Milkswarm, Daundry, Paper Hotel
Milkswarm- Chicago music farm Daundry is a three-piece grungagze band from Chicago IL. Paper Hotel is an experimental indie rock band- with themes of tension, push and pull, and vulnerability.
Model Living, Rocco and His Bones, Riddle M
Model Living are a Chicago-based post-punk quartet formed in spring 2023. Their angular songwriting & urgent-yet-poetic lyricism seek to capture life in Your City (USA) & the ever-encroaching doom surrounding them. Guitarist Jay Martinez, drummer Nico Ciani, & bassist Matt Ciani create a hazy backdrop of repetition & tension for vocalist Geoff Daniels’ frantic depictions of a city ravaged by displacement, restaurant groups, & Exponential Growth.Model Living formed as an opportunity for Daniels, also of art rock project Upstairs, & the Cianis, joining from Chicago dance-punk outfit Arthhur & synth-doom dirgers Flesh of the Stars, to collaborate, having worked out of the same rehearsal space for years & finding similar interests in post-punk luminaries The Fall, Priests, & Protomartyr. Building on the rhythm section’s unyielding, ripples-in-your-water-glass intensity, Martinez brings a nervy sharpness & dissonance in his guitar playing, conjuring squalls of feedback & sharp stabs of melody in equal measure. Together, Model Living craft propulsive rock songs with a strong point of view. Rocco and His Bones is a psych/garage punk band born out of a DIY barn venue in upstate SC. Touring up the East Coast and Midwest following the release of their singles “On Display/Trees,” the band fuses early 2000s garage & 80s new wave into their set of songs influenced by The Oh Sees, early The Misfits, and Prison Affair. Riddle M has dug through the trenches using 4 track tape recorders bringing sounds from the dead. A Lo Fi glam gem looked to pioneers like The Cleaners from Venus, Joe Meek, and Ariel Pink. Peal your eyes for a surprise from one who grew up in Decatur IL (Pride of the prairie) and took his spaceship out to the industrial city of Chicago to bring his sound to the big ones.
Miniskirt, The Scratch-Offs, Wallplant
Miniskirt is a Chicago four piece that draws on a love of 60’s girl groups, garage rock, power pop, and punk to make a dreamy and energetic sound. They inspire a raucous pit or a joint to be passed around. From the hazy hippie hangover that is Madison, WI come the Scratch-Offs, with their dumb power chords, garage pop riffs, and X-inspired harmonies, ready to take a fat ol’ chance on the lottery of life. Wallplant makes bedroom pop inflicted post punk
Brainwaiver, Big Drama (AR), Bum Rush with DJ Magic Triangle and Visuals by Hydrosonic Light Show
Brainwaver is improvised space age traveling, noise and deep space doom scroll Big Drama is an Arkansas based post-punk power duo collaging scraps of kraut rock, DC post-hardcore, and experimental weirdo noise into sonic medicine for sufferers of technocapitalist malaise. Bum Rush is an irreverent and sonically adventurous punk trio from Chicago that always delivers when they take the stage. Like if the Minutemen leaned more into their bebop influence and used fuzz pedals
Cocojoey, Anne Helen Wells, Oux
Cocojoey is a Chicago-based producer and performer who operates within a unique blend of digital hardcore and digital fusion genres. Their 2022 album “COCOJOEY’S WORLD” features kaleidoscopic harmony, virtuosic keyboard shredding, and densely orchestrated electronic layers wielded in the pursuit of finding joy and self-acceptance.Known for highly energetic performances, Cocojoey has quickly become a local mainstay. In addition to 50 shows across the US in 2024, they have recently performed alongside artists such as HEALTH, Author&Punisher, Bubblegum Octopus, Lauren Bousfield, Bejalvin, and Fraxiom. Anne Helen Wells makes digital pop music in a desperate attempt to be known, to be loved & to get off. Her debut album ‘AHW’ is replete with intricate arrangements of metallic, plasticky sounds, the perfect electronic framework for her lyrical explorations of BDSM, love & transsexuality. “oux “/ɒ/” is an alt-pop band from chicago. while you could call their music “experimental pop”, that hardly does justice to the profusion of genres and ideas they weave into their songs. oux’s debut full-length, “necronym” balances prickly idiosyncrasies with sleek earworms, and unraveling its layers is part of the fun.
toss! , Consort, Anteeter
toss! fuses the raw energy of ’90s/2000s post-grunge and alternative rock with the dreamy textures of modern psychedelic, post-punk, and shoegaze. Blending decades of influence into a sound that’s both nostalgic and new, they deliver emotionally charged, genre-blurring rock. Consort makes Instrumental, progressive, post hardcore and jazz. Music to zone out to. Anteeter and Normal Writing- Frequent collaborators Anteeter and Normal Writing join forces to bring an exciting, bass-heavy electronic audio/visual performance featuring their film scores, unreleased music and reworked material. Best played loud.
Ryder the Eagle, Burr Oak, Bur, Hannah Sandoz
DIY hero, fallen Romeo, karaoke weirdo — the Mexico-based French balladeer is everything (and nothing) you might expect from an art-rock divorcé chasing dreams at your local dive bar. With lo-fi synthy soundscapes, lyrical melodies, poetic songwriting, and cathartic one-of-a-kind performances, Ryder The Eagle tells his history with love more than his love stories – coating romantic despair with a chiseled wit that’ll transport you straight into a Kaurismäki movie soundtracked by a caffeine-driven Leonard Cohen. Chicago-based singer/songwriter Savanna Dickhut began Burr Oak not as a band but as a personal outlet. She first picked up the guitar as an aid to express her deep-rooted feelings, as she told The Chicago Tribune, and she began writing the lyrics of her first single “Southsider” after a tumultuous break-up. Late Bloomer, released later in 2021, is a record for everyone who’s felt like they grew into themselves later in life. Paste wrote “her lyrics are frank and direct, yet maintain a near-universal relatability, a sign of a songwriter to reckon with.” And this is truly Burr Oak’s greatest strength: offering the specifics of her personal experiences to capture a universal feeling. Earlier in 2024, Burr Oak had quietly been gearing up for their sophomore release— a 5 song EP titled ‘Annabelle,’ released via Easy Does It Records on September 20th. Departing from their previous album, ‘Late Bloomer,’ which showcased a more personal approach to songwriting, Savanna Dickhut (vocals/guitar/bass) crafts a conceptual piece centered around the character of Annabelle. Through poignant storytelling and emotive melodies, ‘Annabelle’ evokes themes of love, loss, resilience, and the transformative power of human connection—a fictional story inspired by the chilling and very real overturning of Roe v. Wade. Bur- Top 5 bands of all time. British invasion wanna-be’s Music that holds you while you cry: Hannah Sandoz’s arrangements weave tender lyrics and lush soundscapes for guitar, vocals, and laptop. Their use of real-time processing renders universal stories of day-to-day life into complex worlds which coax and stir even the most skeptical of audiences.
Why DOMS, Mr. Phylzzz, Nude
Why DOMS- The undisputed tag team champions of the Louisville rap scene Mr. Phylzzz- A two piece well dressed mess from Chicago. NÜDE is an experimental duo composed of Chicago-bred musicians Ruby Lucinda and Luke Clohisy. Both multi-instrumentalists, Lucinda and Clohisy write music that pulls from indie rock, drone, no wave, and grunge. The duo seeks to write honest music, about what feels like to be home— comforts and complications alike.
Duopalooza: King Sans, Braince, Bellhead, Wet Chain
King Sans- jake and iz: chicago’s gothic noisepunk duo Braince- Scuzzy, fuzzy funtime boyz. We build stripped-down, bass-driven rippers special-made for going fast when you’ve been thinking too hard. BELLHEAD have grown in popularity thanks in part to their never ending tour schedule and fiery interactive live performances. They have performed from one end of the country to the other, sharing the stage with such legendary acts as Stabbing Westward, Julien-K, Gene Loves Jezebel, Clan Of Xymox, Night Club, Powerman 5000 and performing at some high profile festivals and the Illinois State Fair. Post-punk male-female duo band. Two basses and a drum machine. No Guitar, No BS. MADE IN CHICAGO Wet Chain is fast, loud, psychedelic freak out music.
Morpho, Force Model, Kweelag
Morpho is a Chicago indie rock trio led by guitarist and songwriter Kristyn Chapman. The Alternative called the debut EP, Morpho Season, “a warm and lively show for indie rock’s next best thing.” This will be Morpho’s first Chicago performance since Kristyn joined Seattle’s Deep Sea Diver (Sub Pop) on the road. Morpho has emerged from her cocoon, and she’s just getting started. LA noise pop trio, Force Model is one of the LA noise rock scenes best kept secrets. After releasing their debut album last year, the group is back with their new EP Barricade, available June 20th on Bug Body Records. A short collection of tightly written songs, Barricade is a snapshot of a band in transition.Barricade shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Vogel’s disaffected, hooky songwriting, Moore’s sturdy bass counterpoint, and Arimura’s ferocious drumming form the core of a band that can, and does, go anywhere. Kweelag- 3-piece fuzzed out Dark Souls rock.