called ‘Hot Singles In Your Area,’ that I tried to update monthly with cool songs from the month before. The few and proud that followed along with it must have notice it…died. Keeping up with it got a bit tedious on top of the blog posts. So in its place, I’ve changed it to a simpler playlist just called ‘Feeling This.’ Its just a playlist of songs I’m currently replaying a lot, with no rules or update schedule. Songs will switch in and out at no set pace so if you hear something you like be sure to save it before it disappears! By nature of my listening habits this will include a lot of new music, but it’s not limited to that at all. Link b low
Alumni Watch
Bktherula (featured 11/09/20) continues to push her chaotic underground sound with her newest (and probably best to date) project, LVL5 P1.
Liv.e (featured in the 8/11/20 debut post!) dropped her first album since the one featured in 2020, another masterful project called Girl In The Half Pearl. (Wild Animals)
Miss Grit (featured 2/17/21) delivered her rich and complex debut album, Follow The Cyborg.
Thanks for listening :)