From the wilds of Winnipeg, Canada arrive indie-popsters Latka, bringing some “alternative spice,” as they put it, to the current indie-pop scene via their dedicated musical friendships of almost ten years. Their debut album, My Bright Heart is a set of adroitly-written tracks performed with equal aplomb, and anchored by the lead vocals of frontman/bassist Milos Mitrovic. The album sprinkles a hint of punk into the proceedings, faint reminisces of the band members’ early influences, but primarily gives indie-pop a good solid punch in the arm. Their most recent efforts, the singles West Coast and a 2015 holiday track called “From Under the Christmas Tree,” show off more of the band’s bubbly personalities and ability with punky hooks that are still accessible; the latter (“Hey! Hey! It’s Christmastime!”) and of course some Celtic fiddle. Early on, frontman Mitrovic listened to primarily rock bands, who he says were the first to inspire him to buy an electric guitar and “practice every single day.” By the time he was in his teens, he’d become more selective about what he was listening to, and wound up gravitating toward bands like The Pixies, Nirvana, and Joy Division. “Listening to these alternative pop bands really struck a chord with me,” he says, with zero hint of irony. “After gaining a lot of wisdom and courage from reading these bands’ stories, I was able to break out of my shell and play in a band with my friends. Crafting songs that evoke the same passion as the ones I grew up listening to further solidified why I wanted to be in a band.” Those friends – Cole Vincent (guitar and vocals) and Andrew Clark (drums), had similar early-music experiences (Ross didn’t join the band until later, in 2012). Nirvana’s “In...

  Esa Mankinen, Marko Heikkinen, Jyri Pesonen, and Olli-Pekka (O-P) Ervasti make up the band Satellite Stories, a Finnish indie-rock outfit from the town of Oulu that’s been causing quite a buzz, from their 2012 debut album, Phrases to Break the Ice, to their 2013 release, Pine Trails, and their much-anticipated new set, Vagabonds, which just dropped on March 6. While they’re most often compared to Two Door Cinema Club, echoes can also be heard of a less-sharp Arctic Monkeys or Vampire Weekend (Satellite Stories don’t quite have the audio conviction those two bands do – just consider them “lighter” – but not necessarily for the worse), or perhaps a more aggressive version of Of Monsters and Men. But whichever way you slice it, these are catchy beats with catchy melodies to match, especially Pine Trails’ most popular (and most-blogged) single, “Campfire,” with its circular refrain, propellant beat, and left-field turnaround section. The band met, explains singer Esa Mankinen, through “a general love of music,” and the musical chemistry was, and is, apparent. “We all knew each other through different groups of friends,” he explains. “Myself and our drummer O-P studied together; we needed a bass player and I knew Jyri from way back.” “Marko just appeared out of the blue – we’re not really sure where he came from. He does not talk much and smokes a pipe – lead guitarists, eh?” Mankinen laughs. They started the process for Pine Trails in early winter of 2013, when the entire band headed to a cottage in the Swedish countryside to write songs, a locale that would also inspire the album’s name. “It was the middle of nowhere and had no TV or internet, complete isolation,” Mankinen says. “So during the day, we went for...

They met back in college, studying, of all things, architecture – which may or may not have helped the deft structuring of their indie pop songs. The music they listened to back then was “a lot of ’80s pop music,” according to the band’s Richie Fenton, “music like The Smiths and Talk Talk,” he says. And, with a common interest in that music, Fenton, along with pals Eoin French, James O’Donnell, and Eoin O’Dwyer, would soon decide to form a band. Their last year in uni would find them writing an EP together – this would further solidify their partnership in the Cork, Ireland-based indie-pop outfit Hush War Cry. Don’t think that their evocative band name arrived easily, though. “We were searching for a name for a long time,” explains Eoin O’Dwyer. “There were a few different names bouncing around, but none really settled with us until Hush War Cry. It came from a Rimbaud poem called “Parisian Warcry” – we loved the name of the poem, and thought about using the exact title, but we wanted to put our own stamp on it.” Adding “Hush,” O’Dwyer says, also added an apparent contradiction with the original name, which the band felt reflected their sonic ambitions. “Simple, really,” O’Dwyer grins. Less simplistic is Hush War Cry’s sound, which blends that aforementioned indie pop sound with shoegaze moments, jagged guitar riffs, electronica elements, and dramatic turns of lyric, translated through Eoin French’s expressive vocal work. Hints of other musical peers such as White Lies, Maccabees, and Bombay Bicycle Club are also present, even though the end sonic result remains firmly Hush War Cry’s very own. “It’s always strange territory when you try to describe your own sound,” O’Dwyer says. “We are certainly interested in textures and...

They began as “the world’s first bluegrass rap band,” explains The Deadly Gentlemen’s Greg Liszt with a wink, “specializing in rap songs that sounded nothing like rap.” That was back in 2008, and according to Liszt, well, they’ve changed a lot since then, when they first began blending spoken-word with folk music and string instruments. “Everybody sings lovely melodies now, we promise,” he chuckles. Those lovely melodies have also caught the ear of landmark label Rounder Records, who released the band’s brand-new full-length album, Roll Me, Tumble Me, this past July. With Liszt on banjo alongside bandmates Mike Barnett (fiddle), Dominick Leslie (mandolin), Stash Wyslouch (guitar), and Sam Grisman (bass), The Deadly Gentlemen are getting a deadly cool reputation as a alt-Americana group with an edge. They’ve got plenty of talent to back up their eclectic approach. And it all started… well, all over the place. “All of the members of the band live in Boston these days, but we all met at various festivals across the U.S.,” Liszt explains. “The group crystallized into its current lineup back in 2010 with the addition of our guitar player, who is also a hell of a singer.” Keeping the dense rhythms and rhythmic vocals from their rap, aka ‘spoken word,’ days, they now sing and harmonize in a more gang-based vocal style. (Think Boyz II Men. With a dash of punk. In the countryside. With banjos.) “It’s more fun that way,” Liszt says. To craft their setlists, The Deadly Gentlemen do write some of their own music and lyrics, but they primarily take old poems and set them to music, creating a totally original “epic folk” sound with non-stop orchestration and complex vocal and instrumental arrangements. “Most of our songs start as poems, perfectly adequate to...

Since we wrote about Nolita Knights back in November of 2012, their Distance Kills EP hit the virtual shelves on iTunes, Amazon, EMusic, and Google Play; they performed in actor Adrien Grenier’s basement for Grenier’s Wreckroom TV programme; and they snagged a spot as one of the first dozen bands from Australia invited to play at the 2013 SXSW Fest this upcoming March in Austin, Texas. Congrats on a great year, guys. ______ Australia, meet NYC. NYC, meet Australia. World, meet Nolita Knights, the Aussie-NYC fusion of musicians Dylan George Thomas (the Aussie) and Kobe Laurence. Founded by Thomas, Nolita Knights got its start in the summer of 2011, after the two upstart musicians met back in Australia. Now relocated to New York, they’ve most recently been spending time in a studio in Toronto, Canada, working on tracking new songs and plotting their next band move. “Kobe and I met a long time ago in Sydney, Australia at a social event,” Thomas explains. “Both of our dads were friends, and we became friends. We started playing music together in other peoples’ bands, and loved the idea of starting something for ourselves, being able to write and record our own songs.” Inspiration for Nolita Knights, Laurence continues, arrives from many mediums:  film, live music, photography, and more. “We are always trying to feed our creativity with tonnes of different ideas, and hopefully out of that, we can create something original,” Laurence says. All artists, at some point, get cornered into defining or categorising their sound, and Nolita Knights are no exception. “If we were to do so, our sound would lie somewhere between indie-pop and indie-folk,” Laurence explains, “with our favorite artists including The Everly Brothers, The National, and Death Cab for Cutie. But it...

One has to wonder what’s in the water in Oxford, England, as far as musicians go. The town, which has given us such musical luminaries as Radiohead,  Supergrass, and Foals, has also spawned indie-rockers A Silent Film, who are finally getting more much-deserved attention after a half-dozen years as a band. “We’re flattered that you count us amongst the talented musicians of Oxford,” A Silent Film’s singer/pianist Robert Stevenson chuckles. “Perhaps we feel the gaze of the city’s intellects? It certainly seems quite true that Oxford musicians have always tended to be very ambitious, and seem to completely disregard the notion of chasing success without integrity.” Point taken. Flighty pop acts aren’t really something that hail from this smart city – but schoolmates that turn into bandmates seem to be something of a recurring Oxford theme (see: the aforementioned Radiohead and Supergrass, as well as Ride.) “Spencer and myself met at school,” Stevenson says. “We were rival drummers in two different bands, but it turns out he was a much better drummer, so we joined forces.” Spencer – that being drummer Spencer Walker – soon met bass player Ali Hussain at University, and the trio added guitarist Karl Bareham just before A Silent Film started touring in the U.S. “It’s always been a very natural process, where the four of us gravitated together over a period of time,” Stevenson says. Inspired by “anything that stirs a strong human emotion,” as Stevenson explains it, A Silent Film say that they work to not be imitators, preferring to chase away other musical influences. Nonetheless, their sound is very British and very indie (we’re hearing echoes of Snow Patrol, Atlas Genius, and The Killers), but is still quite individual to the band, due in large part to...

Australia, meet NYC. NYC, meet Australia. World, meet Nolita Knights, the Aussie-NYC fusion of musicians Dylan George Thomas (the Aussie) and Kobe Laurence. Founded by Thomas, Nolita Knights got its start in the summer of 2011, after the two upstart musicians met back in Australia. Now relocated to New York, they’ve most recently been spending time in a studio in Toronto, Canada, working on tracking new songs and plotting their next band move. “Kobe and I met a long time ago in Sydney, Australia at a social event,” Thomas explains. “Both of our dads were friends, and we became friends. We started playing music together in other peoples’ bands, and loved the idea of starting something for ourselves, being able to write and record our own songs.” Inspiration for Nolita Knights, Laurence continues, arrives from many mediums:  film, live music, photography, and more. “We are always trying to feed our creativity with tonnes of different ideas, and hopefully out of that, we can create something original,” Laurence says. All artists, at some point, get cornered into defining or categorising their sound, and Nolita Knights are no exception. “If we were to do so, our sound would lie somewhere between indie-pop and indie-folk,” Laurence explains, “with our favorite artists including The Everly Brothers, The National, and Death Cab for Cutie. But it can be so difficult to label your own music – hopefully other people will take the initiative to do that.” Those people will have plenty of chances with the release of Nolita Knights’ brand new debut EP, Distance Kills, a striking and pretty, if dark, mix of tracks that’s sure to up their ante on the indie-rock scene. “The EP was recorded up in Canada, in a town called Waterloo,” Thomas explains. “A...

What could be more evocative an album title than The Pea Green Boat? Perhaps the songs on said album, crafted as they are by Michael Orange and Justin Commins, who hail from Dublin, Ireland, and call themselves The Star Department. Their sound is reminiscent of Belle and Sebastian meets Glen Phillips meets I’m From Barcelona (with a less overwhelming number of band members), with tracks like “Sandcastles” and “Antlers” showing off their melodic sensibilities and wide-ranging vocal pipes. Formed in 2006, The Star Department was originally a quartet, with a debut EP (Flickering Lights) which snagged plenty of critical acclaim (including a nod from Nokia) and plenty of airplay. Fast-forward six years, and they’re now a duo, with the other bandmates in the rearview mirror. “We met in 2006, through our old guitarist, John,” explains Michael Orange. “I had been away travelling, and John asked me if I wanted to get involved a few months before I got back. We spent a bit of time writing, added another member, released an EP, played lots of shows – and then we kind of hit a wall.” That was when four became two. “Justin and I stayed writing together and sort of changed our way of doing things band-wise – and that’s where we’re at now,” Orange continues. They invited a couple of other comrades onto their Pea Green Boat, too, to help out with the production side of things. “My old band opened for Field Music in Dublin in 2010,” Orange says, “that’s how I met David (Brewis), and we kept in touch. They are one of my favourite bands and lovely people, so I asked him if he’d be up for mixing a song.” Brewis mixed the single version of “Antlers” for The Pea...

Taking aim at their upcoming full length effort, Strange Kind of Focus (the follow-up to their 2011 set, Entertainica), California indie-loop-rockers Time and Energy have a long list of musical influences, which filter into their own songs like jigsaw puzzle pieces (you know, the 1000-piece boxes you used to work on during the long, boring days of summer camp…) “Musically we’re inspired by jazz to blues to rock to pop, folklore to electronica, hip-hop, punk – whatever sounds good,” explains Time and Energy’s Brennan Roach, he of the drums/keys/bass/guitar and clarinet. “It’s difficult to describe our sound when really our goal is trying to get away from any description,” he says, “but when it comes to people or bands that influence us, it would be Ian Mackaye, Kurt Vonnegut, Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Radiation 4, Taken, Beck, Charles Mingus, Tom Waits, Alan Watts, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Yes, Pink Floyd, Ornette Coleman, Dave Brubeck, Battles,MF Doom, and Don Caballero – to say the least.” Whew. Roach met his bandmate, Jorge Rios (he of the vocals/guitar/keys/bass, percussion and glockenspiel), in school, where they found plenty of common ground. “We both met in middle school in Santa Ana (California) in 2000, and soon found out that we lived really close to each other. We started hanging out more often,” Roach explains. “At the time we were both heavily into the same music, and we’d listen to albums constantly.” When Roach discovered that Rios had a guitar in his room, his next thought was “let’s form a band.” Years later – after their first band had broken up – they decided to forge a new goal. “With only two people left – us – we decided to buy loop pedals, and started pounding away at writing songs with this...

  “For me, a motopony is any tool that you attribute some living characteristic to,” Motopony singer Daniel Blue says by way of explaining the band’s name. “My motorcycle becomes a horse, and my car a living chariot,” he continues, “our instruments are personalities, like dogs barking – our van is a giant purple pickle possessed with the spirit of Ozzy Osbourne. In this way, we intend to gain respect for the inanimate world, and ask ourselves to love what has been made, as much as those who have made it.” Purple pickle? Guitarist Mike Notter is a bit more brief in his description. “It’s a little red pony with a motor and wheels,” he says simply. Perhaps it’s that dichotomy between band members that keeps Motopony as interesting as they are. For the unintroduced, Motopony’s music  – which has been called “schizophrenic” on more than one occasion – hops from genre to genre with sometimes alarming abandon, making brief bus stops at indie-rock, folk-pop, shoegaze, and old-school soul as the mood suits them. Born of the Pacific Northwest as just Daniel Blue and collaborator Buddy Ross, and now calling Seattle their home base as a five-piece band, the whole Motopony thing started at a dinner party in Tacoma, Washington, where Blue and Ross first met and realized that their respective approaches to songwriting – which ranged from merely unusual to bizarre – complemented each other well. Today including Brantley Cady and drummer Forrest Mauvais as well as Blue, Ross, and Notter,  the band’s cohesion in spite of themselves is due in large part to their determination. “Motopony is an eclectic band, and we’ve put a lot of energy into trying to translate the strange and magical things that Daniel and Buddy create on...

Singer-songwriter Josiah Leming – he of the plaintive vocals and instinctive piano skills, and writer of catchy, Americana-meets-Brit-pop influenced songs – is proving to be an exception to a rule. He’s an American Idol outcast who’s actually well worth listening to. We don’t really cover the singing competition circuit here on Pyxis Mag. Not because such shows don’t have their place – plenty of people enjoy them regularly – but just because, with a few rare exceptions, we haven’t seen a whole lot of solid talent evolve as a result. Leming, though, proved to be a standout as one of the singing contenders during the 2008 series of Idol, even though he was voted off before the main competition took place. A natural, if occasionally over-confident, performer, he even made notoriously blunt judge Simon Cowell sit up and take notice (“I don’t know what they (the other judges) were thinking,” Cowell told the Knoxville, Tennesee News-Sentinel after Leming was eliminated, “We should have put him through. I wanted him in the competition.”) Idol ended up being merely a springboard for Leming, as might be expected – the show, as mentioned, isn’t really a place that cultivates originality. So perhaps it was better that he was freed from the Idol chains before they could get too solid of a grip on his talent. And with Leming being something of a “chill spirit,” he recognized Idol’s limits – and simply moved forward from there. “First and foremost, Idol is television, and the goal of television is to be ‘must watch,'” Leming explains. “That’s easier done with songs people are familiar with, and contestants that are willing to be told what to do.” “If you take it for what it is,” he continues, “it’s a pretty genius...

Upon first hearing newbie British singer/songwriter/pianist George Montague’s story, most indie musicians would probably become jealous rather quickly. His parents support him in his career, eliminating his need for a day job as they consider his work on his music parallel to going to university (huh?)  He has an investor who heard his songs and immediately signed up to fund his debut album. He’s seen his home recordings of his unusual, jazz-blues-pop fusion tracks on his YouTube channel snag a remarkable 720,000 (yes, that’s almost three-quarters of a million) unique views since he began uploading videos. He’s managed to get Matt Butler – as in Paul McCartney/Elvis Costello/Mick Jagger collaborator Matt Butler – as producer on his upcoming debut full-length album, Have You Met George. Shall we add that he shares his first name with a Beatle, as well? And he’s only been properly focused on his music career for a little over a year. Really? But the thing is, all of those petty jealousies fall away once you actually talk to George Montague. Far from being a pampered wannabe pop star, Montague’s actually a very focused bloke who’s grateful for the good fortune he has, who has nothing but praise for those he works with, and who works on his craft daily and with impressive dedication. He makes sure to keep his YouTube channel stocked with new content regularly, keeps himself on a ‘songwriter’s schedule’ of his own making, and interacts constantly with his quickly-growing fanbase on Facebook and Twitter. The fact that he happens to be inherently talented on instrument, voice, and song structure may not mean as much – or result in as much – if he wasn’t putting as much effort into it as he is. “I don’t do much...

Jonquil’s first performance at the famed SXSW Fest in Austin, Texas, made a big impression on the Oxford, England-based band. And not merely because of their time on stage. “We went to BBQ,” says the band’s Sam Scott, “And none of us have been the same since, in our hearts or our arteries,” he laughs. “But it was very exciting to play in America – all of us have been playing in bands for a long time, and it was a real goal that we achieved together. The best thing was playing the shows to the people.” Shows that – appropriately – perfectly showcased Jonquil’s new songs from their latest album, Point of Go, which the press is calling ‘far more poppy and accessible’ than anything the band’s previously recorded. “The focus on ‘crisp, clean and poppy’ was definitely inherent throughout the whole process,” Scott explains. “We really wanted to avoid sounding cluttered or lo-fi, as all of our previous releases do, and the album’s name had this effect in mind along with the lineup change that happened soon before the writing process began (Editor’s note: the band downsized from seven members to four last year.)” A few components of Point of Go were recorded at home in Oxford by the band, but the majority of sessions were tracked at band friend Andrew Halford’s studio, Iglu, near Birmingham England, where Jonquil found the environment ‘friendly and positive.’ “The studio is in an out-building on Andrew’s parents’ lovely farm,” Scott says, “sheep in the fields, horses in the barn, packs of dogs popping up the steps to check it out, chickens laying eggs at our feet – real relaxed and inviting. It’s good feeling secluded when you’ve got to focus, but we didn’t want any...

  After relocating to California from the Midwest, singer and songwriter – not to be confused with ‘singer-songwriter’ (see below) – Arthur Autumn, aka Brent Nuffer, saw his music career leap like a surfboard in a top-turn. Before he made the trek to Hollywood, living in a part of the country with a serious lack of ‘music scene’ proved to be challenging – but Nuffer made the most of the little he had, working with a band called Studiotone and crafting his own projects even as those around him were giving up or falling back on playing jukebox standards in shifty bars. “Things were changing (where I lived) at the time, and the people around me were changing,” Nuffer explains. “Music venues were choosing DJs, or cover bands, or just shutting down. Record stores were closing. It was really heartbreaking to watch, and there was just no longer an outlet to grow. It was a small box.” While Nuffer still feels a certain sense of loyalty to his roots – he even meets with Studiotone back in the Midwest a few times a year to play ‘reunion shows’ – he visited California back in 2005, and something spoke to him and his musical sensibilities. “As I knew it would,” Nuffer chuckles. “I always felt I had the West in me somewhere.  It was just a matter of time before I made the move. I still feel for where I came from, and the struggles – and I’d like to help more in the future where I can – but at the time, I was looking for something more. I’ve already played the Viper Room and The Roxy, shot a video in the desert, and found an amazing band out here.” Make that a couple...

Irish band Autumn Owls have somehow managed to infuse their atmospheric, experimental, some might say chilly sound with… the unexpected warmth of folk-rock. It’s a dichotomous blend that finds them digging into the rich loam of both Americana influences and that of some of their more cerebral musical neighbors in the U.K.  While they’ve only been around as a band since 2007, they’ve already dropped several critically-acclaimed (and fan-collected) EPs, Insomnia Lodge and On the Trail of the Disappearing, which led to their opening spots for the likes of Real Estate and Devotchka. The past couple of years, you might’ve spied with your little eye Autumn Owls at the SXSW, NXNE, and CMJ fests, as well as at a variety of venues in North America, the UK, Italy, and Norway. Soon, you’ll be able to swoop in and snag a copy of their forthcoming debut full-length set, which they’re currently working on. It’s a long shout from their days as fledgling musicians growing up together in Dublin. “Adam (Browne, bass) and I grew up in the same neighborhood and went to school together,” the Owls’  singer/guitarist Gary McFarlane says. “In the mid ’90s, guitar music had a huge resurgence, so like lots of other teenagers in Dublin, we bought guitars and taught ourselves to play.” Once in college, they added Will Purtill to the mix on the drums. “It was then that we began (officially) ‘playing in a band,'” McFarlane says. “We were pretty awful when I look back,” he laughs, “but I suppose it was all part of the learning curve.” Today, Autumn Owls are oft compared to a more electronic Wilco, or a more rootsy Califone. “We listen to a lot of different music,” McFarlane explains, “I suppose growing up and first...