People ask me what instruments I play, and usually, I respond with, “Whatever gets it out of my head.”
Music has been an outlet for me for more than half my life at this point. I come from Chesapeake, Virginia, a place where music (let alone any form of art or entertainment) is totally underrated, never even remotely appreciated.
I guess if I had to describe my “story,” the story that at least gets told through my music, it would be a story of adolescence, at least for now. I have lived in Fresno for all of my (admittedly short) life, and I think it can show through my music at times. But I’m always looking for a way to escape. Whether it be the mountains or the beach, make no mistake that I’d rather be anywhere than Fresno from at least July up to September. Our summers are scalding and long.
If I can’t do that, though, I still have the long-standing escapist cliche of music.
Many years can go by, and one would have just a faint idea at best of what was going on in the midst of those rote routines, cycles, ellipses that engulf the conscious mind on a daily basis. The constant whirring of the gears, the hum of the system casting a tint across one’s attention span to prevent any particular deviation from the expected routine of the machine as it rolls along in its tread.
An observation of Tennessee Williams’ characters that seems inescapable to me is that of the unconscious voice that breaks through that cacophony of time rolling along. It’s the precarious tendency of the soul to drive the outward behavior against the will of the conscious mind, and it’s inside this space, the point of contact where the winnowing drill of the conscience irks the daily systems in one’s life to force itself forward – that is the locus of creativity to me. A slow moving, but insistent, generative focal point.
My name is Corynne Ostermann; I’m a multidisciplinary artist and musician playing bass & providing vocals for the Baltimore-based group Natural Velvet.
Natural Velvet started in 2012, and I’ve been involved since the beginning, as well as with my bandmates Spike Arreaga (guitar), Kim Te (guitar), and Greg Hatem (drums, production). I genuinely feel so lucky to have had my bandmates’ attention for as long as I have had, and as a result, I’m very protective of them and the long-term sustainability of our project.
My story starts with my Mexican parents. They eloped from Mexico City then had me in Los Angeles. Their early gift to me was a stand-up piano for kids. According to my mom, I spent most of my time on it, writing songs and playing them over and over. When I was a teenager, I was the frontwoman in a punk/indie cover band, then played in a few post-rock bands. I became obsessed with the label Thrill Jockey, and moved to Chicago because they were based there. My sister was my biggest champion—she accompanied me on the long drive. Even though she slept most of the time in the passenger seat, her love and support meant the world to me.
We are Aurora Falls, a post-rock band from Poland. We are a mixture of musical souls 🙂
We gathered at the beginning of 2021 to play some music, and we stayed longer. From the very beginning, we loved to seek space in our musical improvisation, somewhere between shoegaze, post-rock, blackgaze, or dreampop.
After a year of playing together, this concept finally took the shape that we call Aurora Falls. At the end of 2022, we decided to record some of our songs to share it with the world. That’s how it started.
Hi, we’re Parramatta from the UK. We write and record music that we hope would have been played by the late, much-missed DJ John Peel. If you have ever heard his show, you’ll understand; if you didn’t, let us explain.
Blurry lights, late-night, pink roses, and a tremendous amount of drama: Enter the world of The Spotlights. My name is Vincent, and I’m here to tell you the story of our first EP called THISWILLMAKEAFUNSTORYONEDAY.
Gas stations have always been a cornerstone of exploration. A glimpse into a different world every time you enter those doors lathered in other peoples fingerprints and rust from the hinges. We want to give you that feeling of going head first into a place that has room for exploration, where the possibilities never cease and the road always winding. But the first place every great trip starts and all good travelers go to share their tales is the gas station.