Melisma Summer 2016 by Melisma Magazine

MELISMA TUFTSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; PREMIER JOURNAL OF MUSIC

MELISMA EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Ross Bretherton Chelsea Wang

MANAGING EDITORS

Grant Fox Jordan Rosenthal-Kay

PRESS DIRECTOR Kristina Mensik

SENIOR EDITORS Kriska Desir Dan Pechi

STAFF WRITERS

Noah Adler Cody Eaton Mallory Grider Tess Hinchman Dennis Kim Kelly Kollias Jason Mejia Niki Van Manen Andrew Sobelsohn

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Evan Sayles

FROM THE EDITORS

or Melisma, summer means more time for music and less time for everything else. We relish hot evenings laced with Frank Ocean’s intoxicating crooning, music festivals where time ceases to exist, and nighttime drives with friends passing the aux cord back and forth. For those who are unfamiliar with us, Melisma’s mission is to provide the campus with a unique Tufts-focused view on local music and music culture at large. Alongside documenting the rich scene at Tufts, we turn our ears outwards to artists who come to Boston, as well as aesthetic developments in the mainstream. The summer issue is an abridged one, about half the length of a normal issue. Still, we’ve packed it to the brim with thought provoking pieces on the challenges black women face in reclaiming their sexuality in rap music and the confusing joy found in sad music. Fall also brings a new wave of astoundingly eager first years. We challenged them to send us playlists that encapsulated their summer, and you’ll find two of the best published in this issue. Keep your eyes on our website for more standouts! On inside back cover, you’ll also find a curated list of concerts to check out and albums to watch for this Fall. If you’re interested in exploring the music scene at Tufts, attending shows in Boston, or contributing in any way to the magazine, we hope you’ll join us at our GIM at 9 PM in the Crane room on September 21, or send us an email! Cheers, Ross Bretherton and Chelsea Wang Editors-in-Chief

Interested in writing, art or design? Questions, comments, adulation, or hatemail? email melismamagazine@gmail.com

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MELISMA TUFTS’ PREMIER JOURNAL OF MUSIC WHAT YOU’VE MISSED

You should know about these important events and changes in the Boston music scene.

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MUSIC AND THE MIND

Why can“sad” music make us feel so happy? Kristina Mensik

FALL PREVIEW

Can black women in rap music reclaim their sexuality? Kriska Desir

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Who will blow up, what shows to go to, and which albums to look out for

HYPERSEXUALITY AND WOMEN IN RAP

SONGS OF THE SUMMER

We asked incoming first-years for playlists that embodied their summer. Here are two of the best. Madeleine Clarke, Yoji Watanabe

ON THE COVER Gold Composite Ross Bretherton

Melisma Magazine is a non-profit student publication of Tufts University. The opinions expressed in articles, features or photos are solely those of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or the staff. Tufts University is not responsible for the content of Melisma Magazine. If you would like to submit a letter to Melisma Magazine, please send it to melismamagazine@gmail. com. Please limit your letter to four hundred words or less.

WHAT YOU MISSED... BOSTON CALLING RELOCATES Boston Calling has quickly become Boston’s quintessential major music festival, by virtue of being the city’s only major music festival. The biannual event was formerly held near a large block of concrete often referred to as City Hall. The festival’s fall date attracted hordes of college students. However, last spring marked a shift in the brand’s target audience, as the festival announced a cancellation of their fall event and a relocation to Harvard’s athletic complex. Boston Calling will now take place once a year on Memorial Day weekend, aligning their calendar to compete with New York City’s Governor’s Ball, amongst others. In doing so, Boston Calling raises their middle finger to the college student market and embraces the city’s forever burgeoning yuppie population with the addition of comedians and a Natalie Portman curated film festival. We’re not kidding.

Boston Calling’s new venue. Hopefully they’ll bring back Lorde so she can go down to the tennis court. Photo courtesy of 44 Communications.

JOHNNY D’S SAYS GOODBYE

Johnny D’s Uptown will forever be an icon of Somerville music. Photo by Ross Bretherton.

In the most prolonged death of a beloved music venue, Somerville finally said goodbye to Davis Square’s Johnny D’s Uptown Restaurant & Music Club last April. The venue may be abandoned, but it’s hardly silent. The Johnny D’s Facebook page is alive and well, indulging fans in the heartbreaking minutiae of tearing up floorboards, giving away merchandise, and discovering old memories in forgotten stacks of paper. We wish the owners and former patrons the best in their efforts to move on.

HARBORWALK SOUNDS CELEBRATES 10 YEARS This summer, Harborwalk Sounds celebrated their 10th year of bringing Berklee artists to play free concerts on the waterfront. This summer brought young talent onto the Institute of Contemporary Art’s steps, making it the second most important reason to visit the ICA, the first being your Instagram. Musical events at the ICA will continue into the fall, so make sure to take advantage of the opportunity to get into their galleries for free.

The ICA offers free Summer concerts with a view. Photo courtesy of Kate McBride (ICA Boston).

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HYPERSEXUALITY AND WOMEN IN RAP CATERING TO THE MALE GAZE OR A FORM OF EMPOWERMENT? BY KRISKA DESIR

n 2010, NPR reported that the number of female rappers signed to a major label dropped to just three women— compare that to the forty-odd women signed to major labels in the late 80s and early 90s. While one might argue that the independent scene has long dominated the rap game, making mainstream rap an inaccurate picture of the genre, two points remain clear: not only does rap have a gender equality problem, but it seems that it has regressed on the issue. In a genre where women still aren’t quite welcome, is female hypersexuality—the exaggerated use of explicitly sexual lyrics and images by female-identifying rappers—a form of empowerment or simply what sells more records? That question begs a few more: does our haste to dismiss hypersexual female rap stem from a discomfort with black femme bodies asserting control of their sexuality? A conversation about hypersexuality in female rap necessarily has a focus on black women and the tradition of their objectification by black men, since the role of white women in rap has been limited to a handful of brief careers. Furthermore, why should the ways in which black women choose to present their bodies even be up for debate? Why can’t hypersexuality empower women and sell more records? In reality, the sexuality of black women is complicated, especially in light of the complex and intersecting issues that black women face: sexism, racism—the intersection of which we call misogynoir—and colorism. These phenomena result in the media’s tendency to paint black women as one of two

centuries-old conceptualizations: the mammy (see the black cast of The Help) or the Jezebel (see the cast of the hit VH1 show, Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta). The tried and true, usually dark-skinned mammy has cleaned up white people’s messes and raised their children since slave times all with a warm smile and a sexlessness to rival a eunuch’s. The Jezebel is the desirable, often fairer-skinned woman of loose morals whose insatiable sexual appetite excuses her rape and abuse. The options for women in rap reflect the limitations of white patriarchy; save for pioneers of women in rap such as Lauryn Hill, Eve, and Missy Elliot, images of scantily clad, light-skinned black women with asses that just don’t quit are more commonplace in the world of rap music videos than images of women who rap. Just take a look at the recently released video for D.R.A.M. and Lil Yachty’s song “Broccoli”—we get a medium close up of a woman’s bare butt before we even see the two rappers, who for the rest of the video are flanked by bikini clad, well-endowed women while they remain fully dressed. Considering the limited options for women in rap, the fact that black women have elected to take control of their image should come as a surprise to no one. It isn’t uncommon for the oppressed to reclaim terms that are tools for their oppression—black Americans have reclaimed the N-word, the LGBTQ+ community has reclaimed the term ‘queer,’ women have reclaimed the term ‘bitch.’ Recently, when rapper Azealia Banks, problematic (ex-) fave to many, called Zayn Malik a ‘curry-scented bitch’ in an ugly tweet

storm, South Asians all over the world took to the Internet to post selfies with Banks’ slur as a hashtag. Oppressive language and ideas can and have been used for self-empowerment. Black women in rap have subverted the Jezebel trope by reclaiming their sexuality. They have taken sexuality as a tool for abuse or debasement out of male hands and into their own. They empower themselves by using the same graphically sexual lyrics that their male counterparts do. Yes, black women enjoy sex, but that is a human trait, not grounds for dehumanization. Yes, black women can be sexual and rap too. Yes, black women can do more than twerk on either side of a rapper. At the same time, black women in rap have subverted the mammy trope. Dark-skinned black women are not asexual and servile; dark-skinned women can be sexual beings and should be proud of their sexuality. In consideration of the misogynoir that black women face, hypersexuality in female rap is not a gimmick but an act of resistance.

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/ Imma put my thumb in her butt.” Hypersexuality has become a part of the fabric of rap music. While men have historically used graphic sexual imagery, men and women alike criticize female rappers who do the same. From civil rights activist C. Delores Tucker calling Lil Kim’s music “filth” and “gangster porno rap” in 1997 to celebrity gossip site Bossip taking to Twitter to imply that Nicki Minaj owes her success to her butt in 2015, we have shamed female rappers for expressing their sexuality. Why are black femmes only meant to be ‘hypersexual’ when men need props for their music videos?

Hypersexuality in rap is nothing new, but black women have revolutionized it by reframing women as sexually dominant agents instead of sexually submissive objects.

No one questions hypersexual rap lyrics when men hold the mic. One could even argue that rapping about sexual prowess is part of rap’s hypermasculine territory. From the dawn of rap, the list of objects that attest to a rapper’s masculinity has always gone: cars, drugs, chains, and the list of trophy women with whom they have had sex. In 1993, Too $hort’s Get In Where You Fit In peaked at number four on the US Billboard 200. His song “Blowjob Betty” contains these lyrics: “Blowjob Betty give ‘em real good head / Bust a left nut right nut in her jaw / Sperm on her cheeks is all you saw.” More recently, Future’s 2015 album, Dirty Sprite 2, featured these lyrics on the track, “Stick Talk:” “I ain’t got no manners for no sluts

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Of course, some argue that hypersexuality in female rap is a step backward, an offense to all the feminist foremothers who fought for women to be valued in society as human, not as men’s possessions. However, the notion that women shouldn’t express sexuality is more of an insult to feminist ideals than any racy female rap music video ever could be: the autonomy of all women should come before the conservatism of some women. While Rapsody, a femcee who signed to Jay Z’s Roc Nation in July, chooses not to present herself in an overtly sexual manner, female rap group PTAF chooses to do the opposite. Our media should reflect the existent and broad spectrum of black femme sexuality in order to actually empower black women because hypersexual female rap lyrics do empower some women. The women in PTAF aren’t only being raunchy in “Boss Ass Bitch,” they’re talking about women making their pleasure a priority in hetero sex and about women being “bosses:” powerful and in control. Take the line, “Got ya nigga going, going insane / And so do I when he give me brain;” KDUCE talks about male-to-female cunnilingus where most rap lyrics would focus on the reverse. Even the chorus’ simple proclamation “I’m a boss ass bitch” is a positive affirmation of female power, as opposed to the myriad of images in rap of black women as the submissive. When Cupcakke talks about her sexual prowess on

MELISMA | SUMMER 2016 | 7 “Vagina,” (“Pussy so good I’m on a trip to the bay / Soon as he put it in that nigga calling me bae”), she’s exhibiting the same braggadocio that most of her predecessors, both male and female, have. Hypersexuality in rap is nothing new, but black women have revolutionized it by reframing women as sexually dominant agents instead of sexually submissive objects. Still, questions remain. Are these hypersexual lyrics catering to the male gaze, offering them a Jezebel fantasy? Or are they actually empowering? Perhaps both. Sex does sell, but the sex in hypersexual female rap lyrics prioritizes female pleasure where the standard has always been the prioritization of male pleasure. Female hypsersexuality doesn’t cater to men if men aren’t the center of these conversations about sex. Besides, if sex appeal, rather than skill, were the only factor in selling records, then arguably groups like Bitches With Problems and Hoes With Attitude would have record sales comparable to those of Lil’ Kim. Furthermore, if one were to focus on the broader content of artists like Cupcakke and Nicki Minaj, they would find that these artists do indeed discuss more than just sex. Cupcakke tackles an especially delicate subject in the black community on her track “Pedophile” and Minaj has spoken out again and again on misogynoir in the music industry. Hypersexual female rappers have made it clear that they have created a platform by women and for women. Sexiness does not equate to vapidity.

selling out by giving into societal expectations, one would be remiss not to examine the content of rap as a whole— are black men talking about drugs because the subject matter is pertinent to their lives or are they just giving us what we want? Future himself admitted in an interview with Clique that the lifestyle he raps about isn’t necessarily accurate; it’s just what sells. Yet, surely no one would question the role that rap has played in the empowerment of black males in a society that continues to devalue black men. Female rappers can and do function in the same way; hypersexual female rappers are just a subset of an overall empowering group. The pretense of concern about women and the ways in which they present themselves is a tired one. The concern here is that women are expressing sexuality outside of the bounds of male pleasure and doing so unapologetically. Black women are prioritizing their own pleasure, bragging about their own sexual prowess, and being cocky in a world that has told them that they shouldn’t. That attitude is at the heart of what rap is—the oppressed expressing an exaggerated bravado and flouting at all of the reasons society has told them that they are worthless. Hypersexuality in female rap is a big laugh in the face of all the conflicting messages that society has sent to black women. It’s not too surprising that society isn’t joining in on that laugh, but just because it isn’t, doesn’t mean that the work these female rappers do isn’t valid.

Lastly, when the conversation turns to the topic of rappers

LISTEN TO:

CUPCAKKE - VAGINA PTAF - BOSS ASS BITCH KHIA - MY NECK MY BACK LIL’ KIM - HOW MANY LICKS AZEALIA BANKS - 212 FOXY BROWN - I’LL BE TRINA - DA BADDEST BITCH LADY - YANKIN DIAMOND - GET BIG LADY LESHURR - QUEEN’S SPECH EP. 1

MUSIC AND THE MIND AN EXPLORATION INTO WHY SAD MUSIC CAN FEEL SO GOOD

BY KRISTINA MENSIK

ast winter, I brought a friend to a Wavves concert. She, a fan of bluegrass, had never listened to the San Diegan native Nathan William’s punk rock. His collaboration with Cloud Nothings, the Cleveland based noise rock group, is easy, angry listening. It served as my introduction to the greater world of high-energy-yet-high-negativity music. Their discography is marked by lyrical pessimism (e.g., “I’m soooo bored”) set to no-fi, heavily-distorted noise that, rather than cueing a depressive state, lends a positive energy to the listener. Or so I thought. Walking out of the Royale, my friend, in a state of genuine discomfort, blurted, “they’re all so sad!” Despite having just listened to the same set, and saw the same raucous crowd moshing and crowd surfing to lyrics like “you’re killing me / I hope you know,” “We’ll all die / that’s just the way we live,” and, simply, “I’m an idiot,” I was surprised at her words. “Like,” she said, “really, really sad.” My friend’s reaction to the show piqued my interest, as nothing about what we just saw seemed sad to me. I felt that we had just seen a celebratory and high-energy coming together of people. I wondered how she would respond to an experience like attending Emo Night, a monthly event hosted arranged by Luke O’Neil and hosted at The Sinclair in Cambridge. The Sinclair alternates between the restaurant and music venue, depending on concer t schedules. At Emo Night, exclusively “Emo” music is blasted—bands like The Used, Every Time I Die, and Brand New, pulse from the soundsystem. The place fills up with largely black-clad fans of the genre.

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handle topics like depression and substance abuse. However, before my friend’s comment, their lyrics never struck me as “sad.” This music, so unabashedly lyrically negative, never makes me feel depressed or down in the slightest. It has the opposite effect. Especially FIDLAR – whose recent set at Lollapalooza was the most fun I’ve had at 3pm on a Sunday, ever – feels entirely real, vivacious, and frankly uplifting. They contrast the delusional positivity of Katy Perry’s eyeof-the-tiger brand of lyrics. For me, listening to sad music is not exclusive to post break-up lament. I don’t choose to listen to it to self-induce melancholia; I actually find it deeply pleasurable. However, Emo and bands like Wavves only employ lyrical melancholy. But I also enjoy music that sounds sad too: music that exudes despondence through its instrumentation. David Huron, a music psychologist at Ohio State University, solidifies this definition in his book, Sweet Anticipation. To him, it is “lower in pitch, employs smaller interval sizes, is quieter, exhibits a slower tempo, and involves darker timbres.” This phenomenon, i.e., that pleasure can be derived from sad music, has been studied and theorized by both psychologists and physiologists. Adrian North, a music psychologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, proposes the theory of downward social comparison. He suggests, in short, that people are comforted by or derive pleasure from seeing or hearing that someone is worse off than they are. I find this explanation dissatisfying. When I listen to Modest Mouse or Radiohead, who both excel in producing different kinds of sonic anxiety, I don’t find comfort in thinking that Thom Yorke or Isaac Brock are doing worse than me in the slightest. Rather, much like what you can witness at Emo Night, their music reminds me that I am not alone in whatever I am experiencing; it’s a feeling of solidarity. At Emo Night, a crowd of strangers singing along to the same lyrics about struggle is a roomful of tangible empathy.

North suggests that People are comforted by hearing someone worse off than them. I find this explanation dissatisfying.

Emo music dedicates its lyrics to emotional and physical pain, loneliness, depression, and rejection. It’s a mix of mostly pop-punk and catchy post-hardcore. The songs sound familiar and are upbeat. At Emo night, the crowd sings along to most, if not all the lyrics; the event is not at all sad or negative. Though I am not an avid listener of Emo, I love bands like Wavves, FIDLAR, and the Black Lips, whose lyrics similarly

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Rather than downward social comparison, the argument

MELISMA | SUMMER 2016 | 9 of Stephen Davies, a prominent musical philosopher at the University of Auckland, makes clear this joy. He explains in Musical Meaning and Expression that music, serving as a “nonlinguistic symbol system…has the power to bring extramusical matters to mind,” essentially transporting a person into an altered space and state. It can represent feelings or experiences far too complex and personal to be articulated in words. This is exactly how I feel about Modest Mouse.

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five to make you feel good. Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool is replete with melancholy and anxiety. Songs like “Present Tense,” are apocalyptic – Yorke sings, “as my world comes crashing down / I’m dancing, freaking out / deaf, dumb and blind”) – and deeply haunting, but they are also moving. They evoke what Huron would describe as “the most profound and beautiful musical experience.”

an obvious truth: music does not have to be in the major key or contain a lyrical high-five to make you feel good.

When my brother first played The Moon and Antarctica in the car for me, I recall being so uncomfortable and frustrated that I felt on the brink of tears. Brock’s howled, “God dies too / but not before he sticks it to you,” and his imperfect and lisped mutterings of the inevitable and abrupt end of our miniscule lives was too much for me. The music presented an unfamiliar experience. The richly layered, warped, and ominous instrumentation felt so inaccessible. I would never have guessed that the album would grow to become my favorite. As I came to confront the peak of young-adult uncertainty in my Sophomore year of college, I developed an intense connection to the music I once hated. It represented new and often disenchanting perspectives on the world which I had no way of articulating on my own. The feeling was by no means halcyon, but the music made me feel better.

There is a physiological explanation for the comforting, feelgood potential of melancholy music. In a 2011 study, Huron measured the levels of the hormone prolactin in participants who either were “unemotional,” who made themselves cry, who listened to “happy” music, or those who listened to music in the minor key. Huron chose this last group as music composed on a minor scale is considered melancholic in the West. Curiously, sociologists have found that the emotions associated with specific musical elements appear to be enculturated; they’re learned, rather than biologically hardwired. Participants who were asked to make themselves cry “psychic tears,” (those which “arise due to high emotion” rather than “irritant tears,” such as those from chopping onions) showed most similar levels of prolactin to those who had just listened to “sad” music. Huron measured this hormone, which is associated with milk production in mammals, as it evokes a state of tranquil well-being. In short, he found that sadness experienced in the absence of real psychological pain produces a hormonal response similar to that experienced after a “good” cry. Huron’s study perfectly explains an obvious truth: music does not have to be in the major key or contain a lyrical high-

Fans of Emo Night would likely respond to Huron’s findings with a similar lack of surprise. What he does not address, however, is the sense of shared experience that events centered around sad music provide. Luke O’Neil, who organizes Emo Night Boston, addresses the appeal of Emo, of sad music, and the spectacle of Emo Night. Luke told me that, “the practice of listening to sad music, and the concept behind something like Emo Night Boston are rooted in the same thing: a feeling of community.”

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Just as I listened to Modest Mouse as if they were right there with me, people come to Emo Night to sing about being alone and depressed but remind themselves, as Luke puts it, “hell, I’m not in this alone. I’m not the only one who has ever felt this way. [We are] physically together with other people we know, or don’t know, but have something in common with, commiserating together.” He articulates the positive function of sonic or lyrical negativity: “It’s a sort of ceremony of healing, if you want to over-analyze it. But then,” he says, “there’s the part where it’s just a lot of fun to sing the lyrics to punk songs with a bunch of drunk pals.” There is so much to be enjoyed in melancholy music. Listening to people sing about the hardest of human experiences can be uplifting. Huron and others show us that sad music is not that sad at all. If you’re not convinced, check out the next Emo Night on September 29th. At the very least, you’ll be entertained.

LISTEN TO:

MODEST MOUSE - ALONE DOWN THERE FIDLAR - I JUST WANNA DIE RADIOHEAD - PRESENT TENSE WAVVES - MY HEAD HURTS BRAND NEW - SOWING SEASON

SONGS OF THE SUMMER PLAYLISTS CURATED BY THE CLASS OF 2020

MADELEINE CLARKE

For me, summer is grasping onto a limitless freedom, the independence in a set of keys, a car, and a never-ending road. Summer is a sweaty brow. It is dirty feet, itchy mosquito bites, and scraped knees. It is being out of breath, and smiling so much your jaw hurts. Summer and its accompanying music (in particular, these fifteen songs) make me feel free, and provide me an opportunity to live life to its fullest. The songs in this playlist include both ones that I have loved for years and ones that I have discovered this summer. They range from R&B to Acoustic; from Electronic to a weird psychedelic Pop ballad (“An Eluardian Instance” by Of Montreal) that I fell in love with in 9th grade. There are some (“Downtown” Majical Cloudz, “Drive” by Milo) that I like to listen to while riding my bike at night (a potentially dangerous but blissfully serene alone time), and there are some (“Probably Nu It” by Tree, “PULL UP” by Abra, “Best to You” by Blood Orange) that I like to listen to a little too loudly while I drive a little too fast. But no matter how different the songs are, they all leave me with the same feeling I get when I step out of cold, stuffy air conditioning into the warm embrace of a summer day – the sensation of unfettered freedom and infinite opportunity.

YOJI WATANABE Beyond the crowded pools and comfortable lack of layers, summer is a time for exploring all those things we had so little time for during the year. For some, that means going into that abandoned house they always drove past coming back from work; for others, that means taking up a hobby that they never seemed to have enough time to delve into – for me, it means 100 bushours traveling through my home country, Brazil. My playlist is a mix of songs shown to me on my trip by both locals and other travelers, alongside some personal jams. Beyond Brazilian music, it also features French and American songs; reggae to anti-folk; classic and contemporary. The haphazard collection is like Brazil’s eclectic way of life – a potpourri of the best other cultures have to offer. Save this playlist for offline listening: make your way down to the beach, order yourself a cachaça, and feel the brisa with some fresh jams.

FLORIST - VACATION TREE - PROBABLY NU IT TORO Y MOI - THANKS VISION CULLEN OMORI - CINNAMON LIL YACHTY - OUT LATE MILO - DRIVE MAJICAL CLOUDZ - DOWNTOWN STOLEN JARS - KEPT ANDERSON PAAK - THE SEASON | CARRY ME COOKIES - 1000 BREAKFASTS WITH YOU OF MONTREAL - AN ELUARDIAN INSTANCE BLOOD ORANGE - BEST TO YOU SOPHIE - JUST LIKE WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE ABRA - PULL UP SYLVAN ESSO - UNCATENA

GABRIEL O PENSADOR, LULU SANTOS - CACHIMBO DA PAZ OS MUTANTES - PANIS ET CIRCENSES CRIOLO - SUBIRUSDOISTIOZIN SEU JORGE - ZIGGY STARDUST COURTNEY BARNETT - AVANT GARDENER LED ZEPPELIN - BRON-Y-AUR STOMP JAQUES DUTRONC - HIPPIE HIPPIE HOURRAH THE THE -THIS IS THE DAY BECK - LOSER JEFFREY LEWIS - CULT BOYFRIEND BEAT HAPPENING - INDIAN SUMMER FRANK ZAPPA, THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION - HUNGRY FREAKS, DADDY SUN RA - SUMMERTIME AGAIN

Visit our website, melismamagazine.com, for Spotify links to these playlists and more.

MELISMA | SUMMER 2016 | 11

FALL PREVIEW WHO WILL BLOW UP

WHO TO SEE IN CONCERT

XAN YOUNG

Signed under Astro Nautico – one of our favorite labels – Xan Young has remained quiet, acting mostly as a collaborative artist. Astro Nautico, however, has been teasing a few of Young’s singles since last fall, and all of them sound poised to take off. Young’s debut, The Flood, does not yet have a release date, but we’re hoping it’s soon. Photo courtesy of Xan Young

BILLIE BLACK London-based songwriter Billie Black’s ethereal voice is breathtaking, but what makes her stand out is her age-defying emotional maturity and forward-thinking production. Working with producers like Mura Masa and Sam Gellaitry, she provides a stark electronic tapestry that lends impact to her delicate voice. Billie has picked up a following while supporting Jack Garratt on tour. Expect more buzz from future solo ventures.

WHO’S DROPPING ALBUMS Photo courtesy of Billie Black

JAPANESE BREAKFAST Michelle Zauner, i.e., Japanese Breakfast, has roots in Philly’s emo scene, but her music is closer to dream pop. Zauner has been attached to some great artists: her first EP was part of a project with Frankie Cosmos and Eskimeaux. She spent the summer on tour with Mitski, promoting their debut, Psychopomp. We expect Japanese Breakfast to grow in popularity this fall as she tours with Porches. Photo courtesy of Phobymo

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