melt exclusive:
Anna Justen
“It's young Anna's dream to not have that turmoil but through the lens of this innocent viewpoint of a cat who, regardless of the screaming and the pain and the fear, was still a loyal creature always and loved purely despite the pain and the violence. Basically that's the concept of the album; it's his dream metaphorically.”
Read Above: Anna Justen, the Seattle-born singer-songwriter, has been carving out her own artistic path in Montreal for the past few years, and, with the recent release of her debut album, MiCHOU’S DREAM, has burst fully onto the scene as a dynamic, introspective, and sonically intriguing young artist.
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Featured Artist Profile:
Rhys Langston, the literary-minded, enigmatic abstract rapper from Los Angeles, has been calibrating his pen and creative approach since he was a child, but, since his full-faced discovery of music as a creative outlet as an adult, has become one of the most intriguing rappers on the scene.
Rhys Langston
“On the clock”- The Making of 3rd shift documentary
2024, Directed by Ryan Heinz
In compliment to their recent album, “3rd Shift”, veteran rappers Squadda B and JUS have released a documentary compiling footage of their months of writing and recording. Made in summertime Detroit, the album is, in part, based on the grind mentality of the Motor City. With beats by Squadda and flows by JUS, Fat Ray, and more, it has been one of the must-listens of 2024.
Normally based in Oakland, Squadda says that traveling repeatedly to Detroit in order to make the album was “Definitely needed. You’ve got to kind of get out of your comfort zone a little bit, and I'm very comfortable in Detroit. But still… you're not at home. You're not near your bed.”
Watch the documentary now to see how the two artists push each other out of their comfort zones in order to create a gem of a project.
Listen to 3rd Shift now on:
10 Questions w/ odelet
Odelet, the Detroit-born producer and multi-instrumentalist, has been experimenting between genres for multiple years now, and, with the release of their newest album, Angels (Revived), the experiment has reached new heights.
A dynamic blend of soul, funk, jazz, reggae, and other musical roots, the album encapsulates perfectly the genre-agnosticism that permeates Odelet’s creative output.
Currently based on the West Coast, their work in visual art has slowly become intertwined with their musical ventures, and the ultimate result, which is in part represented in Angels (Revived), has blossomed into a transformation of their creative process and manifestation of sound.
Artist profiles
Drug Bug, the newest solo project of the Alberta-based, shoegaze-tinged pop act behind both Star Starer and Willy Rodriguez, has only existed for just over a year and, in the course of its emergence, has already logged two excellent projects, representing both the slowly-growing artistic confidence and the new sonic directionality of their creator.
Drug Bug
Nuclear Monkey, the indie band masterminded by Richmond-based songwriter Nate Neuwirth, has now oscillated between the intimate settings of home studios and the explosive, improvisational settings of live shows for almost four years and, somewhere in between, has found a distinctly unique medium: one that takes jazz-riddled tastes and sensibilities and injects them into the very veins of their stripped-back, indie sound.
Nuclear Monkey
XINDIEX
XindieX, the explorative indie artist from Martinsburg, West Virginia, came to music relatively late in life, as a result of a devastating football injury that left a void in his heart, and, as he experienced a growing passion for music and the fading of his youth simultaneously, a unique sound, born from the crucible of reverb-soaked indie and saturation-laden post-punk, was born.
Wieuca
Wieuca, the genre-transient rock band based in Atlanta, Georgia, has undergone a number of permutations, spurred by the purity and flexibility of its various musicians, and, now, as they work toward their next album, they have found a sense of constancy through their experimentations, etching out yet another unique sound as they enter a fresh creative rebirth.
Fatboi Sharif
Fatboi Sharif, who represents one of the most unique and harrowing voices in modern hip-hop, has been continuously attracted to the power latent in music, its capacity to bring out an inner, withheld emotion from both the listener and the artist, since he was a child.