Annie Hart is a multi-instrumentalist minimal composer and songwriter. Her music runs the gamut from post-New Wave/Krautrock; ethereal ambient music based on classic synthesizers; and composed chamber music for small orchestral ensembles. She also has an accomplished history in film scoring for both short- and feature-length works, including for IFC, Universal Pictures/American High, Miu Miu, and Cross Pens. In 2023, she was selected for the highly competitive ASCAP/Columbia University Film Scoring Program, from which she was chosen as the Henry Mancini Film Scoring Fellow. Annie rose to fame as part of synthesizer trio Au Revoir Simone and their collaborations with David Lynch, Air, and many others. Her speciality is composing and recording synthesizers in a warm, natural, minimalistic way that emphasizes a rough-around-the-edge humanity. Annie is very interested in the intersection of music and community-building, and how participating in that area builds societal empathy for humanity and every being on Earth.

There is a ferocious Southern engine inside of Billy Allen + The Pollies’ debut album Black Noise. It thrums to life atop a classic rock chassis and expertly weaves in and out of gospel, grunge, funk, and soul along its eleven-song journey. From the explosive top of the album (a liberating anthem of self-worth called “All of Me”) to the spiritually haunting final track (the wurlitzer fueled “Go on Without Them”) Black Noise is a genre-defiant haymaker that lands. The band is a hybrid of four-piece rock outfit The Pollies and fellow Alabamian, and frontman, Billy Allen. The story of what fused Allen and The Pollies is one that begins in a bar eight years ago. This particular bar was on Allen’s gig circuit and it just so happens to be where Jay Burgess (founder of The Pollies) was having a drink that evening. While there was intrigue and potential in that first chance meeting, the two would remain ships in the night, each building their own careers, until years later when the stars would align at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals. As the story goes, both Allen and The Pollies, who were all occasional session musicians at Fame, were finally in the room together and the track on deck was Little Richard’s “Greenwood, MS”. To hear Allen retell this part of the story is to hear a man talk about the beginnings of a priceless friendship. “There was an immediate romantic musical connection,” Allen said. “This is my band.” To hear Burgess tell it, the feeling was mutual. Over the subsequent year, the two groups rehearsed, toured, wrote, and gelled together under the moniker Billy Allen + The Pollies. The joining of Billy and Jay (along with the other charter members of The Pollies: Spencer Duncan, Jon Davis & Clint Chandler) was like the clicking of a dislocated bone back into true. Named after a theoretical sound bomb with the power to destroy whole cities, Black Noise was written almost entirely during the pandemic, beginning as voice memos between Burgess and Allen. With the lockdown in full swing, the musicians became each other’s micro-community, and voice memos progressed to writing sessions in Jay’s garage, and continued to full band rehearsals at Jay’s Greenhill, Alabama, sanctuary Studio 144. When the time to cut the record arrived, they tapped long-time friend and Grammy winning musician Ben Tanner to produce and engineer. Tanner (co-owner of SingleLock Records and former Alabama Shakes keys player) brought the band to Sun Drop Sound in Florence where the bulk of the recording was done. The band was so deeply meshed that the album they captured between April and November of 2021, other than a small overdub section, was recorded fully live, without a click, and 3 takes or less per song. Listening to Black Noise feels like walking on the alien terrain of a new genre. It sounds like garage grunge by way of Jackie Wilson. The very same kerchief Billy Allen uses to wipe sweat from his brow on stage could be carrying DNA from Wilson Pickett, Joe Cocker, D’Angelo, Ziggy Stardust, or any of the Spiders from Mars. Theirs is a gritty and trailblazing sound. They are a band full of smiling time travelers, able to visit and draw from a multitude of eras and styles. Black Noise is an album that devastates you to the point of remembering why you love music. This is the type of band you root for. You can’t help it. They're that damn good.

Recording as ADELINE HOTEL, the songwriter, guitarist, and Ruination Record Co. label head Dan Knishkowy has made an art of complicated feelings, whether zooming in so closely that he can describe each individual thread or panning out until the view becomes psychedelic and strange. At a prolific pace, he has accompanied these observations with music that’s just as creatively restless. On one record, he is a solo guitarist improvising in a quiet room; on the next, he’s a piano balladeer backed by strings. He may front a rock band that draws inspiration from Neil Young at his most ragged and Richard Thompson at his most stately; on another, he may blend into the autumnal hush of a complex jazz group. The expertly written, masterfully delivered Watch the Sunflowers is the most colorful music of Knishkowy’s career. This, of course, is a direct response to what came before it. These seven imagistic songs arrive after 2024’s breakthrough Whodunnit, a record whose stark portraits of codependency and isolation were delivered as raw and nakedly as Knishkowy ever allowed himself. If those songs seemed to burst forward on the immediacy of their feelings, this time, he compares his approach to a Richard Linklater film. This process encouraged him to live inside the stories and notice how the passing of time changed the atmosphere, whether that meant embellishing the compositions with lush, expansive arrangements or sanding them down to impressionistic loops. ---------------------------------- ADRIAN O'BARR is a songwriter and guitarist living in Portland, Maine. Having put out music with his band Wildflower for the past 8 years, he is now embarking on a new musical journey under his own name. Influenced by Celtic music, Jazz, and the finger style guitar playing of Bert Jansch, John Martyn, and others, his new project is a deeper exploration of guitar composition and pushes the pastoral folk of Wildflower further into the unknown.

The Heart Collectors – Kymrie Henge (vocals, piano, bodhran), Reuben Loire (vocals, guitar), Mobius Barnaby (vocals, cello), and Tristan DaFoe (vocals, mandolin, banjo, guitar) - have built a reputation for live performances that dissolve the boundary between artist and audience. Their sound, rooted in the spirit of 60s and 70s folk and roots music, layers bowed cello, melodic banjo, atmospheric electric guitar, piano and 4 outstanding voices into what has come to be called “Ethereal Epic Folk” with a Celtic twist - moving from intimate harmony-led ballads to expansive, anthem-scale moments within a single set. "We can't build this wave of love alone," Henge says. "Every like, every share, every person who brings a friend to a show... that's how we reach more and more hearts. We're asking people to become 'Heart Collectors' with us. We call it the 'Heart Evolution' and it starts with one person sharing one song.”

Boyd Meets Girl pairs Australian classical guitarist Rupert Boyd with American cellist Laura Metcalf. The duo has toured the world sharing their eclectic mix of music from Debussy and Bach to Radiohead and Beyoncé, and their two studio albums have received over 4 million streams on Spotify. Both acclaimed soloists in their own right, Boyd has been described as “truly evocative” by The Washington Post, and as "a player who deserves to be heard" by Classical Guitar Magazine, while Metcalf, who has also toured as a member of the popular chamber ensembles Eighth Blackbird, Break of Reality and Sybarite5, has been called "brilliant" by Gramophone. Boyd Meets Girl has toured throughout the USA, India, Nepal, New Zealand, and Australia, including engagements at Caramoor, Newport Classical, Festival Napa Valley, Austin Classical Guitar, Moab Music Festival and many others. The duo’s debut album, released on the Grammy award-winning label Sono Luminus, reached #3 on the Billboard charts, and received the following praise in Gramophone: “They play like one, with a harmony of purpose as sure as their intonation.” Their follow- up album, Songs of Love and Despair, was also praised in Gramophone as “Beguiling… fascinating… enchanting…”

Acclaimed songstress Julia Haltigan embodies New York. She grew up in the gritty Lower East Side of NYC in the ‘90s. Coming from an eclectic family of classic New York personalities working as taxi drivers, soho artists, musicians and even a jailbird or two, Julia emerged from it all a sensitive badass who rides vintage Triumph motorcycles and sings with smoldering expressivity. Julia has written and released several records under her name, the latest being titled TROUBLE, in which she considered her surroundings and penned the quintessential Julia Haltigan New York music statement. TROUBLE is a collection of songs that pay tribute to the street-tough poetics and gritty rock n’ roll of Big Apple icons like Television, Blondie, Suicide and Lou Reed. Produced by native New Yorker Andrew Raposo with one track produced by TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek, the collection of songs captures this vibe with an artist-in-her-natural-habitat panache. Julia has toured extensively through the US and performs frequently at iconic venues throughout New York City (The Sultan Room, Union Pool, Bowery Ballroom). At the start of her career ASCAP featured Julia as an up-and-coming artist by inviting her to perform in their showcase at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Julia has shared the stage with such venerated names as Jack Antonoff, Norah Jones, Shannon Shaw, Nicole Atkins, The Waterboys, Judy Collins, Cherie Currie, Steve Earle and and has had the honor of performing live on taste making radio personality Vin Scelsa's show Idiot's Delight on WFUV.

Coralai is a string quartet consisting of Gabrielle Fischler (violin), Jennie Brent (cello), Chris Beroes-Haigis (guitar) and Martin Masakowski (bass). They compose and perform original acoustic, improvisational music, weaving inspirations from folk traditions across the world into a sound that is uniquely their own. Based in New Orleans, the quartet’s debut album SECRET EARTH was released in March 2026.

Tre. Charles is an Alternative/Indie Soul artist who dives into the depths of his soul, inviting you into his world with an expressive blend of warm and soulful undertones, powerful lyrics, and emotive crooning; which helps you navigate your way through the encompassing experience. Tre. has shared the stage with Yasmin Williams, Tune-Yards, Fantastic Negrito, Tank and the Bangas, Lo Moon, Son Little, Digable Planets and was a featured artist at the Newport Jazz Festival.

No other solo American guitarist this century has impacted that fecund scene quite like William Tyler. After crucial stints in Silver Jews and Lambchop, this adopted son of Nashville emerged at the dawn of the last decade with a string of inquisitive albums that paired the measure of his country rearing and classical enthusiasm with his ardor for postmodern experimentation, fieldrecordings and static drifts folded beneath exquisite melodies. Tyler dug Chet Atkins and GavinBryars, electroacoustic abstraction and endless boogie. His productive little enclave of instrumental music has increasingly followed such catholic tastes, not only ushering new sounds and textures into the form but also critical new voices and perspectives. And on the brilliant, bracing, and inexorably beautiful Time Indefinite, Tyler’s first solo album in five years, he steps at last into the widening genre he helped create. The guitar serves as a starting point for an album that will make you reconsider not only Tyler but also the possibilities and reach of an entire field. A vortex of noise and harmony, ghosts and dreams, anguish and hope, Time Indefinite is not a great guitar record. It is a stunning record—a masterpiece of our collectively anxious time, really—by a great guitarist.

Vines, the solo project of New York-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Cassie Wieland, offers a window into her inner world through expansive swaths of sound. She pieces together a celestial mix of synths, percussion, strings, and vocoded voice, making music that is at once deeply personal and cinematic in scope. This diaristic approach first took shape with her 2023 EP Birthday Party, and is crystallized on her debut LP, I’ll be here. With the sweeping and vulnerable I’ll be here, Vines arrives fully formed as an artist who crafts deeply resonant and open music – the kind that invites listeners in to listen, reflect, and share in the journey of learning through living. Her music has been featured on Billboard’s Tiktok Top 50, Stereogum, KEXP, New Sounds, NPR, The New York Times, Financial Times, I Care if You Listen, AnEarful, and The Road to Sound. -------------------------------------------- Aided by gusts of thoughtful calm issuing from his pedal steel, the ever-present veil which has historically separated the abstract from the expressed finds itself gently parted at the storied hands of LUKE SCHNEIDER. Releasing his debut solo work with Third Man Records in May of 2020, Altar of Harmony was constructed inside the mind of a man who was always changing places. Whether it was touring with raucous-joyous Natural Child, contributing his signature tone to artists like Caitlin Rose and William Tyler or, later, supplying Grammy-nominated Margo Price with pedal steel across the United States and the wider world with appearances on SNL, Late Night, and more, Luke was subconsciously incubating what would, with time, deliver him to his future. Whereas devotional music has often been reserved for some lofted, untouched ideal, Schneider creates a unique type of music dedicated to the quiet power of the present moment. Glowing in cupped hands, like a secret, Schneider offers listeners a moment of calm to combat the frenzied atmospheres that attempt to thwart peace-of-mind. Schneider continues to create, adding his longing, familiar tone and psychedelic edge to projects from Orville Peck, S.G. Goodman, Kyle Hamlett, and longtime friend and collaborator William Tyler.

Erev began experimenting with minimal piano and synth-driven sounds in 2019. What started as improvised recordings eventually shaped 2021's EP, Sit Soft, and 2023's LP, Notes. Along the way, Erev's sound has evolved through collaboration with friends, stretching into ambient, balearic, and exotica. This sound was inevitably realized in tapping Benny Yurco (Little Jamaica Recordings) to co-produce 2025's A Little Less Worse (Aural Canyon). Weaving in and out of genres has become a natural home. Across these soundscapes, a common thread is found in tinges of nostalgia, carried by blissful melodies that evoke a playful curiosity.

ELIZA EDENS is a Brooklyn-based songwriter who studies love, grief, and geologic time through guitar-based music. After years of making lush, fingerpicked guitar music, the singer has reemerged with their first single in three years “Leash.” With a fresh palette of bouncy electric bass, watery keys, and off-kilter guitars, Edens encourages the listener to give in to their vices yet keep them in check. The track marks a shift in style for Edens and serves as a hint of what’s to come. __________________________________ RANDY MILES is an alt-folk artist born and raised in New England. After a decade of gigging and touring in bands like The Bright Light Occasion, Trees to Towers, and GoldenOak, along the East Coast and sharing the stage with bands like Paramore, 30 Seconds to Mars, and Dashboard Confessional, he's turned inward to craft his first solo album. Dingy basement circus carnies, steel workers and single mothers - Miles writes for the misfits, mystics, and the workers with tired hands. His songs look to transform the minutiae of everyday life into something more evocative that slows the pulse just long enough to notice the beauty and quiet grief of being human right now.

Cold Chocolate is a genre-bending Americana band that fuses folk, funk and bluegrass to create a unique sound all their own. Led by Ethan Robbins (vocals/guitar/mandolin) and Ariel Bernstein (vocals/percussion/banjo), the Boston-based duo released their sixth full-length album in the winter of 2026. “We're growing as a band, and I think that shows in our songwriting,” says Robbins. “I see this album as a leaping off point for many more new albums to come, and that's an exciting prospect,” adds Bernstein. Punctuated by tight harmonies and skillful musicianship, Cold Chocolate has quickly gained recognition for their original music and high-energy shows. The band has shared bills with Leftover Salmon, David Grisman, and Angelique Kidjo, and regularly performs at venues and music festivals across the country. Jason Verlinde of The Fretboard Journal who covered the band’s FreshGrass Festival set noted “there were plenty of magical moments…I will never forget [watching] Cold Chocolate perform.” Kathy Sands-Boehmer of No Depression raved, "[Ethan] feels the music in his heart and soul and it shows when he plays. Ethan becomes the music on stage. There’s an almost mystical connection between his guitar and the notes that flow out of it."

THE SPEED OF SOUND IS A BRAND NEW MAINE-BASED BAND THAT BLENDS...sharp musicianship, melodic sensibilities, and a love for timeless songwriting. Fronted by Spencer Albee on lead vocals, vintage keyboards, and rhythm guitar, the group features Zachary Bence (lead guitar, background vocals), Owen Markowitz (drums, background vocals), and Caleb Sweet (bass, background vocals). Rolling Stone once wrote, “There’s no shame in being a Fab Four disciple — Electric Light Orchestra, Oasis, and Squeeze made careers of it — and Spencer Albee is a 21st century master in the lost art of Beatlesesque hooks.” That melodic mastery is at the heart of The Speed of Sound. Albee’s career has spanned international tours, multiple major recording and publishing contracts, and collaborations with icons like David Bowie, Amy Allen, De La Soul, John Stirratt (Wilco, The Autumn Defense), Louisa Stancioff, and The Ghost of Paul Revere. Guitarist Zachary Bence, a William Paterson University jazz alum, has recorded with a range of acclaimed artists including Griffin William Sherry and Louisa Stancioff. Drummer Owen Markowitz draws on a rich background in jazz and improvisation, influenced by legends such as Tony Williams, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, and Nate Smith. Bassist Caleb Sweet, a Berklee College of Music graduate, and seasoned road musician after touring with The Wolff Sisters, Chris Ross and The North, and more over the past decade.

With each member living in a different, far-flung location, the Winged Wheel collective sometimes breaks off in smaller configurations that reframe the greater vision of the band in new, more granular explorations. This stripped-back version of Winged Wheel – featuring Fred Thomas (Tyvek / Idle Ray), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth / Orcutt Shelley Miller) and Cory Plump (Spray Paint / Tubby's) - will bring the full band's unique lens on improvisation and deep listening, but it's a rare close up on the specific interplay that happens between these three players, isolated from the context of the larger group. Vignettes of ambiguous construction, both tightly coiled and exploding, revolve around themselves, gathering intensity and mass, coalescing into something greater than the sum of its parts.

PAUL SPRING is a songwriter and guitarist based in New York City. He has released 7 albums in the last 5 years ranging from classical and folk to electronic. In 2021 he released J.S. Bach 12 String Transcriptions, supporting it with a 2 year long weekly residency in Manhattan’s Burp Castle. Between 2023’s Always Almost Home “meshing 90s pop and Bach” (MPR) and the “hidden pop gem” (Irish Times) of 2022ʼs Thunderhead, Spring experimented with minimal electronic production and folk. Aquarium Drunkard called his album, 2024’s River Flows Two Ways, “a singular fresh offering as well as a catalogue introduction of sorts.” It accompanied a canoe tour down the Hudson River. In 2024 and 2025 he recorded Kind of Heaven and Dumb and Free with drummer and co-producer Jon Nellen. In the summer of 2025, Paul put out an album of original music entirely in Classical Latin entitled Vita Brevis. He has also appeared as a session guitarist and co-writer on Blackthought and El Michels Affair’s Glorious Game, and his guitar playing was sampled on releases by Kenny Beats, Vic Mensa, Sofia Valdez, and Kirby. ______________________________ A subtle sonic breath that moves between Canterbury sound, freak folk, and a playful, cosmic psychedelia, NIC T is the solo project of Nicola Traversa, a songwriter from Vicenza, Italy. Considered as one of 2024’s revelations of the Italian alternative scene following the release of his debut album The Saint (HORA Records) — a work born from more than 15 years of dedicated exploration to find his own voice within the vast sea of English-language songwriting. The rich and eclectic arrangements, built on counterpoint and unusual timbral pairings, unfold around melodic lines and harmonic progressions that interweave and converse with the voice, used across multiple registers that often push the singer to his limits. ______________________________ KENDRA MCKINLEY paints on her clothes and makes music for smoking weed with your bra off. She’s a conduit of connection with a voice that sounds like tuned honey, creating music that braids sensuality, levity and polish. Whether she’s casting spells with her looping pedal or fronting a dynamic band, her live show is an invitation to swerve and swoon to her yummy grooves. Born in Santa Cruz, California, into a family of artists, McKinley has been immersed in a spectrum of performance mediums from a young age. Theater, dance, choir, painting, fashion, and music have shaped this intuitive performer, laying the foundation for a dynamic and multifaceted career in the arts. She’s shared bills with Nai Palm (of Hiatus Kaiyote), Salami Rose Joe Louis, Madison McFerrin, Gail Ann Dorsey, and Kimbra.

Rachel moved to New York City in the late Nineties from Suffolk, England and honed her songwriting craft with her unique ‘bass and voice’ style. Rachel has created six full-length LP’s: Firefly (2001), Mint (2003), Peach Pony (2005) (includes a duet with Norah Jones), Colors (2010), So Bright (2015), and The Moonlights (2017) (a collaboration with Dean Jones). Peach Pony was released in several international territories to critical acclaim. Rachel sang onstage with Norah Jones at the Grammy™ Awards in 2003 and is featured alongside her, songwriter,Jesse Harris, and others, on the Best of the Living Room compilation released in 2002. Rachel has recorded vocals with Moby, as well as Chris Ballew of Presidents Of The United States' family music project, Caspar Babypants on his album Sing Along (2011). Rachel has toured in the United States as well as internationally to Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, Scandinavia and South Korea. Rachel also lent her vocal talents to the Grammy™ Winning album Can You Canoe? (2013) by The Okee Dokee Brothers, and Grammy™ Nominated albums Dark Pie Concerns (2016) and Brighter Side (2018) by Gustafer Yellowgold. In 2005 Rachel co-founded Apple-eye Productions with her husband Morgan Taylor to create an outlet for their creative projects, including Gustafer Yellowgold. Her role as manager, business administrator and creative graphic production designer, has led to the project to becoming a nationally known and critically acclaimed family-entertainment brand. After Morgan's sudden and unexpected death in 2022 from Toxic Septic Shock Syndrome, Rachel curated and performed at a number of concerts to honor Morgan's music and life, and also produced and released Best of Gustafer Yellowgold double vinyl album, The first LP is the top 14 songs voted for by Gustafer Yellowgold fans, and the second featured recordings of Morgan Taylor/Gustafer Yellowgold songs by Frances England, Justin Roberts, Parker Jacobs, Chris Ballew, Jason Rabinowitz, The Okee Dokee Brothers, Greta Gertler, Wier Harman, Josh Parks, Recess Monkey, Billy Kelly, Jacob Lawson, The Quiet Two, Dean Jones, Gail Ann Dorsey, Friends of Gustafer Yellowgold, and a reading by their younger son, Ridley Loshak-Taylor. Older son, Older son, Harvey Loshak-Taylor, drew the art for the cover. In the summer of 2023, as part of her grieving process, Rachel recorded 10 songs with Dean Jones at No Parking Studio. These songs will be released as a collection entitled Songs to the Sun, on June 5th, 2026.