Hello friends. We are from the prairies of southern Alberta where it is sparse and dry, kind of like us. We don’t know what we’re doing or what we want, but we think we will continue. Join us as we try not to suck, but also don’t worry too much about being great. We’re just trying to be ok.
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.
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.
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.
by Leonardo
Vinyl Motherfuck is the solo (and unique) project of Leonard, a mexican guy that with his cheap lyricism and his basic but good instrumentals is making music since 2018 (but most of his published work is from 2019).
by Eli Stevick
After we started Soft Milk in 2015, there was a little buzz going because of our music but also some of wacky on-stage antics. It was just two of us then. We played with some cheap 10-watt amps and wore nothing but ghastly bed sheet costumes.
The Kameleon Bloom Collective was born from the amalgamation of two minds, two artists: Cuadrado and Torugo, that converged into the genre Lo-Fi, giving way to an idea: an album full of homemade beats, that would draw various references from many different subgenres, from trap (samurai jack), rock (changing perspective), reggae (bad luck), chillwave (working at 3 a.m.) and ambient (slow dance in the rain).
The song ‘Warsaw Ghosts’ from The Family Grave’s album Everybody Is Flawed is a tribute to the Polish capital, soaked in history and emotion. Here, its writer explains.
“And the ghosts are laughing, because this is Warsaw.
The vodka is cold but our hands are warm.”
by Kotaro Sumiya (Japanese Summer Orange)
As everyone knows, musicians often write songs for someone’s death. Before I became a musician, I was disgusted with this trend. Do they have to sing someone’s death on purpose? I was thinking like that.
We live in funny times.
The Artist writes his best song for seven years, suffers mental breakdowns, heartbreaks, crazy life situations, misunderstandings, self-doubt, rehabs, and other things that people might encounter in 7 long years. The song is finally ready. He records it. It takes a week. He releases it. Nobody buys it.
In the meantime, The Kid makes a beat on his iPhone; it takes him 3 minutes. He drops it. Someone buys it for $50, to rap about „bitches” over the mindless loop. The Kid buys more chewing gum.