Lead singer/songwriter Alex Reindl from one of Chicago’s freshest sounding bands, Old Joy, is an individual filled with wisdom and kindness. Our conversation went much longer than usual as we engaged in side conversation about life in our current climate and relatable sarcasm-infused discussions about 2000s alt-rock bands.

Alessia Labate creates music for nostalgic summer evenings when the radio is blasting and the windows are down, when you feel the wind on your hair and every second feels eternal. The pop singer-songwriter, based in Milan, is known for her ability to create a musical atmosphere that is at once personal and universal.

On a calm Wednesday afternoon Warren Thomas Fenzi and I sat down to talk about his music, American ideology, and what was going on in our lives. Warren was buzzing with excitement after having just returned to his home in Minneapolis from his recording space where he’s currently working on his next project. He’s unsure of when new tracks will be released, but he’s loving being back in the studio—music is his whole world. Minneapolis has been good to Warren—his most recent EP Live in the Atrium was recorded and filmed there. However, Minneapolis isn’t an apparent factor behind his music unlike his original home of Arizona.

Guytano has been hard at work for over a decade, making a name for themselves in Minneapolis as scholars of the ways of Brandon Flowers and Chris Martin. Making simple but anthemic pop-rock, Guytano is awash with the same sense of melancholy and mysterious allure that a band like The Killers feeds off of. Grant Hamilton, the frontman of the group, paired up with his brother Eddie and friends from his neighborhood, to start playing punk covers. Now, more than a decade later, the band is stronger than ever and carving out their own path and sound.

With one life-changing decision after another, Apache Grosse is a force to reckon with. In the industry, he demonstrates his musicianship through sultry vocals and dissonant guitar licks. He pays careful attention to rhythm and melodies, and is meticulous in crafting his sound—a mélange of R&B, hip-hop, and rock music that explores love, identity, and self-acceptance. Grosse walks through his creative process in music production, letting us in on what he does when the music stops and his passion for culture, community, and craft keeps going.

Emi Wes is vulnerably powerful. She’s dressed in a gray Champion hoodie, her hair slicked back in a ponytail. With our air waves located somewhere between Copenhagen and Wisconsin, we talked about what it feels like to be a young female artist in a time when much of society’s structures are challenged, when women are given more space to be loud and be heard. Emi is hyperaware of this, especially since her songs talk about the self, which is, in her words, “sensitive as a flower.” But instead of seeing this as a weakness, her ability to be tender is what makes her music captivating.

Illuminated by the sun bouncing off the yellow wall behind her while sitting on the porch of her home in New Hampshire, Wyn Doran joined me via video call to talk about her journey with music, the healing nature of music, and the power of vulnerability and collaboration.

Rock and roll isn’t dead—it lives and breathes in the mesmerizing guitar grooves and rustic vocals of Caleb Kopta’s music. From Springsteen to Styles, Kopta’s classic-cool style tastefully plucks components from all facets of the rock genre. Take the eclectic, beating new wave synths in “Foreign Language” to the Spector-style Wall-of-Sound dreamscape of “Kids.” Kopta’s catalogue has something to offer for every rock-and-rollers palate.

Leo Bautista is like speaking to myself in another form. We both have struggled with finding who we are as people of color in predominantly white environments and still do to some extent. However, our creative outlets have allowed for immense growth and radical self care when we were denied the opportunity in the roles that were thrust upon us. For me, I have the art of the written word to thank for allowing me to love myself. For Bautista, he has the art of music in being a powerful beacon of hope that both allowed for vulnerable self discovery and impactful resonance with humanity.

I caught up with Elliott fresh out of the studio where he’s been working on his next EP with producer Jason Wozniak—release date still being determined. Despite just releasing a single, he was buzzing with excitement about being back in the studio. After a month or two of low creative steam while adjusting to life in a pandemic, he’s hard at work with a renewed sense of appreciation for being able to create. Songwriting especially keeps him going, because it allows him to process his emotions and thoughts, which later translate to the self-expression he loves about music.

After two years of knowing OddCouple, we finally had a real and honest conversation–which was long overdue. The first time I met him was via a group text message with musician Jack Red. Jack had reached out to me to virtually style a music video shoot for him and OddCouple. Never meeting him in real life, I pulled pieces for the shoot and never heard from him again, until about a year later.

Randomly on the rooftop of the Virgin Hotel, I finally met him. That night was a blur, but the mention of the video shoot came up and I wouldn’t see him again until a year and half later. This time, It was in the middle of a global pandemic and at a wine shop.

After exchanging pleasantries, I reminded him that I was the one who virtually styled the video–which has never seen the light of day. We chatted a bit about the work he’s currently doing and a bit about the future of music. As it was time for us to depart, he suggested that we do this again, so we did. After an hour portrait session in my Humboldt Park studio, we chatted for nearly two hours.

Taylor Noelle started her pop career with a seemingly counterintuitive move from Los Angeles to Nashville to aIn school, listening to voice-memos of herself playing guitar and piano, she felt a long way from making the upbeat and layered music she envisioned. Popifying her music meant getting into a studio, but growing up outside the blast-radius of contemporary music, and listening to The Beatles and The Beach Boys, lends her music a stripped-down sound reminiscent of those 60’s icons. Still, she describes the process of making hits like ‘End Of The Night’ as a little like rocket science.

Hadley Kennary is a pop singer-songwriter based in Nashville, Tennessee, with a heart and soul that travels across the country. She is an artist, fusing poetics prose into her lyrics, coalescing that prose with melodic sounds. Hadley hopes to continue to connect with those around her, something that stems from the will to truly love herself, so she can love others.

When you’re able to go out [into nature]...you have yourself, your thoughts, your feelings, and a bunch of open land. It provides a lot of clarity and allows you to reach within yourself a little bit to a greater degree than when you’re in the city and you’re always connected to something else.

The music that New York musician Ryan Zuli Jr. makes, under the moniker Zuli Jr., stays with you. It is deeply emotive, drawing from personal reflection and patient songwriting. Not only that, but the songs are total earworms—deeply inspired by the current magnates of R&B and pop music, but maintaining a tether to the foundation of classic rock.

Part 1 of “All That Has Come Apart/Once Did Not Exist,” Sonny Falls’ new album, is an exploration into how adversity can be a catalyst for positive growth and change. The rock album pulls you along an undefined narrative into Sonny Falls’ life, where the focus rests on the storms that follow the calm. Although the songs can be heavy, Ensley punctures the compounded tension with a throbbing guitar chord or a humorous chorus.

“I grew up hearing a pretty simple story,” Daniel said. “There's this grandfather that talks to his grandson and the grandfather says he had two enemies, that two wolves live within anyone: jealousy, malice, envy, greed, hatred, bigotry. The second is love, peace, mercy, kindness, hope, justice. And the grandson responded with ‘Which one of these will win?’ His grandfather responded with, ‘The one that you feed.’”

For all the weirdos, quiet kids, and emphatically lost souls, there is nary a better musical savior than Mr. Solo Dolo himself, Kid Cudi. I don’t believe it to be unfair to say that many of my generation have turned to Scott Mescudi’s music in the times when we are feeling at our lowest.

Viral love is often cold despite all the warm looking pictures. José’s music video does an extremely great job of showing this. Set to the song, we see couples of every kind. They’re happy and close to each other. After both choruses, the visuals shift from love to heartbreak. The screen starts to glitch, too, with a repeating soundbite of an intro to a video: “5 Ways to Dominate your Social Media.”

In her straightforward, lean writing style, Sgro exhales through the story of a holiday divided between two households, through the windows of which whole families can be seen doing holiday things in building snowmen and gathering around a tree. Santa is at the mall, though it is not specified whether he and the children are following CDC guidelines.