How to Find the Right Collaborators
Collaboration is the cornerstone of the indie music scene. In my own career, and the careers of artists I’ve mentored, it’s single handedly been one of the things I’ve seen make the biggest difference. Why then, does it sometimes feel so hard? Here’s our guide to finding the right collaborators for your music, and making […]
The Story of Julia Pratt’s “Family Feud” EP
On Family Feud, Julia Pratt does what only the best singer-songwriters can do: she takes her own vulnerabilities, which are bound to specific and painful personal stories, and offers them to listeners to make their own. It’s a beautiful practice in authenticity by which everyone, from artist to audience, finds themselves looking around, teary-eyed, saying […]
Retrospective: “Telegraph Road” is Mark Knopfler’s Magnum Opus
Let’s look at retrospective in a unique way – searching for the artist’s peak. Not the most popular song; something harder – something we might think of as the Platonic peak. A song that conveys the essence of their good. Won’t reasonable people disagree? Let’s hope so. Mark Knopfler is a challenge because he does […]
Julia Pratt Deals with Her Past on Family Feud EP
A car crash inevitably produces a gapers’ block (the traffic caused not by an accident, but by the people who slow down to “gape” at the accident on the other side of the highway) and the fascination of the gaper is kin to the proverbial “there but for the grace of inscrutable cosmological forces and/or […]
Holly Humberstone Works Through Something on “Cocoon”
Holly Humberstone released the album Paint My Bedroom Black in 2023 which contained the track “Cocoon.”, and now she has released a new version of that song in collaboration with Medium Build. The original version is a lively, fully produced affair that kicks in with a relentless beat from very early on. The new version […]
The Power of Influencer Marketing for Indie Musicians
For as long as I’ve been in the music industry, influencers have been a vital part of an indie musician’s success. When I first started, it was blogs. Then it was playlists. Niche websites and even more niche festivals. And while all of those still bring a lot of value to an artist’s press and […]
Grete Creates Timeless Magic on “How Long”
The Lithuanian-born artist Grete now lives in Manchester, the city in northern England that gave us Oasis and Harry Styles. It’s refreshing to see a young artist like Grete, who doesn’t want to be confined by the bland “bedroom pop” stylings of many artists. Grete loves taking what she calls “nerdy” jazz chords and turning […]
Katie Pruitt Doesn’t Need to Be “Jealous of the Boys”
Who dresses up in a fabulous costume to step into a fearless alter ego capable of extraordinary feats? Whose hidden, secret self is maybe more true than the face they present to the workaday world? Drag queens. Also, Superman. “When I was younger, I wanted to be Superman,” sings Katie Pruitt on her new song, […]
Hovvdy Embrace the Power of Singing on “Make Ya Proud”
How do you harness the power of song? Hovvdy, the quirkily spelt duo from Austin, Texas, do it by jumping right in with a cymbal splash and luscious piano chords over a bare drum beat, somehow managing to get those chords to pull out all sorts of powerful emotions from me as they start to […]
Feel the Free Fall with Briston Maroney’s “Skydiver”
Transformation, like birth, is disorienting and scary. You think you’re in one place with everything all sorted out, and then suddenly you’re at square one, or square negative-a-million as it sometimes feels, with no idea where you are or what the heck you’re supposed to do. Briston Maroney’s “Skydiver” is a musical tribute to this […]
