10 Massachusetts bands you should have on your radar in 2016
From Northampton to Boston, keep an ear out for these up-and-coming acts.
Cousin Stizz on the steps of his Dorchester home in September, 2015.
2015 was a fruitful year for music in Massachusetts, marked by the emergence of young talent from a number of different genres.
The indie realm saw national success for bands like Palehound, whose debut full-length Dry Food drew widespread critical praise from The Boston Globe to NPR, or Vundabar, who spent a great deal of the past year touring Europe.
Boston’s hip-hop scene delivered Michael Christmas to a national audience, and saw him put out What a Weird Day while trekking the country with Mac Miller. On the other side of the spectrum, The Ballroom Thieves became folk festival darlings with the release of their debut full-length, A Wolf In The Doorway. Genre-benders Guerilla Toss took their oddly energizing breed of freak funk to Brooklyn, but not before putting out an EP on James Murphy’s DFA Records.
While 2015’s collective accomplishments mark an upswing in local music, the momentum is fixing to continue into 2016. There are always new bands to check out in your neighborhood, but here are ten starter options to keep an eye out for in the upcoming year.
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Northampton-based Deja Carr has produced a peculiar melange of soul and punk styles out of Hampshire College for some time now, but her approach to bass playing and immediately jarring vocal style have spread their way to Boston and beyond. At only 19, Carr’s seasoned approach to songwriting propels her progressive meditations with resonant, often piercing melodies for a poetic experience that the Bay State has yet to behold.
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A Dorchester native with a story to tell, Cousin Stizz’s 2015 mixtape Suffolk County had Drake blasting tracks from it at his own birthday party, and allowed the young lyricist to prop up fellow locals like Latrell James. Adding extra muscle to the local hip-hop wave created by Michael Christmas in 2013, Stizz is in prime position to tell a national audience what’s good in Boston.
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If there was ever a doubt that punk music wasn’t for songwriters, someone forgot to give this Western Massachusetts quartet the heads up. Lead man Shane Dupuy concocts a special kind of nostalgia, apparent both in the delivery of his anecdotes and in the scratchy riffs that fill the space between. Laika’s Orbit put out a five-track demo, a single, and a full-length all in 2015, and are kicking off 2016 with a tour of the west coast.
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Boston is blessed with a healthy abundance of garage rock, but when Feral Jenny’s Greatest Hits EP comes on, the blessed union of classic pop progressions and scratch of lo-fi brilliance is enough to connect with just about any listener. Frontwoman Jenny Mudarri can move from nonchalant to earnest before the brain has a chance to calculate it, and while she has been releasing music out of Boston for a few years now, the addition of a live band combined with the success of her latest release tees her up for quite the 2016.
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Self-harmonizing vocals, indelible sentiments, and right-brained rhythmic shuffles are the name of the game for local songwriter Anjimile. Their smattering of styles makes for both a grab-bag of a live show and an undeniable display of versatility. The smooth soulful finish on “Wanted by the Law’’ is immediately 180’d on the fist-in-the-air punk of “Human Nature’’ on 2015’s debut full-length of the same name. 2015 was merely an introduction to Anjimile, and 2016 will be the education.
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If a mark of a good band is to deliver a live show that transforms its studio work, Jamaica Plain’s Horse Jumper of Love is an experience to behold. The recorded material of songwriter Dimitri Giannopoulos lends intimate acoustic melodies to soft spoken lyrics that are poignant but never overly maudlin, while the band’s live show builds a wall of reverbed guitar tempered by soothing vocals. A new release in early 2016 will get this trio an exciting jumpstart on the upcoming year.
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Featuring members of bands like Soccer Mom and Earthquake Party, Gold Muse is something of a local supergroup. Pulling a bit of flavor from each of their respective acts, the band delivers a jangly mix of static shoegaze and punchy surf riffs. Their first single is hot off the presses, moving into 2016 with some fresh momentum and the excitement of introducing their brand new sound.
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2015’s Grips On Heat was more than enough to put national headlights on Steep Leans. The work of local punk Jeff Somers takes a distorted approach to layered psychedelia, creating a wall of scratchy sounds that’s easy to sink into over time. His music caught the attention of Ghostramp Records, a label from California garage stalwarts WAVVES, who released Grips On Heat this past fall, aligning Steep Leans for a big upcoming year.
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The duo of Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug has been performing in various local outfits since arriving in Boston a few years ago, but have hit a particularly riveting stride under Mini Dresses. An ethereal sound — marked by tinny guitar swirls surrounding the Julee Cruise vocal styles of Lira Mondal — creates a signature washed out flavor on the band’s latest FOUR EP. As the act continues to play more, including appearances at Hassle Fest 7 and as openers for Telekinesis, they’ve only picked up more speed going into 2016.
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A few years ago, a group of teenagers with a scattered collection of demented influences started a label in Western Mass called Dark World. 2015 saw many of these kids grow up, some of them move out of state for college, and a few new faces recruited into the the crew. It also saw an impressive debut LP from Morimoto, whose shuffled jazzy rap channels some of present-day Chicago’s finest. Or a prolific output from oddball rappers DJ Lucas and God’s Wisdom, whose semi-uncomfortable lo-fi videos would likely get the approval of Harmony Korine. Or even the several releases from slacker-folk troubadour Sweat Enzo, whose cheeky style hits a similar vein as Mac DeMarco. Dark World has come a long way, and is poised to go even further in the year ahead.
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