Eilen Jewell’s music wouldn’t be out of place in a smoky nightclub, but it would sound just as natural in a barn full of slow-dancing Southerners. Her tunes have an interesting dichotomy that’s equal parts Billie Holiday and Loretta Lynn, shifting effortlessly from jazz to folk, often within the same track, and surprising listeners with unpredictable and fascinating trajectories.
The Sea The Sea. Saying its name out loud has the effect of an incantation or a lullaby, similar to the experience of listening to the group’s music. Vocalists Chuck E. Costa and Mira Stanley croon in unison on tracks of love, faith and common threads, while soft chords loop in the background forming peacefully happy music that promises to put you at ease, but not to sleep.
Experimental group Algiers might be this generation’s quintessential protest band. Hailing from Atlanta, the four-man act creates music with lyrics as radical and furious as its sound, with influences ranging from post-punk to Southern gospel. The band’s name refers to a famous anti-colonial battle, and its tracks usually comment on America’s history of slavery and the lasting impacts of racism. And that righteous anger results in dark but beautiful music, guaranteeing a live performance not to be missed.
The psychedelic folk-rock band Liz Cooper and the Stampede formed at the unlikeliest of places—a golf course. Two things in life came easily to Cooper: golf and music. So, when she moved to Nashville, she found work at a country club, and eventually recorded her first EP with some co-workers. From there, she added Ky Baker on drums and Grant Prettyman on bass, forming the three-piece group that now creates the mad mixture of rock, folk and psychedelic sounds that took them from golf clubs to rock clubs.
A growing following is tailing the tunes of singer-songwriter and Houston native David Ramirez. Known for his soulful, introspective songs and passionate performances, Ramirez started music-making as many do—playing rock ‘n’ roll songs with his band at parties. He developed his own style in college and broke off to pursue a solo career. Focusing on acoustic tunes, Ramirez released studio material at a blistering rate, and now on his Bootleg Tour, he’s showing that he can translate it live as he records each performance for possible release.
Full-time touring has been known to complicate a musician’s personal life. Add a spouse, a child and a second band to the traveling show, and it sounds pitch-perfect for a reality TV producer. But Eben Pariser—the frontman for Roosevelt Dime and one-half of the duo Goodnight Moonshine with wife Molly Venter, who is also in the band Red Molly—turns it into a source for exploration. Through songwriting, the pair confronts their lives in honest, witty folk-pop that bears the sincerity, trust and friction that come from lots of time on the road together.
Formed in the early ’90s, The Sea and Cake derived its name from the song “The C in Cake,” and, based on misheard lyrics, set the tone for its enigmatic jazz rock. Eleven albums later, and five years since the last, the Chicago-based synthy (now a) trio steps away from heavy production on Any Day to explore life without founding bassist Eric Claridge, while retaining the buoyant, skip-along heart lifters that can be labeled without malice as easy listening indie tunes.
After a Lord Nelson show at a venue in the southeast, an audience member approached lead singer and guitarist Kai Crowe-Getty. “You guys aren’t for erasing history, right?” the attendee asked. “Every now and then,” Crowe-Getty says, “we have to diffuse a situation like that and stand by what we believe.”
Listen to Lord Nelson’s debut album The County and the forthcoming Through the Night, and it’s pretty clear what Crowe-Getty believes. Take “Virginia” from The County—it’s a horn-heavy and bluesy ballad with lyrics written from the viewpoint of one of Crowe-Getty’s relatives who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.
“He’s asking himself, ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’” says Crowe-Getty. “It’s about his shame and regret about the war he was fighting.”
Through the Night’s “Safety Meeting” and “Southern Discomfort” stem from the experience of Crowe-Getty and his four bandmates—lead guitarist Calloway Jones and brother Henry Jones on vocals, keys and trombone, drummer Johnny Stubblefield and bassist Andrew Hollifield—watching the events of August 11 and 12 remotely while the band was touring.
“We wrote ‘Southern Discomfort’ after touring around the South and seeing Confederate flags all over highways,” Crowe-Getty says. “We rewrote it and let it sit for a while until this summer.”
“Stars and bars over 29, / just south of Lynchburg before the state line, / now they’re gathering in city streets / a lost cause it doesn’t know defeat,” Crowe-Getty sings in the opening verse between a heartbeat drumline punctured by progressively rising guitar chords. Soulful vocalist sisters Davina Jackson and Davita Jackson-Voit join Crowe-Getty in his staccato delivery of the chorus. Together, the song’s elements are reminiscent of a call and response—finding unity, harmony and artistry in spite of division and abrupt endings. They come together to tell an all-too-familiar story of shock and rage.
Crowe-Getty says the new record is darker than the band anticipated. In the two years between albums, Crowe-Getty and his bandmates came to terms with “the natural migration of life,” dealing with personal loss, feeling tested and stretched too thin. Crowe-Getty’s brother, Bram, helped found Lord Nelson in 2012, wrote and performed on Through the Night and ultimately left the band to go back to school.
“It’s easy to feel isolated or in your own little world when you’re traveling in a van with four other dudes,“ Crowe-Getty says. “It’s also wonderful and can put things at arm’s length. The past year was about reconciling that if we wanted to do this as a career, we have to make sacrifices. We all love making music more than anything else.”
Recording the album was cathartic for Crowe-Getty because it gave the band an opportunity to support one another and the space to process life changes.
“We were playing and performing and exploring and doing some weird stuff,” Crowe- Getty says. Through the Night’s “When the Lights Come Down,” for example, “started as a strummy acoustic number and turns into this big, weird Men at Work mixed with psychedelic vibe.” Jones found a groovy keyboard riff, and he and Crowe-Getty mixed in 10 guitars. They wanted to create a “ghostly kind of feedback” sound for the track, which they achieved by recording guitar on a cell phone and rerecording the phone’s audio.
Crowe-Getty says the band is pumped to play a hometown release show at the Southern on May 18, and “make it a really great party.” Horns from The Judy Chops and “force of nature” Athena Jackson will share the stage.
“There has been a huge swell of fantastic releases from the Charlottesville area in the past year,” Crowe-Getty says. “Charlottesville is a great incubator, and we love seeing our friends get after it.”
Alternative four-piece Swimming With Bears is on a mission. The Austin-based group has been tirelessly honing its groovy sound since releasing its self-titled debut EP in 2016. Energy and style, from smooth lead guitar riffs to driven bass lines held steady by slick rhythms, are the keys to SWB’s feel-good soul. The new single “French Girls” made an impact back in February and earned the band its first national tour, along with opening slots for the likes of Weezer and Panic! at the Disco.
Rising from the sand of North Carolina’s Outer Banks in 2011, Zack Mexico took its experimental rock to the world through years of festival gigs, constant touring and a recent European stint as the opening act for Future Islands. The band’s popularity continues to swell through its technically dazzling psychedelic surf jams that unite the crowd. Paste magazine says ZM’s music is “… not only a disarming drift; like a strong undertow, it’ll carry you off without warning.” New Boss and Illiterate Light open.