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By: Taylor Wallace

“Why?” Life’s biggest question and, really, its most primal. It’s human nature in a word. Canadian, LA-based producer Mocky (credits include Feist and Moses Sumney, and sampled by GZA and Kanye), who has always been dedicated to curiosity and musical evolution, uses this question as the thesis for his new album Music Will Explain (Choir Music Vol. 1), his first on Stones Throw. More acutely, he asks “why do we do what we do?” specifically in the world of AI, a mark in technological evolution he either puts in quotes or punctuates with a question mark. As such, the album is centered around the human voice, captured organically and unaltered.

To accomplish this, Mocky invited friends from the Northeastern LA scene into his garage to record into a single microphone captured on a vintage tape recorder. He built and added the instrumentation around the voices, recorded live to the taped vocals, ironically providing the chorus to the vocal’s lead cast. Taking on a neo-funk vibe punctuated with steel drums, a groovy bassline, and a jangly keyboard, the album’s title track is a palpable celebration of being human and making music together.

Music Will Explain (Choir Music Vol. 1) is out today.

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By: Taylor Wallace

A long journey led Dom Francis to Austin. Originally from the northeast, Francis went through a nomadic phase taking up temporary residence in Missouri, Pennsylvania, El Paso, and now Austin. Francis’s stories and experiences in those places, and the places themselves, have all found a place in Francis’s folk-rock-fueled songs.

His previous EPs have led to his precisely appropriately named debut album The Wanderer. That title matched with Francis’s residential resume tells us to come close and take seat, but even that can’t quite prepare you for his illustrative storytelling that transports you right to wherever Francis wants. On “Leave Your Shoes At the Door,” Francis answers the gnawing question, “what would it sound like if MJ Lenderman and Belle and Sebastian collaborated?” Here, he pulls out some cuddly harmonies to match the gentle picking folk-rock melody that puts “sun-drenched room with the curtains pulled” into a sound.

The Wanderer comes out May 31st with an album release show that night at The Continental Club.

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By: Taylor Wallace

If coffee house ambiance had the same moderately caffeinated energy their beverages do, that would illustrate the energy of Austin alt-pop artist Maxwell Knowles. The bouncing basslines, playful piano melodies, and his suave, baritone voice create a sound that’s interesting and comforting at the same time. Even with a song called “Monsters.”

Knowles releases “Monsters” today ahead of his album Daydreaming In the Dark, out April 25th. The album is a showcase of Knowles’s Bon-Iver-meets-James-Blake talents, and he brings those talents to Vintage Bookstore and Wine Bar on E. 11th on March 28th.

“Monsters” is on Daydreaming In the Dark, out April 25th.