Artist Profile: Anna Justen

Written By G.C. Bellchamber
Anna Justen sits on the ground with an electric guitar across her lap

Anna Justen’s musical journey began as a child, making up songs in her head and, eventually, creating her own notation system so that she could capture and remember melodies in her notebook. As listeners of the Seattle indie scene, her parents introduced her to Grunge and Punk music as well as early-2000s staples of that region: The Decemberists and Death Cab for Cutie.

She quickly began teaching herself guitar and piano but didn’t begin pursuing music seriously until she was at University. This was spurred by a realization that she had not only the capabilities to do so but also an imperative: “I had a moment of realization that, if I woke up and I was 80 years old and I hadn't pursued music, I would have felt like I wasted my life.”

Through her roots in Seattle and artistic formation in the underground scene of Montreal, Justen has developed a sound which blends the purity of folk songwriting with the angst and experimentation of alternative composition. With her latest singles, “Individualism” and “Peppermint”, Justen has arrived in full artistic form, showcasing the massive strides she has taken into the sound she has been trying to formulate for years.

“I always knew I wanted to expand the sound outside of just me and the guitar, but when I started, that's what I had access to.”

Her earlier EPs, namely “Morning” and “Saintclaire”, settle primarily in the territory of singer-songwriter, combining her wit and dream-like vocals with gently-stacked acoustic guitar melodies. However, her work recently with artist and producer Milan André Boronell has allowed her to unleash a fuller sonic range.

“I think it was the fact that he has way more experience and he's into that glitchy sort of sound, that I finally had the means to be able to [execute]. I could kind of expand my mind in a way that I wasn't able to with [just] my own abilities.”

Boronell and Justen are currently at work co-producing her debut album, Michou’s Dream, which, while leaning heavily into her new paradigm of composition, will maintain much of her trance-inducing songwriting and vocal capabilities. In fact, more than anything, the project will be a true return to her roots in Seattle.

The name “Michou” refers to her childhood cat, and the album is meant to capture what she imagines its dreamscape must have been like, commingling the desires of infancy with the harsh realities of family life and maturation. In addition to her family members’ voices being sampled throughout the project, Boronell even flew to Seattle last Winter to record organic sounds from around Justen’s childhood home, capturing the organic seeping of reality into dream.

She aims, ultimately, to have a “world around [her] music”, expanding her creations into thoroughly enmeshed conceptual realms. Her new project will feature a host of visuals that serve to supplement this vision.

With her next planned single, “Orange”, Justen gives an homage to her mother: a personal letter of gratitude for the things that often go unnoticed in parenthood. 

Read More
Artist Profile: Deadbeat Beat
Artist Profile: Deadbeat Beat

From the outset of his musical pursuits, Alex Glendening’s goal has always centered around songwriting— crafting tunes that not only serve to scratch a certain sonic itch but also, as his career has unfolded, are marked by his signature rhythmic complexities and idiosyncrasies.

Artist Profile: Ebbb
Artist Profile: Ebbb

Ebbb began merely as a Pandemic-spawned idea of producer Lev Ceylan, but that vision has continually evolved and folded in upon itself, and with their debut record Shallow Hits, the UK-based electronic trio has found its stride, etching out wavering emotional canvases across an ever-expanding sonic range.

Artist Profile: youbet
Artist Profile: youbet

Although youbet began as the bedroom-pop project of singer-songwriter Nick Llobet, the project was never simply just a creative outlet. As Llobet transitioned from his early days of obsession with technical guitar mastery and turned his attention towards building a fuller sonic world, he had a hazy vision of a layered, otherworldly songwriting approach— one that ultimately manifested in the experimentally-inclined indie folk of youbet and, with the addition of bassist Micah Prussack to the project, reached its culmination.

Artist Profile: Hillsboro
Artist Profile: Hillsboro

When Hillsboro’s frontman, Vancouver native Nima Walker, first began making electronic instrumentals in his bedroom as a teenager, he never imagined he would have the inclination to lead a rock band, let alone find the confidence and community that the activity required. But over a decade later, Hillsboro has found its fullest expression under the winsome eye of Walker’s earnest songwriting, and with the release of their new album A Party in Your Name, this artistic impulse has worked its way to the forefront of a distortion-heavy, garage-rock-oriented backdrop.

Artist Profile: Jack Shields
Artist Profile: Jack Shields

When guitarist and songwriter Jack Shields got the call that he was being invited to join Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners, he knew that his life, in many ways, had changed forever. In a sense, he had accomplished the goal he had first set out to achieve as a teenager— to live and work full-time as a musician. But beyond the tours and the recording, Jack’s new gig has yielded one central benefit. He’s gotten to devote his attention to his solo venture, Jack Shields & The Mojave Rush, and with the release of his newest album Avalanche Hour, he’s continued to carve out the distinct, ragged sound that has become all his own over the past few years.

Artist Profile: Ellen Froese
Artist Profile: Ellen Froese

For Ellen Froese, the Saskatchewan-born singer-songwriter, the release of her 2026 project Solitary Songs, a collection of 11 tracks recorded in an open studio setting with a group of friends in 2024, represents more than a return from the four-year break she took from the music industry. The project is a testament not only to the new artistic balance she’s found, but to a mode of living and a freedom of expression she’s carved out as she’s slowly come into her own as a songwriter.

Artist Profile: Accessory
Artist Profile: Accessory

Jason Balla, currently of indie-rock outfit Dehd and formerly of NE-HI and Earring, has been a fixture of the Chicago rock scene for almost as long as he can trace back his musical consciousness. But with the release of his second solo record as Accessory, entitled Dust, he’s at his most intrepid, carving out spaces informed, but not wholly defined by, his roots in noise rock and his long-held passion for “weirdo” music.

Artist Profile: Valentin Prince
Artist Profile: Valentin Prince

Valentin Prince’s winding musical journey, which began as a child listening to his father sing Bob Dylan songs as he walked through the halls of their house outside of Boston and came to fruition  in the small, passionate scene of Harrisonburg, Virginia, has left him with an endless array of imprints and fascinations— one that has been expressed in various forms in each of his unique solo releases.

Artist Profile: rug
Artist Profile: rug

When Violet Beller and Anakeesta Ironwood first met at the University of Miami, they knew immediately that they would click as friends. Their similar musical and creative affinities ensured it. But what they didn’t know was the coiling twists and turns that their original sapling of an idea would take on, incorporating member after member from their scene until rug, as a sprawling, seven-piece indie band, came to find its complete form.

Artist Profile: Fugue State
Artist Profile: Fugue State

When Northampton-based composer and producer Dan Langa set out to create a live version of his COVID-era concert After Nothing Comes, enlisting a number of collaborators to re-interpret and re-record the work in a live setting, he had very little idea what would ultimately come of it. Fugue State and its first full release— a collage-oriented, experimental version of the original chamber composition— came about unintentionally, as a gradual crystallization of Langa’s artistic intentions as he worked on the project.

Artist Profile: Bummer Camp
Artist Profile: Bummer Camp

NYC-based guitarist and singer-songwriter Eli Frank has found creative release through Bummer Camp, his solo endeavour turned full-band project, in the years since the dissolution of his DIY punk venture Top Nachos. But now, as the release of the newest Bummer Camp record Fake My Death indicates a turn in a more pop-leaning direction, it’s become evident that Frank is operating at a level of artistic freedom that has, at times throughout his career, been difficult to keep near the forefront of his creative atmosphere.

Artist Profile: The High Curbs
Artist Profile: The High Curbs

For founder and frontman Ed Moreno, SoCal-based indie and garage-rock band The High Curbs has served as a sort of journal for his musical inspirations and creative leanings since its formation in 2013. At the time, Moreno was in high school, but over the decade-plus The High Curbs have been in action, he has watched himself grow from an energetic, rock-loving teenager to a more mature artist, coming to love the artistic process itself to the same extent he’s always been impassioned by the actual act of performing his music.

Artist Profile: she’s green
Artist Profile: she’s green

she’s green has come a long way from their roots scrapping together demos in their shared house in Minneapolis, but their unique brand of “moss rock”, a folk and indie-inspired, dreamy shoegaze blend, has managed to maintain its centrality to their image and their artistic output in the meantime. With the upcoming release of their third project swallowtail, however, they have reached a new level of creative polish and cohesion— one that is imminently recognizable in the nooks and crannies, the infinite and collapsing spaces, they fill with their withering sonic atmosphere.

Artist Profile: Dirt Buyer
Artist Profile: Dirt Buyer

Although Dirt Buyer originated as simply another foray in the playful experimentations of founders Joe Sutkowski and Ruben Radlauer, it quickly took on a life of its own, serving as an outlet for the constant musical energy and slowcore-tinged riffs the pair exuded. But for Sutkowski particularly, the band (and the release of Dirt Buyer III) have become a sort of baseline— one that, as he exits a long-standing battle with addiction, represents a goal of a comfortable and intimate creative space to return to.

Artist Profile: Radicule.
Artist Profile: Radicule.

From the time he was first immersed in his brother’s rotation of southern hip-hop, NY-born producer and rapper Radicule. knew that, in some shape or form, he wanted to be involved in the direct thematic delivery and pure artistry those rappers exhibited. In the years since, his style has taken massive leaps and turns, but he and his central creative intention have remained intact.

Artist Profile: Iguana Death Cult
Artist Profile: Iguana Death Cult

Iguana Death Cult came to life as the garage-punk passion project of four teenage friends, and it has seen its fair share of transformations over the roughly 12 years since its inception. But their newest record, Guns Out, represents more than just a sonic evolution for the Rotterdam-based band. After two of the band’s original members made the difficult decision to move on from the project, Guns Out is a triumphant and searing continuation of the psychedelic and funk-rooted influences that defined their earliest efforts.

Artist Profile: best dressed ghost
Artist Profile: best dressed ghost

best dressed ghost, the garage and surf-inspired punk band from New Jersey, has taken a leap of artistic confidence in the release of its second record, Let’s Go Home, in March. When tracing the creative threads through the trails of their first record, however, a singular characteristic of the band’s work becomes clear— all four members possess a special sort of creative unison, elevated by the sheer charisma and energy that percolates not only through frontwoman Stef Leo’s personality-laden vocals but also through the band’s relentless willingness to adapt to the diverse vibrancies that each track demands.

Artist Profile: Ovven
Artist Profile: Ovven

Ovven, the solo project of Dallas Ugly guitarist and touring virtuoso Owen Burton, came to life in February with the release of Gnawing At The Cord, Burton’s debut solo album. But the foundations of Ovven’s sound, which differ starkly from the softer Americana that composes much of his body of work, trace back to his childhood in Chicago— they are, in a word, utterly natural to Burton’s sonic vocabulary.

G.C. Bellchamber
Previous

Artist Profile: Benji Socrates
Next

Artist Profile: Okko