Joel and I first met in elementary school, and now attend the same high school. We just started making music together about a year and a half ago, and just released our first album on May 31.
Alternative
Hide and/or Seek
My second album is somewhat of a time capsule. These are the songs I wrote between realizing I needed to get better and doing something about it.
My alcoholism and dependence on other addictive behaviors (weed, sex, etc.) had progressed to a point where they had begun destroying every semblance of a good life I’d managed to build despite them. To preserve any chance I had at living well, I needed to change the way I spent each and every moment of my time. In order to honestly document these in musical form, I stripped away every instrument other than my voice, guitar, laptop, and tape recorder.
If there is anything for you in these songs, you will most likely find it outside of what I have to say about them. All I really have to say is thank you so, so much for listening. So much.
That said, in case it might inform your listening, here’s what I have to say:
Sifting Through Garbage: The Pet Traits Story
by Kyle Johnson
I have an incredibly vivid memory of the first time I heard Bad Brains. It was the first punk rock I had ever heard. I was fourteen years old, and I’m twenty-one now, but I can still conjure the feeling of that moment. The music tore through me. I felt the sound more than I heard it. It was summer, and I was staying in on a beautiful day to listen to music that a youtube algorithm was recommending me – but I’m so grateful I did. It made something click in my brain, like a light in a dingy basement being flicked on for the first time. I felt completely at home in the break-neck speed and sheer volume of the music. If you know that record, the first Bad Brains record, it is insane sounding even by today’s standards. I left the first playthrough of hundreds a completely changed kid. The world looked and felt different. I was in on some kind of secret.
I would later learn, of course, that I was far from being the only person that had this exact revelation. Very far. But it felt so special to me. I’ve played in bands and written at least a couple hundred songs since that day. I started a band with my best friends (Bad Nostalgia, check us out) that’s still kicking to this day, and we’ve played countless shows. We made an album by ourselves. I have grown as a person and lived through trial and tribulation as we all have. But that first experience hearing punk rock music was my watershed moment.
It encapsulated everything I love about music, art, and life. It’s all lead to me starting Pet Traits. I wanted to capture that feeling of excitement and wonder and use it as a creative power-tool. I threw out a lot of what I knew about music: the conventions, the chase of perfection, the safe bet, for total creative liberation. This is how I did it.
Even if it doesn’t pay… Even if not many people take interest
“Hey, mom where is my bass and guitar?”
“I took them to grandma’s; you’ve been playing way too much.”
This is how I woke up one day in grade 11 because I wasn’t doing much of anything other than making up random melodies and recording them on a tape player. I loved the fact that I was in control of making these things up and that they were not being graded or picked apart by a teacher or whatever…
Music, Good For The Brain
by Limbic
Hi we’re Limbic, yes we’re named after the limbic system in your brain. The limbic system processes your emotions and memories, two things we believe music heavily influences.
Coming from the north-east of England we found ourselves in a local gigging scene oversaturated with your stereotypical indie bands, a cliché we never wanted to find ourselves landing in. Looking for an original sound to our area we created Limbic. An alt-experimental band that utilises synth to create a balance between your traditional indie band and the whacky world of synth sounds.
Fly My Freak Flag
I’m Jesse, an independent singer/songwriter/producer. I’ve been recording music in different projects since 2009. Juliet’s Funeral, The Freddy Velcroman Expedition, and International Spies just to name a few. I’ve always been inspired by the DIY concept of garage rock and punk bands. I’m a huge fan of the ’60s and ’70s psychedelia and pop music.
I would describe my music as Alternative Pop Rock with explorations into Folk/Blues, Reggae and Jazz. I’m trying to find that someplace out there for my music, those ears to hear it and hearts to feel it. It’s been hard with such a wide range of influences. That’s when I realized I’d have to carve out my own corner here on this earth to fly my freak flag.
A Momentary Cocoon Of Memory
We are Loving Love, an art project that was started in Kyoto in 2018 by Kotoku Tsurutani and me, Hifumi Sasaki, the lead songwriter, and guitarist. We have grown to five members now, and we have released our 1st EP, “A Momentary Cocoon Of Memory.” Please check it out!
Awkward noodle with a dream
by Goman Hira
I’m honestly just an awkward noodle that spends way too much time watching anime, 3d modeling, and making music. I feel that the arts are the best way for me to fully show myself to the world since words often fail me.
4 Tracks and an Indie Dream
The Noble Kind is a three-piece Indie-Rock band based in Rochester, NY. TNK performs at benefit shows to raise money for “Noble” causes in the community. Their latest EP Aeternum was recorded near their home town and has solidified their indie sound.
Life Goes On
“Life goes on” has come out with quite a psychedelic buzz – it has had a big CD release party in the Hangar49 in Berlin on May 24th. For me, “just a girl with guitar from Eastern Europe,” the album turned out to be a momentum of all the things unsaid, a story of moving abroad, a cry-your-heart-out type of collection for self-therapy.