High Tea, the indie folk-rock duo hailing from Massachusetts, is a concoction of sweepingly soulful harmonies, guitar riffs to knock your socks off, and a refreshing blend of old blues and new rock. Isabella DeHerdt and Isaac Eliot have come together to fill spaces with homegrown storytelling and Lumineers-esque vocals. Their songs are ripe with americana heartbreak, and tell tales of growing up, going wild, and always coming back to the ones you love.
Their previous releases, Old Cowboy and The Wick And The Flame were featured on playlists, radio shows, and publications like The Boston Globe, The Greenfield Recorder (among others). The title track of Old Cowboy led them to be chosen as one of WBUR’s top 4 Massachusetts Tiny Desk entries of 2022. They toured The Wick And The Flame on the West Coast, in New England, and throughout other US States and received write ups from Atwood’s Magazine, The Boston Herald, and more.
Their new EP, Scuba Diving, dives – literally and figuratively – into four very different worlds on each unique song. Listeners are led through an exhilarating and dangerous love story, a struggle for independence from a lineage of harsh repression, and an internal struggle against the feeling of hopelessness brought on by quick-fix culture, all accompanied by dynamic guitar, thumping drums, and echoing harmonies. This journey of lyrical storytelling and compelling sound culminates in the title track and single from the album, a personal and intimate story of hospitalization, a search for mental health, fear for a friend who is facing down demons, and the fight for understanding an ally’s role within that story. Without a doubt, Scuba Diving is some of High Tea’s most honest and eye-opening work yet.
Everything Is Alive, Darlingside’s fourth LP, marks a subtle but remarkable departure for the Boston-based quartet NPR once described as “exquisitely arranged, literary minded, baroque folk-pop.” While the album retains much of the lushness and sophistication of Extralife (2018) and Fish Pond Fish (2020), the band’s latest work decisively exposes and differentiates the individual voices of the four songwriters—a daring reinvention for a group known for ubiquitous vocal harmonies. Grappling with change both personal and universal, with quandaries domestic and existential, Everything Is Alive is an album about loss and the struggle for a semblance of redemption.
Comprised of Don Mitchell, Auyon Mukharji, Harris Paseltiner and David Senft, four likeminded multi-instrumentalists who first met at Williams College in 2009, Darlingside’s career has been defined by the elegance of their compositions and the unity of their four voices. Their talent for harmony and melodic world-building is part of what garnered praise from outlets like NPR, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, and what has created demand worldwide for their extraordinary live performances. Becoming beautifully unindividualized has, in other words, worked very well for Darlingside in the past. With a vigor and discipline more common to graduate-level writing workshops than to indie rock, Darlingside has, over the years, experimented with all manners of idiosyncratic methods for elevating and upholding a truly democratic process of songwriting—processes that include multiple rounds of group writing and recording exercises—all with the aim of escaping the trap that bands with multiple songwriters often fall into: ego-driven infighting and artistic incoherence.
Sara Gougeon writes contemporary folk songs with heart-wrenching lyrics that she gently tucks into sweet, folky melodies. Sara is a seamstress of words, quilting together songs that you find yourself wrapped up in. Using stories and personal experiences, she crafts songs that are honest and relatable. Sara is primarily a solo act: a vocalist who accompanies herself on acoustic guitar.
Sara’s accomplished writing led her to be selected as a finalist for the well-respected John Lennon Songwriting Contest in 2018, an international contest established by Yoko Ono in 1997.
Sara originates from Sudbury, Ontario, and has moved several times over to pursue music. At 14 years old she packed her bags for Northern Michigan, where she spent her high school career studying songwriting at Interlochen Arts Academy. Following high school, Sara was accepted to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, where she continues her studies in songwriting, music business and music production & engineering.
In the last five years, Sara has written over 300 songs. Working hard for years on the challenge of writing a song a week, she finally exceeded her goal and wrote 82 songs in 2018. Sara expanded this challenge and wrote 100 songs in 2019.
“Home Again”, Sara’s debut EP was released on August 17th, 2018 and was followed by a 10 day tour of Ontario. Sara then released “Invisible Closet” a ‘gay anthem’ for the LGBT community, and a single about respecting personal boundaries on June, 12th, 2019 for pride month.
Sara is in the process of recording her EP “Thank the Pines” which will be released at Club Passim on May,11th, 2020. The “Thank the Pines” EP is a precursor to her upcoming album “The Long Road”.
Fronted by partners Alex Millaire and Kaitlin Milroy, Ottawa-based Moonfruits are makers of art-folk bilingue. In a forest of guitar, banjo, kalimba and glockenspiel, their voices burrow and soar. Here is a raucous reverie, tender and powerful, beckoning listeners to elevate the stuff of everyday life.
The duo’s first full-length album, Ste-Quequepart (2017) is an elaborate small town fiction that explores the faces of gentrification, isolation and community.
Part poet, part folk singer, part indie-rocker, and part mad-scientist, J. Schnitt is a fearless, inventive, and “one of the most uniquely creative” singer/songwriters in the independent music world today.
His latest release, “A Crooked Line of Birds”, released in January of 2018, finds him returning to a more introspective place, after the acerbic wit and political commentary of his August 2017 release “How to Be Happy About the End of the World”, which was nominated for a SAMMY Award for best singer/songwriter. He also was the first prize winner of the 2018 Unity Hall Songwriters Contest.
At home performing everywhere from mid-size theaters, to intimate coffeehouses, to the corner bar, J. Schnitt has toured throughout the Eastern seaboard, as well as Ireland and Eastern Europe. Known for startling audiences with lyrics that at once are full of wit and humor, while at the same time revealing the heartbreaking truths of being human. His wordplay and artistry with verse will inevitably bring comparisons to Bob Dylan, While others will bring up Bruce Springsteen, Townes Van Zandt, and Tom Petty. A talented multi-instrumentalist, J. Schnitt routinely performs all the parts on his many releases.
At the heart of everything is the song, often giving J. Schnitt the title of a “songwriters songwriter”. Equally adept at telling a story through his music as he is at creating abstract emotions, whether it be a commentary on the days news, an introspective heartbreaker, an upbeat barnburner, or a witty story, this music sticks to you, often revealing itself to you over-time.
The billowing curtains of sound on Just Crazy Enough, the second full length album from virtuoso indie-folk band SHEL, will be both familiar and far-out to fans of the exciting sister quartet.
The classically inspired mandolin, violin and piano are there, along with the band’s glowing vocal harmonies. But we also hear dense, ethereal textures that hover between the digital and the analog. Grooves are deeper, emboldened with electronic ambience and beat-boxing. The overall effect sheds light on their broad collection of influences, from the daring rock bands of the 60s to the contemplative composers of the 18th Century, and even the waves of modern electronica. Because or in spite of this effervescent mashup, Just Crazy Enough is a masterful move for SHEL. It’s the integral, front-to-back album statement the band has been preparing to make since they began making music.
Dynamic change and self-searching was inevitably going to be a big part of SHEL’s story in these early career years. Sisters Eva, Hannah, Sarah and Liza Holbrook are, after all, twenty-something women, born in a five-year span and raised in a bohemian, art-loving family in Fort Collins, CO. Each found an instrument to master early on, studying classical music while composing and arranging unique works for their anomalous instrumentation, violin, mandolin, piano and drums. They gained performing experience working with their songwriter father, and soon had festival promoters and media figures championing their fresh, intricately drawn sound.
SnugHouse is Nikhil Dasgupta, Alex Millan, Rosie Borden, Laura Pauline and Sam Kyzivat. In the studio and on stage, the quintet explores its full expanse of influences which includes indie-folk, bucolic acoustic balladeering, frisky soulful pop, and delicately textured indie rock. This eclectic palette is masterfully tied together by a sweet sincerity captured in emotionally direct lyrics, stunning four-part harmonies, and profound interpersonal bonds that shine through onstage and in recordings. SnugHouse tracks fit comfortably alongside songs by Darlingside, The Ghost of Paul Revere, and The Head and the Heart.
The band name is a tip of the hat to the beloved local watering hole, The Snug, conveniently located below Nikhil’s apartment where he hosted countless formative rehearsals. Since forming in the fall of 2017, the quintet has made profound headway in the local scene. To date, SnugHouse has made appearances on Portland’s two biggest televised music programs, and garnered regular radio airplay on all local stations, most notably 98.9 WCLZ. In addition, CLZ has featured SnugHouse on their station stage at Portland’s biggest summer food and culture festival, Old Port Fest. The band has released two EPs: 2017’s self-titled, and 2018’s Like Water, with plans to work toward a full-length album.
Gentle and confessional. Warm acoustic guitar + waves of bittersweet harmonies. Speaking to the soft spoken.
Melissa Weikart is a vocalist, pianist, composer and educator based in Boston, MA. After graduating from Tufts in 2016 (B.A. Music and Spanish), she pursued her Master’s degree in Contemporary Improvisation at New England Conservatory, where she studied with Carla Kihlstedt, Anthony Coleman, Dominique Eade, and Hankus Netsky.
Melissa co-founded Students Advocating for Gender Equality at NEC, and was awarded an Entrepreneurial Musicianship grant to recompose the album Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys for an all-female ensemble. In December 2017, she released her debut EP “Coffee,” and she is currently working on a full-length album.
Max Shakun (of the folk rock band Parsonsfield) offers a witty twist on the classic singer/ songwriter/ indie acoustic set. Unafraid to traverse his effortlessly smooth falsetto, Max will have you both grooving in your seat, and contemplating the more intricate parts of life.
