For the first time in years, it’s that time of year again…We are, of course, referring to the 2022 SxSW Music Festival in Austin, TX. And this year, Sub Pop artists Aeon Station, Naima Bock, Cartel Madras, CHAI, Hannah Jadagu, Kiwi Jr., Pissed Jeans, and Weyes Blood will all appear at the once-again-annual music festival and BBQ buffet. Please find a complete schedule for each artist below.
Aeon Station
THURSDAY, MARCH 17th
5:25 PM / Hipster Robot Showcase @ Side Bar
602 E 7th St., Austin, TX 78701
1:00 AM / SXSW Showcase @ Elysium
705 Red River St., Austin, TX 78701
FRIDAY, MARCH 18th
1:30 PM / Brooklyn Vegan Showcase @ TBD
6:15 PM / Midgetmen’s Jumpstart 14
602 E 7th St., Austin, TX 78701
10:00 PM / Pellicular Works @ Soundspace Captain Quackenbush’s Coffeehouse
5326 Menchaca Rd., Austin, TX 78745
Naima Bock
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16th
1:00 PM / IFPA (Global Street Farm) @ Idle Hands
Address: 85 Rainey St
THURSDAY, MARCH 17th
8:00 PM / St. David’s Bethell Hall @ St. David’s Episcolpal Church
301 E 8th St., Austin, TX 78701
FRIDAY, MARCH 18th
11:00 PM / British Underground Happening @ Seller’s Underground
Panel Topic: Three LGBTQ+ acts with experience exploring their musicianship at a young age speak about the evolution of their craft and how that impacted the ways in which they came to celebrate their sexual identities.
Sub Pop is currently accepting resumes from energetic, responsible, detail-oriented, and dependable candidates for a part-time/weekend/evening Sales Clerk position at our terribly impressive store at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. This guy.
Responsibilities include:
• Greeting and assisting customers in a friendly manner. • Full compliance with Sea-Tac operation rules and strict TSA regulations and restrictions. • Efficient handling of cash and credit card transactions. • Ability to work collaboratively and communicate effectively. • Availability to work nights, weekends, and holidays. • Assisting in organizing and restocking the store. • Maintaining the general appearance of the store. • Contributing to the team retail effort by accomplishing related tasks as needed.
Qualified candidates will have:
• Previous experience in the retail environment. • Knowledge of the Sub Pop catalog, Pacific Northwest music, the Seattle music community, and the City of Seattle. • A friendly and enthusiastic disposition with customers and staff. • Strong and clear communication skills. • A general understanding of retail Point of Sale systems. • Flexibility in schedule and willingness to work early or late hours.
The Sub Pop Airport Store at Sea-Tac is open from 7am-7pm, 365 days a year.
Suki Waterhouse today released her newest track, “Devil I Know,” off upcoming debut album, I Can’t Let Go, which will be released Friday, April 22nd viaSub Pop Records. “Devil I Know” and I Can’t Let Go are both produced by Grammy-Nominated Producer & Songwriter Brad Cook (Bon Iver, War On Drugs, Snail Mail, Waxahatchee). “Devil I Know” is the fourth release off I Can’t Let Go; “Moves, “My Mind,” and “Melrose Meltdown” were the album’s first three tracks.
“Devil I Know” has previously appeared on numerous television shows including “The L Word” and “YOU,” and is due to be featured on the upcoming season of “Riverdale” as well. In the sultry song, Suki’s vocals are paired with synthesized guitar strums as she repeatedly dedicates herself to “staying faithful to the devil I know.” Suki mournfully sings “I’m okay with history repeating, tell me I’m the one you can’t forget,” an ode to someone she finds herself tied to with no means of extricating herself from.
”Devil I Know” is about the twisted pleasures of going back to someone who you’re addicted to & the joy you feel in that moment of breaking your own promises,” Suki says about the track. “It’s a beautiful and sad song about being constrained to a relationship that may not be the most healthy.”
This past Monday, February 28th, it was announced that Suki will be embarking on a Spring 2022 Tour on behalf of I Can’t Let Go.
TOUR DATES: Friday, May 6th Los Angeles, CA at The Echo Saturday, May 7th in San Francisco, CA at Café du Nord Friday, May 13th in Brooklyn, NY at Elsewhere (Zone One)
Suki Waterhouse catalogs the most intimate, formative, and significant moments of her life through songs. You might recognize her name or her work as singer, songwriter, and actress, but you’ll really get to know the multi-faceted artist through her music. Growing up in London, Suki gravitated towards music’s magnetic pull and always saw the medium as a way of expressing creativity and telling stories. Previous singles “Brutally”, “Good Looking” and “Valentine” drew comparisons to the Paisley Underground sound of Mazzy Star and to the 60s influenced girl group reimagining of bands like Stockholm’s The Concretes and Glasgow’s Camera Obscura.
Earlier this year, Suki was named by both NPR and Atwood Magazine as a 2022 Artist to Watch.
Previous Praise for Suki Waterhouse:
“…add to the mix her vocal style – calling to mind the exquisite tones of Elizabeth Fraser or Hope Sandoval – and a solid collection of early work that caught the ear of Sub Pop, and you’ve got a welcome addition to your 2022 playlist.” -NPR
“The resulting smoky, cinematic, guitar-rock got her signed to Sub Pop, the indie record label that first signed Nirvana and is now home to Beach House and Sleater-Kinney.“ - Vogue
“..sounds like what a Lana Del Rey deep cut mixed with Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides, Now” would sound like…Here’s to more pleasant surprises like this from her book of talents.” - NYLON
Track Listing: 1. Moves 2. Devil I Know 3. Melrose Meltdown 4. Put Me Through It 5. My Mind 6. Bullshit on the Internet 7. Wild Side 8. On Your Thumb 9. Slip 10. Blessed
Australia’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever release a new track/video, “Tidal River,” from their forthcoming album, Endless Rooms, out May 6th on Sub Pop. Rolling Blackouts C.F. have joined an Australian lineage of bands bold enough to marry the country’s evocative landscapes with the urban romance, passions and politics of its characters. Today’s propulsive “Tidal River,” is settled in this vein, as it invokes the specter of Australia as the “lucky country” – and the self-entitlement and ignorance it inspires: “Jetski over the pale reef / chase the pill for some relief / as long as you don’t point out / what’s underneath your feet.” The accompanying video was directed by frequent collaborator Nick Mckk and weaves landscape footage with clips of the band playing.
“Tidal River is a little snapshot of living in a place at a time when it feels like there is no-one at the wheel. If there were a complacency Olympics, Australia would win gold by a mile. In the ‘lucky country’, the luckiest ones jealously guard their fortune, as if it will disappear if they share it around. There is so much potential to do better, but it sometimes seems like progress is two steps forward, two steps back. Tidal River is located in what Europeans named Wilsons Promontory, where the river meets the ocean. It has great significance for the Gunai/Kurnai and Boonwurrung peoples, who call it Yiruk and Wamoon respectively. No matter the struggles and politics that go on, the river keeps churning into the sea.
Since releasing their debut EP Talk Tight in 2015, the Melbourne-based five-piece have been chewing through stages across the world at a frightening clip. Early 2020 saw them gearing up once again – putting the finishing touches on second album, Sideways to New Italy, and prepping for another international tour. Instead they were caught in the longest Covid-related lockdown in the world. “All our touring was amazing,” says Tom Russo, who along with Fran Keaney and Joe White make up the band’s trio of guitar-playing, singer/songwriters, rounded out by bassist Joe Russo and drummer Marcel Tussie. “It’s also sensory overload and a bit chaotic. So it went from that to the complete opposite – sensory deprivation. We were basically in a bubble.”
With no shows to support Sideways to New Italy possible, the band had little to do but sit at home. “I was spending all my weekends building stuff on Garageband,” says Keaney. “Writing without having any sense anybody would listen to it.” Soon experiments wandered: a synth line here, a disco vamp there. Files were traded – weird ideas without parameters included. Without realizing it, the group’s signature sound of rushing acoustic guitar, motorik drums and sparkling pop hooks was being subtly shifted into a new era. When lockdown momentarily lifted at the end of 2020, the band and long-time engineer Matt “Chow” Duffy legged it to “The Basin” – a lakeside, mud-brick house in regional Victoria the Russo extended family built in the ‘70s. With the building’s high-ceilings and rural setting encouraging a huge live sound, the reunited members spent two weeks figuring out what they had.
Back in Melbourne the band set about finishing the record on their own, working through months of lockdown restrictions, trial and error and the isolation of a post-pandemic world. “A lot of my ideas came from endlessly walking around the same streets of West Brunswick” says Russo. “But I was also kind of liberated by that - my mind wandered into places it wouldn’t otherwise have. Then when we finally got to recording in the country, the ambience seeped in. We ended up including field recordings of fire, rain and bird sounds. Then we finished it ourselves back in our Brunswick practice space.”
The result is Endless Rooms, the band’s most cinematic, stylistically diverse and ambitious album yet. Self-produced by the band with Matt Duffy, and mixed by Scott Horscroft (DMA’S, Silverchair, The Presets), Endless Rooms pulls back the curtain on what Rolling Blackouts C.F. can achieve, revealing a wider screen, deeper narrative currents, more confident shades, and an excitement at letting their tumbling brand of ragged, nervy pop wander and breathe.
On May 20th, Sub Pop will release the debut album from Weird Nightmare, the electrifying new project from METZ guitarist and singer Alex Edkins.
Weird Nightmare showcases a new side of Edkins’ already-established songwriting, with a raw, sugary blast of distorted pop. The new album exhibits all of his main band’s bite with an unexpected, yet totally satisfying, sweetness. Imagine The Amps covering Big Star, or the gloriously hissy miniature epics of classic-era Guided by Voices combined with the bombast of Copper Blue-era Sugar—just tons of red-line distortion cut with the type of tunecraft that thrills the moment it hits your ears.
On the first single, “Searching For You”, Edkins shares, “it’s a fun, no nonsense rock ‘n’ roll song. It’s about searching for meaning and inspiration all around us. In my mind, the ‘you’ in the chorus refers to something bigger than companionship or love, it’s that intangible thing we all look for but never find. ” Directed by Ryan Thompson and animated by Jordan “Dr. Cool” Minkoff, it’s time to step into a world of ultimate weirdness, and get served a hot slice of rock and roll video deliciousness in the new video for “Searching for You.”
Weird Nightmare has announced a handful of North American shows including a hometown album release show on May 21st in Toronto, ON at The Baby G. The band will also hit the road on a 7-date co-headlining tour with labelmates Kiwi Jr. See below for a full list of shows.
Sat. May 21st - Toronto, ON - Baby G (Toronto Record Release Show)
Fri. Jun. 17th - Detroit, MI - Third Man Records *
Sat. Jun. 18th - Chicago, IL - Schubas *
Thu. Jul. 28th - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s Alright *
Fri. Jul. 29th - Rehoboth Beach, DE - Dogfish Head Brewery *
Sat. Jul. 30th - Washington, DC - Songbyrd *
Sun. Jul. 31st - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s *
*w/ Kiwi Jr
Weird Nightmare is now available for preorder/presave on CD/LP/Cassette/DSPs from Sub Pop. The LP is packaged in a special embossed jacket with semi-transparent obi-strip along the spine, and pre-orders from megamart.sub pop.com, select independent retailers in North America, and in the UK, and in Europe will receive the Loser Edition of the album on Transparent Cotton Candy Swirl vinyl and Clear Coke Bottle vinyl, respectively. (See below mock-up.)
Artist Bio:
If you’re looking for a raw, sugary blast of distorted garage rock, look no further than Weird Nightmare. The debut album from METZ guitarist and vocalist Alex Edkins contains all of his main band’s bite with an unexpected, yet totally satisfying, sweetness. Imagine The Amps covering Big Star, or the gloriously hissy miniature epics of classic-era Guided by Voices combined with the bombast of Copper Blue- era Sugar—just tons of red-line distortion cut with the type of tunecraft that thrills the moment it hits your ears.
These ten songs showcase a new side of Edkins’ already-established songwriting, but even though the bulk of Weird Nightmare was recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic some of its tunes date back to 2013 in demo form. “Hooks and melody have always been a big part of my writing, but they really became the main focus this time” he explains. “It was about doing what felt natural.”
To be clear: Weird Nightmare is not a “pandemic album,” but an album—some of which had been gestating for quite a while—that just so happened to be recorded during the pandemic. “I had always planned on finishing these songs, but being unable to tour with METZ, and forced to lock down, really gave me a push.” After days spent homeschooling his son, Edkins would drive to the METZ rehearsal room and tinker deep into the night on these songs’ deceptively simple structures and rich, static-laden textures. “It was a godsend for me,” he states about the creative process. “The hours would disappear and I would get lost in the music and record. It was a beautiful escape.”
Weird Nightmare is, in its own way, a study in extremes: Edkins’ melodic instincts and penchant for dissonance are both turned up to the max throughout, the latter reflecting not only the barn-burning tendencies of METZ, but Alex’s own sonic predilections. “It doesn’t sound right to my ears until it’s pushed over the edge.” He also cites other artists who are masterful at mixing the sublime and the punishing—Kim Deal and Scout Niblett among them—as influences on his own songwriting. “My favorite songs are the simple ones,” he explains. “I’ve never been attracted to virtuosity or technicality. Certain songs have the power to lift your spirits like nothing else can. I wanted to create that type of song.”
“I’ve found a new confidence in my writing and producing,” Edkins continues while discussing his songwriting approach on Weird Nightmare. “I really enjoy creating and recording, and I wanted this record to reflect how much fun I was having.” And even though its songs occasionally dip into weighty themes—underneath the driving riffs of “Darkroom” are ruminations on trying to fight off bad habits amidst personal malaise, while the anthemic “Lusitania” is, in his words, “a fictional love song”—this album is indeed an absolute blast to listen to.
A few guests pitch in on Weird Nightmare: Canadian alt-pop genius Chad VanGaalen adds his unmistakable touch to the ever-escalating “Oh No,” while Alicia Bognanno of Bully lends her distinctive pipes to the thrashing “Wrecked,” a collaboration that effectively saved the song. “I almost didn’t put it on the album because I thought it was missing something,” Edkins explains. “I sent it to Alicia and she lifted it way up.”
And taking risks and reaching out of Edkins’ comfort zone was the name of the game when it came to making Weird Nightmare. “I found myself doing new things I didn’t have the guts to do before, recording everything by myself and trusting all of my musical instincts,” he states. “I think when music manifests quickly, a certain amount of honesty automatically comes along with it. When it is a purely instinctual creation, there is no opportunity to obscure the truth.”
