Stefan Weiner - “How Lucky You Are”
How Lucky You Are is Stefan Weiner's first full-length album. The record is an ode to silver linings, all the learning that can come from difficult times, and how the lighter stories in between are made ever more sweet by their hard bookends. Sometimes the greatest gifts are wrapped in the ugliest paper. Stefan spent years finding his way back to folk music after a year's long struggle with chronic pain that kept him from performing. Now fully recovered, Stefan was able to self-produce How Lucky You Are and play nearly all the instruments on the album. He does not take this newfound physical and musical freedom for granted. The songs and the album itself are proof of what can be overcome and the growth that happens along that journey.
Coral Moons - “summer of u (deluxe)'“
Coral Moons’ launched their sophomore album last summer - taking their live show on the road and completing their first ever national tour. They have been starting to make a stir in the musical festival scene - playing Boston Calling & Levitate Music Festival in 2023, Floyd Fest in 2024, and continuing their momentum with Green River Festival & Summerfest in 2025 - their new songs are starting to make a mark. ‘summer of u’ deluxe sheds a light on the craftsmanship of the bands live performance that has been developing and flourishing these last few years as a band on the road.The live version of the title track off the record 'summer of u' encapsulates Coral Moons’ high-energy performances and showcases the vocal range and thoughtfully-crafted storytelling of lead singer Carly Kraft.
Rachael Jenkins “The End”
The End EP is an ending to Rachael’s singles throughout the years. Stepping into a new era and wanted to close the chapter with an acoustic EP featuring her four previous singles. Those songs shaped Rachael as an artist and kickstarted her career, so she want to send them off properly. Recorded in bedrooms, in London and New York. These are her coming of age songs, following Rachael through loss of faith and reclamation of self.
Ellis Ludwig-Leone “Past Life / Lifeline”
This collection of contemporary chamber works features a distinguished ensemble of performers—Dutch Music Prize-winning harpist Lavinia Meijer, violist Nadia Sirota (yMusic), GRAMMY®-nominated percussion quartet Sandbox Percussion, and soprano Eliza Bagg (Roomful of Teeth)—each of whom has had a profound influence on the creation of Ludwig-Leone’s work.
Nathan Schram “Let Me Out”
This work is about our lives and the lives of artificial intelligences. Nathan composed and recorded all of the music himself however the video material was produced using a recently developed, open-source AI video generation technology called Stable Diffusion. That is not to say that the prompt was only “weird music video” and magic appeared, but the computation really was the heavyweight in this artistic partnership. Nathan held a more curatorial role by controlling input material and editing together a cohesive narrative from the various generation techniques. Much of the original material are photos from Nathan’s life and childhood.
San Fermin “Arms (Strings Versions)
Evan Chapman “Reveries”
Evan said '“When my daughter was born in the fall of 2022 and I took 3 months off for paternity leave, the external pressures outside my home temporarily froze and I suddenly had time without the weight of work on my shoulders - providing me new space to reflect on my priorities and look inward. This manifested in the form of returning to childlike musical exploration in my attic home studio during my newborn daughter's many lengthy naps each day - droning on my rickety old Estey childrens' pump organ, bowing my vibraphone, running electronic sounds through old cassette tape decks, etc... for hours and hours on end. After months of rekindling a love for sonic tinkering without a specific goal in mind, it eventually dawned on me that I may actually have enough material for a full-length album. Once I had this realization, I got to work organizing all of my paternity leave demos and expanding their arrangements into fully-realized "songs" which now make up Reveries.”
Jacqueline Hackett - Pollyanna Cowgirl
The entirety of ‘Pollyanna Cowgirl’ was written in 2022. In the beginning of that year, I read Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” for the first time and found myself, at that time, relating to the protagonist who finds little satisfaction in herself and life. As the story progresses, her mental well being deteriorates and the story becomes one of a vulgar self hatred for herself. In one instance in the book as she is in the depths of comparison, the narrator describes someone as a “Pollyanna Cowgirl.” The quote is meant to judge another’s ability to act “put together” and “okay” while also struggling with mental health. This idea brought attention to my cover ups with my own mental illness in my personal life, the seemingly good and happy persona so many of us find ourselves in as a means of survival. The entirety of the record is an attempt at peeling back those facades and being brutally honest about the various struggles I was going through at the time of writing it, starting with the focus and title track, “Pollyanna Cowgirl”. The title of the album is also a play on the alternative country sound my band and I often write around and lean into sonically.
Divine Sweater - A Time For Everything
“A Time for Everything” is a passage commonly read at funerals. It reminds mourners that death is both an inevitable tragedy and a powerful catalyst for transformation. On their newest album, Divine Sweater chronicles an intense period of change following a string of unexpected personal losses. “A Time for Everything” interrogates grief, reframing loss as a catapult towards self-actualization. Throughout the eleven-song album, singer Meghan Kelleher uproots her life, quits her job, and moves to New York in search of a new artistic community and a more authentic version of herself. She dares listeners to take a similar leap, to “burn it down and start all over.”
Charlotte Rose Benjamin - “Moth Mouth”
The ambitious "Moth Moth", recorded in part at Electric Lady Studios, stretches over a range of genres and moods. If "Dreamtina" was Benjamin’s introduction, a challenge to see if the band could establish their sound as a pillar in NYC’s indie rock scene, "Moth Mouth" is an exploration of that sound. Benjamin’s songwriting, once packaged in neat alt- country-indie-rock standards washed with layers of guitar distortion, snappy hooks, and Wilco-style floaty tambourine driving folk, now feels heavier, blunter, and more confident.
Michael Simon Armstrong - “Love Songs For No One”
Love Songs for No One was the result of Michael Simon Armstrong looking through old recordings and voice memos. The 2024 release features songs last written in 2019. The focus and opening track, What We Can Do, was written almost a decade ago, in 2015. “These are all songs that’ve just stuck around for me,” MSA says. “I could never let them go, even if I passed them up on previous releases. They had never fully clicked but I knew they had potential.” For good reason – these songs have waited out previous projects, some electronic and pop leaning, before finding the folk-y, authentic, and mostly minimalist home they ended up in. All centering around a long term relationship that ended at the very beginning of the pandemic, these songs have the rawness of being written at the time, but the maturity of five years in the rearview.
Coral Moons - “summer of u”
"summer of u" is a victory album full of moxie. It’s an autobiography that walks you through the twists and turns of being a woman in our society. It’s an album for the lovers and haters - but most of all it’s an album for the fighters. It reflects on self doubt and self loathing whilst bringing you through the journey towards self-worth and self-acceptance. The album was recorded in Seattle, WA with producer Andy D Park, featuring appearances from Jessica Dobson of Deep Sea Diver on guitar. The band recently had some close friends and family relocate to Seattle, specifically one that had terminal cancer - that made the choice to record in Seattle with Andy a no-brainer. The songs on the album were influenced by the greenery of the Pacific Northwest, so creating among this source of inspiration as well as being surrounded by friends and family was restorative for the band.
Claire Ozmun - “Dying in the Wool”
Claire Ozmun's streaming debut, "Dying in the Wool" showcases rock, folk, and Midwest emo sensibilities through a singer-songwriter lens. With provocative and tender lyrics mirrored by a more-than-capable band, Claire proves herself as someone who wants to cut to the core. The EP was recorded with producer Allen Tate (San Fermin, Wild Pink, Daisy the Great) at Better Company Studios in Brooklyn, New York.
Wormy - “We’re Sweating All The Time”
This was a longtime dream of mine - to have some of my favorite artists reimagine my songs. Since I first wrote the songs for my record “I’m Sweating All the Time,” I thought of who I’d want (in an ideal world) to do a version of each song and they’re exactly the artists set down for this release. It’s very much a cliche to say ‘it’s an honor to work with some of my favorite artists,’ but with this project there’s truly no other way to say it. It’s very surreal to hear Annie DiRusso sing ‘No offense but fuck you’ and Medium Build sing ‘I’ll piss my pants on the airplane,’ two lines I thought were almost too silly to jot down. Now they are a permanent fixture in how people hear my music.