All Eyes On
Oh, Florida!
Florida doesn’t get enough credit for its alchemical properties. The state’s salt, sea and ungodly heat have a way of boiling off the excess material of things, turning out a newer and truer object. Spanish settlers came to the state almost five centuries ago. They built homes in the swamps and came out rednecks on the other side. Local yokels have morphed into something more than the subject of town gossip as their exploits became folklore, a distillation of the American personality into nothing but id. Chicken tenders on a sub took root in the state, elevating itself from a stoner sandwich to a pseudo-religion. In that regard, Palm Coast’s Home Is Where might be the most Floridian band running. The 4-piece emo outfit spun gold on their rapid-fire debut I Became Birds, throwing horn arran...
Isaac Dunbar Is Limitless
“As long as the music evokes a feeling in somebody, that’s all that matters,” Isaac Dunbar tells us. “I know music has done a lot for me. Sometimes I have no idea what a song is talking about, but I still connect with it. And I just play it in the soundtrack of my life every single day.” At 10 years old, the alt-pop singer was obsessed with Lady Gaga’s 2013 album Artpop, specifically its bombastic, electro-laden production. The fourth-grader studied YouTube tutorials, tinkering with synthesizers and software until he was finally able to mimic the heavily distorted melody of Gaga’s pulsing single, “G.U.Y.,” produced by Zedd. This new ability, to replicate his favorite songs from his childhood bedroom, opened his world. “I taught myself how to make any sound that I wanted digitally … i...
How ElyOtto Became the New Face of Hyperpop
Last spring, Elliott Platt was cleaning fish tanks at his local pet store when he received the luckiest news of his young life. He’d been laid off. COVID cutbacks: a tale as old as 2020 itself. With extra time on his hands, the Canadian teen holed up in his bedroom after school, poring over his piles of half-finished hyperpop projects. A glitchy beat here, a speedfreak keyboard melody there, clips of cartoonish vocal samples he’d recorded when no one was home (too embarrassed to sing in front of his parents). The 17-year-old huddled over his laptop, propped up on an old piano bench wedged between his pet geckos and spiders, self-producing every bit of his saccharine, mind-splitting songs and releasing them to a handful of listeners on SoundCloud, under the name ElyOtto. One of ...
A Chat With The Chats
Eamon Sandwith, the 21-year-old lead singer and bassist of the Australian “shed-rock” trio, The Chats, coifs an ever-trimmed scarlet mullet that flails whenever onstage, his eyes wan and intense if not concealed by his assholic aerodynamic glasses that bestow him “ultimate speed, and ultimate strength, and pretty much any other superpower.” He formed the self-proclaimed “shed-rock” band with his other two mates, Matt Boggis (drums) and Josh “Pricey” Price (guitar), one fateful day in their high school music class for an assignment to come up with an original song. That original song ended up being “VB Anthem” off their self-titled first EP. Since then, Pricey has been replaced by guitarist Josh Hardy of The Unknowns – the band Sandwith remembers inspiring The Chats before it was even an in...
Cassandra Jenkins, In Bloom
Three days after indie-rock musician David Berman died by suicide, his would-be tourmate, Cassandra Jenkins, was processing the grief thousands of feet in the air. The singer-songwriter was on the flight to Norway she’d forgotten to cancel, to a friend’s wedding she hadn’t planned on attending. “That seems like a really weird move — to go so far away — but I think that’s what life was asking me to do,” Jenkins tells SPIN over Zoom. “The ripples of this giant, life-changing event weren’t felt there, but I was feeling them. And I was feeling them through the landscape.” Those ripples fed into the deep river that is An Overview of Phenomenal Nature. In February, Jenkins, 36, released the album, her second, to critical acclaim. Overview is a nimble album, filled with quixotic littl...
There’s No Limit to Paloma Mami’s Spanglish Flow in ‘Sueños de Dalí’
Paloma Rocío Castillo Astorga, who is better known as Paloma Mami, is turning her dreams of blending American and Latin music into a reality. The title of the 21-year-old’s debut album, Sueños de Dalí, is a nod to surrealist Spanish artist Salvador Dalí and infuses R&B, trap, and alternative music. “Dalí was an artist who was so unapologetically himself,” she tells SPIN over Zoom. “He literally never cared what anyone said about his art and I think that’s so important when it comes to my music as well.” <!– // Brid Player Singles. var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ “div”: “Brid_10143537”, “obj”: {“id”:”25115″,”width”:”480″,”height”:”270″,”playlist”:”103...
Ending Up Yourself
Music wasn’t Alice Phoebe Lou’s first choice. It sort of happened to her. When she was 16, still in high school, dancing and acting in theater, Lou left her home in South Africa for a two-month sojourn in Paris where she met some street performers who taught her the basics of busking. In her own words, she learned how to “draw people in and create, like, a bubble in a world that people want to come inside and enjoy with you in a space like a street or a square.” Lou returned home with a budding passion. After high school, she went back to perform dances in the Parisian streets until one day she picked up a guitar to strum and sing instead. To her surprise, Lou was lauded and encouraged to pursue it by her audiences though she’d had virtually no experience. She was incredulous at first beca...
Mac Ayres Looks Into the Future With Magic 8 Ball — Literally
When it comes to Mac Ayres’ talents, age is truly just a number. He may just be 23 years old, but the artist/multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/producer has a vintage soul. Rather than chasing trends in the R&B space, the singer drives back to the source, whether it’s tapping into funky ‘70s grooves or ‘90s-inspired pre-Y2K futurism. Ayres draws inspiration from Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, as well as producers like J Dilla and DJ Harrison. After dropping out of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, the Long Island native emerged in 2017 with debut EP Drive Slow. His DIY approach to music continued with 2018’s debut album Something to Feel and the sophomore Juicebox the following year. <!– // Brid Player Singles. var _bp = _bp||[]; _b...
Lael Neale Is Not Afraid
“Like, I still have a flip phone,” singer/songwriter Lael Neale casually mentions while speaking about her relationship with social media. “I’m talking to you on a flip phone.” Not only is she digitally off the grid for the most part, but she’s living on an isolated farm in Virginia, in the town where she grew up. “I feel like I’ve been in quarantine my whole life,” she says with a laugh. She only recently moved back there at the beginning of the pandemic after losing her job at a cafe in Los Angeles, where she resided for about eight years. <!– // Brid Player Singles. var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ “div”: “Brid_10143537”, “obj”: {“id”:”25115″,”width”:”480″,”height”:”270″,...
Switched Up: Morray’s Life Changed With One Phone Call
Many struggling musicians dream of the phone call that radically alters their career. For most, it remains a fantasy. The phone never rings. Or seemingly promising conversations with industry grifters don’t pan out. For Morray, the 28-year-old North Carolina native behind some of the most soulful trap music in contemporary rap, the call came in the darkest hour of his career. Last July, Morray lost his job at a call center in his hometown of Fayetteville after taking time off to perform at small venues. He had three kids, his phone was cut off, and few people were listening to his music. After years of slowly saving and paying for studio time and music videos, Morray contemplated never recording again. Then Moe Shalizi saw the video for “Quicksand.” The founder of Shalizi Group — the enter...
Hospital Bracelet Are Reckoning
Eric Christopher—vocalist of Hospital Bracelet—was already considering music as a full time job before making it a reality. “I was debating this decision for weeks,” they tell SPIN over the phone on a December night. “Then, it was on our last day of tour and I ran into my friend at our last show. They were talking to me and were like, ‘I dropped out of medical school and now I’m a full time musician in three bands and I love it more than I probably would’ve ever loved being a doctor.’” The following day, Christopher, 19 now and 18 at the time, called their mom to tell her they were dropping out of college. It was the day before they were supposed to return to classes. This tour—due to the pandemic—ended up being the only one they were able to go on, but it was enough to convince them that ...
Meet Analise Hoyveda: Gen Z’s Rising Pop Star
Only 17, Analise Hoyveda has already had a career that many music and Hollywood veterans would be envious of. When she was 14, she appeared in 2018’s A Wrinkle in Time alongside Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey and now, is looking to build on her music career that started when she was 12. Hoyveda is under no pretense that the career she’s pursuing will be easy, and she understands the amount of work it will take for her to be successful. “You don’t get big overnight!” she says. “You have to work really, really hard. Most of the time I’m at the studio from like 5 pm to 3 am and it’s a lot of work. But you just have to keep working and working to get where you want to be, and I love doing it!” Hoyveda has been singing, acting, and dancing most of her life, starting with musicals sinc...
