Merce Lemon makes gentle indie rock that’s generous in its honesty and forthright in its storytelling. Since she was a child, she’s been a staple of the Pittsburgh DIY music scene, playing in bands such as the punky Two Dragons Black and Red, which she left when she was 12. She stepped away from music […]
Author Archives: Tasha Viets-VanLear
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Shawnee Dez lives the dream she’s been waiting for
Thom Yorke’s soundtrack for Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria is as stark, haunting, and unpredictable as the film itself. On the track “Has Ended,” reverberant drums and bass meld with a meditative tanpura drone and Yorke’s compressed voice, which drifts into the music layered two or three times over. His words are barely distinguishable, […]
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Y La Bamba return home with fresh self-knowledge on the new Lucha
The first song I heard from Y La Bamba was the title track from 2016’s tender and expansive Ojos del Sol. The music had a transformative quality that made it feel at once like the nostalgia of returning home and an imagined comfort yet to come. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos, the leader […]
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Ibeyi continue their search for magic on Spell 31
Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz, the French Afro-Cuban twin sisters in Ibeyi, have spent the past eight years making soulful alternative R&B that honors womanhood, ancestry, and communal spirituality across the Black diaspora. The duo have long been familiar with the painful reality of death; they lost their father, famed Cuban percussionist Miguel “Angá” Díaz, when […]
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Squirrel Flower braces herself for love’s unbridled force on new single ‘Your Love’
Ella Williams, the Massachusetts-born musician who makes music as Squirrel Flower, released her first EP, Early Winter Songs From Middle America, while attending Grinnell College in 2015, and she’s been steadily touring ever since. After graduation, she moved back to Boston to make her way in the DIY scene, and she soon turned heads with […]
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Claude creates dream pop for facing nightmares
On a warm and sunny afternoon in June, I meet up with Claudia Ferme in Palmer Square Park for an interview that turns into a picnic. We nibble on pastries I picked up from Lost Larson and sip Topo Chicos, soothed by the peacefulness that new summer warmth inspires in Chicago. As Claude, Ferme makes […]
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Hemlock wants us to stay in touch
Carolina Chauffe doesn’t like to stay in one place for very long. Some of the most dramatic turns on her life’s path have been unplanned—she’s driven by what she calls “Coincidence with a capital C.” She thrives in uncharted territory, lured by a stretch of road, a door held open six states away, or the […]