Jordana
Jordana’s music has always possessed a unique sense of place. You can hear the stillness of a Kansas bedroom on her 2020 debut Classical Notions… Humid late night New York walks on her double EP Something To Say To You. There’s the kaleidoscopic otherworldliness of Summer’s Over, her collab release with TV Girl. The unmistakable sunshine of LA on 2024’s Lively Premonitions. But on her new semi self-titled project, Jordanaland, the 25-year-old songwriter has officially crafted a place all her own. “Jordanaland is definitely an escape from Americaland. It looks a lot like LA in the videos…for some reason. Weird,” muses Jordana. “But it’s wherever you want it to be, just close your eyes.” Recorded with her friends Charlie Kilgore & Julian Kaufman of offkilter pop group MICHELLE, the EP drops Jordana in her most brightly-colored surroundings yet. Mixed by a pair of Grammy Award winners in Olli Jacobs (Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, beabadoobee) & David Pizzimenti (Ella Mai, Ed Sheeren, Travis Scott), these songs soar with a sonic confidence that has previously only made occasional appearances in her discography. “Pop music was definitely the goal,” says Jordana. “Self assured, confident pop. I think the evolution came from becoming more comfortable with my voice, a more established sound, and also looking up to artists who let it all out in that way. I was pretty intimidated at first, because I love MICHELLE. They’re powerhouses. So I tried leaning into their energy, and I’m in love with what we made.” Of course, if her catalog is any indication, this might simply be a pitstop in a world of pop, but it’s a fully realized one. And in Jordanaland, she’s running for president. And she’s ruling with a very adorable iron fist. ndeed, the blissfully absurd title-track is where she shines brightest, turning a campaign slogan into a huge refrain: “Jordana, you can-a.” Meanwhile, the EP artwork is a take on a revolutionary war photograph, depicting the founding of her namesake homeland, complete with its own flag. But don’t let the whimsy fool you. Here she touches on some of her most honest subject matter yet. “Still Do” is a study in the begrudging love we maintain for the people who let us down. “Like That” is a reminder of the promises we make to others about caring for ourselves. “Hard Habit To Break” is about struggling with alcoholism. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows in Jordanaland. “Some of the songs were appropriate at the time given certain life events, others were me revisiting feelings,” says Jordana. Jordana has come a long way from that still Kansas bedroom in 2020, reinventing herself and her surroundings multiple times over. “It does feel liberating,” says Jordana, of her reputation as a genre chameleon. “There’s no expectation for me, or at least no expectation I’m paying attention to. I get to try new things all the time. It’s kind of like going to a theme park and seeing a bunch of your favorite rides and running over to each of them in excitement — each ride offers so many different feelings and experiences, that it’s so hard to choose only one to ride for the rest of the day.” If you want to find her today, she’s riding a dazzling rollercoaster named Jordanaland. Tomorrow? We’ll have to wait and see where the journey leads.
Carver Jones & The American Dreamers
22-year old singer-songwriter and Omaha, NE native Carver Jones always felt an undeniable pull towards music. After turning down a college basketball scholarship, Carver with his two best friends, hopped in an Van and hit the road. With no particular destination in mind other than to “see the Country,” the boys have performed on the streets and in venues of cities all across America over the past three years, seemingly gaining a lifetime of experience in the process. Having released his debut EP, CARV, in February 2024, Carver introduced his three-act AMERICAN DREAMERS EP with Vol 1 last Summer and Vol 2 this Spring. After playing a sold-out headline show in his hometown in late May, he and the band have relocated to Nashville to continue the story. On the back of the release of his latest single, Carver announced that he will be hitting the road this Fall to support 54 Ultra on his sold out US Tour. AMERICAN DREAMERS: Vol 3 is due out this Winter.
hoku EP Release
Seattleite
Infielder
Krisiun
Post Sex Nachos
Hailing from the middle of the middle of the Midwest comes a band that bends genres and produces tunes that’ll make you want to roller-skate and two-step to your heaviest feelings: Post Sex Nachos. Charging into battle for the love of the music, these roller-coaster rockers are here to redefine the term “boy band” forever. This 5-piece with a fantastically unique Venn diagram of influences and musical backgrounds continues to constantly reimagine the scope of what they can do with their art. Comprised of Mitch Broddon (lead guitar, support Vox), Sammy Elfanbaum (rhythm guitar, lead Vox), Kevin Jerez (keyboards, support Vox), Chase Mueller (bass, support Vox), and Hunter Pendleton (drums), Post Sex Nachos doesn’t just record music for virtual consumption – they bring it to the fans who matter most. Performing to sold-out rooms from coast to coast, Post Sex Nachos delivers a raw, once-in a-generation live show, replete with pop-hook singalongs that sweep you up, solos to make you quake, and grooves worth diving head first into. Veritable road dogs, Post Sex Nachos recently announced their next venture, dubbed “The Minor League”. Fitting, eh?
Neva Dinova
Florry
A far cry from the cool, calculated distance and reserved posture that is all-too-familiar to the indie-rock sphere, Florry, the Philly-bred septet and songwriting vehicle of bandleader Francie Medosch, are marking their territory as a band resolving to do something very different: they are having a really good time out there. Cutting her teeth in the Philadelphia DIY scene starting in 2019 as a student at Temple University, the early days of Florry found Medosch at the end of her teenage years releasing a slew of singles and EP’s in a familiar idiom of lo-fi bedroom recordings tinged with country melancholy. A lot has changed since then. Most importantly, perhaps, the project snowballed into a barn-burning seven piece rock band in the proceeding years; and without sacrificing any of the emotional immediacy that’s come to define Medosch’s brashly earnest, bleeding-heart lyrical style, you’re unlikely to find her lingering as much on the melancholy these days. Or, as Medosch plainly puts it in regards to Sounds Like… , the band’s forthcoming LP: “The Jackass theme song was actually a really big influence on the new album” The release of their 2023 formal full-length debut The Holey Bible (via Dear Life) found Medosch now flanked by six bandmates and trafficking in a wider, more rock-oriented approach with the bravado of someone with a new lease on life. With Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Colin Dennen on bass, Will Henrikson on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on Vox, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culturr) on drums, Florry 2.0 had arrived. The retooled seven-piece embraced a lengthy run of tours dialing in their new kinetic sound and freewheeling chemistry including runs with Fust, MJ Lenderman, Greg Freeman, and Real Estate. Greeted to critical acclaim upon its release, with positive notices from outlets including Pitchfork, Stereogum, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan, the album quickly introduced Florry to an expanded audience and pointed a way forward for Medosch and the band at a time when the future wasn’t so clear. “I had a job lined up selling insurance, I guess I figured that was that, you know?” As it turns out, that was not that. A few days went by, and then the phone started ringing. From managers, from booking agents, from indie-rock elder statesman Kurt Vile, who took the band on the road in support of his 2023 Back to Moon Beach LP. On the winkingly titled Sounds Like… , the band’s second full-length release via Dear Life, Florry is picking up right where they left off in 2023. Again upping the ante with a bigger, brighter, more abrasive sound that resembles something closer to Rolling Thunder Revue-era Bob Dylan than their humble DIY roots. Across ten tracks, the band wear their influences on their sleeve while carving out a space that is distinctly their own, blending raw honky-tonk grit and rich instrumental textures with the disarming sincerity and intimacy of the group’s lo-fi beginnings. It’s a record about searching—searching for home, for love, for meaning, and for a sound that captures it all. As Medosch croons on the red-hot opening track, First it was a movie, then it was a book Last night i watched a movie the movie made me sad ‘cause i saw myself in everyone how’d they make a movie like that?
Ryan Davis + The Roadhouse Band
After more than 15 years of releasing music on labels like Feeding Tube, Load Records, Astral Editions, Bruit Direct Disques, Petty Bunco, All Gone and others (including, if not primarily, his very own Sophomore Lounge imprint) as/alongside such outfits as State Champion, Tropical Trash, Equipment Pointed Ankh, Roadhouse, et al., Dancing on the Edge – a seven-song, 53-minute basement folk opus, self-released at the end of 2023 and recently reissued by Tough Love in the UK/EU – is the first collection of material produced under Kentuckiana-based visual artist, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ryan Davis’ birth name. The tunes on the album range from bare-boned, achingly crooned avant-folk tales to jovial, collaborative excursions into long-form experimental country-tinged rock modes. Continuing in the tradition of the TVZs, Terry Allens, Souled Americans and DC Bermans before him, this 2XLP reimagines the exceedingly dated archetypes of modern day indie troubadour music and the inherent trappings therein. Davis’ solo debut is a dense collection of Americana-Noir that navigates a familiar yet alternate reality, one of enchanted mundanity and uniquely Mid-Southern introspection. Simultaneously antisocial and outwardly inviting, free of cynicism yet slightly stepped in paranoia, Dancing on the Edge is as delicately choreographed and emotionally connective as it is, at times, absurd. The Roadhouse band, as it’s been assembled to meet increasing demands for live performances this summer and fall, features members of Kentucky-based experimental unit Equipment Pointed Ankh, Nashville songwriting voltron Styrofoam Winos and Athens’ bummer country/power-poppers Little Gold in a certain-to-dazzle assembly of both labelmates and friends.
