Nothing about Porij is set in stone. The Manchester band surge from show to show, their creative energy moving from rave-infused highs through to delicate songwriting that finds them exposed and open. Patching together club tropes and indie pop elements, each song seems to exist in its own world, bound together by the gravitational pull of their mutual creativity. The 4-piece, who have carved a niche at the forefront of Queer-led dance-pop, had a massive 2022; releasing the outlines EP; selling out London’s iconic Heaven; performing a much-hyped Glastonbury set; and cementing themselves as burgeoning darlings at both press, radio and streaming. Earlier this year they supported Coldplay on a run of stadium shows including Manchester’s Etihad Arena. Porij’s new material is co-produced by the legendary David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, Young Fathers). Their first release of 2023, the dancefloor-ready groove ‘You Should Know Me’, is a tantalizing taste of what to expect from the new Porij. Formed almost as a dare by four students at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music, the origin of the band inaugurated a journey of evolution. “The start of the band was the most haphazard thing,” explains Eggy (vocals/keys). “I feel like that’s the literal essence of Porij. We do everything last minute – but it’s so beautiful, and amazing.” One of the band’s strengths is accepting the differences in each other’s voices. Guitarist Jacob Maguire thrives on producing electronic beats, while James Middleton (bass/keys) is entranced by club culture, absorbing the lingering impact of UKG and jungle. Drummer Nathan Carroll, meanwhile, was recruited for a 6Music Festival set – and never left. “Porij feels like a big creative melting pot, where you can put your hat in the ring and suggest an idea,” he says. “It’s a beautiful space to exist in.” “It doesn’t feel defined by a single genre,” adds Jacob. “It’s about the music-making ethos, as opposed to lack of genre. If it sounds good, and it makes me want to dance, then that’s fine. Box ticked!” At its core, Porij is a vivid pop experience – immediate, direct, and pulsating, they’re driven by an urge to connect. “What we think is pop is still pretty alternative,” laughs Eggy. “There is a real stigma around pop. But if something’s popular, it’s popular for a reason. It’s connecting with a bunch of people. And I don’t think you can dismiss that lightly.” Distilling their myriad of influences down to a fine essence, Porij are slowly bringing their vision into focus. Pure, undimmed, and utterly fantastic, their rave-pop soliloquies are unlike anything else in British music today.

Sego’s 2nd long player Sego Sucks is woven with the changes of becoming a four-piece band. Originally Spencer Petersen and Thomas Carroll, the band added members Alyssa Davey on bass and Brandon McBride on guitars and keys in 2018. The sound became more focused, but the raucous spirit that has kept people sweating since the beginning is just as tangible and, dare I say, primal as ever.

Nashville-based ​Madi Diaz ​marks a full restart of her artistic career with ​”Man In Me,” ​her poignant debut single/video for ​ANTI-. ​It’s a first taste of how Diaz has worked at perfecting the craft of delivering a full spectrum of emotions via songs stripped to their most confrontational and raw form. This song was produced by Diaz with additional production by Andrew Sarlo​ (Big Thief, Bon Iver). Across reverberating guitar strums and light piano, Diaz’s voice is evocative as she makes frank observations about a past relationship: “​Do you imagine me differently // Cause when I met you swore that you saw me // When you think I might be someone else // Does it turn you on​.” As the track continues, Diaz’s vocals swell exponentially, only to be drawn back to a fading note.

“​’Man In Me’ was the first song I sat down to record for myself in about six years, which is the reason I thought it was so important to release first. It’s a very intimately visceral moment, a sort of play-by-play inner monologue, taking my first steps through a really hard time.​” The accompanying video, directed by ​Stephen Kinigopoulos, “​ ​emphasizes the intensity of a moment held and held and held. For me, this video is like holding a stare for so long that it hurts. It’s like knowing you should let go, but you keep holding on cause you can’t say ‘when,’ and playing with that tension lying right beneath the surface. You know something’s up, but you just can’t put your finger on it.​”

Diaz was originally raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania surrounded by a family deeply immersed in music: her grandfather was a tenor in the Greenwich City Opera, both of her parents taught music lessons (piano, guitar and ukulele), her father played in a Zappa tribute band and her brother plays in a metal band. She moved to Philadelphia in her teens to have closer access to broader music education, before eventually enrolling in (and dropping out of) Berklee College of Music and moving to Nashville to more seriously pursue a career as a songwriter. After cutting her teeth in writers rooms in Nashville, Diaz moved to Los Angeles honing her songwriting skills and playing in numerous projects. After a very tumultuous relationship and break up, she bought a truck and moved back to Nashville where she became a go-to songwriter. As things slowed down, Diaz felt she had the time and space to fully confront everything in her life with a newfound sense of clarity. Over the next two years, she wrote over 100 songs, one of which is “Man In Me.” The songwriting expertise she had developed over the years is now championed in her own strikingly original and emotional music.

Through evocative lyricism and the strum of his guitar, Daniel Nunnelee creates nostalgia in its purest form. Daniel grew up in Memphis and was exposed to a litany of emotive music and diverse culturebefore moving throughout Tennessee and Mississippi. Though frequently traveling around much of his life, Nunnelee says he feels most at home when engaging with others and he uses his music to offer fans their own community built on vulnerability and connection. Once he began to release his own music, his approach to community through song connected with fans immediately; he sold out his first five headlining shows ever in Atlanta, Nashville, and Denver. 2022 has already been a major year for Daniel with his self-released single “Pick and Choose” capturing the hearts of people worldwide. Over 40,000 fans pre-saved his “Pick and Choose” release, which garnered over one million streams within ten days of release and now boasts over six million streams to date. He then took his success on the road with his first headline tour, which included numerous sell out shows. Never losing sight of what matters most to him, Daniel refuses to diverge from community and connection as being the most important parts of his music career. With his self-made community continuing to grow and more heartfelt music on the way, Daniel Nunnelee is poised to become the voice of a generation.

C L U B C O M A, New Austin based experimental group comprised of Scott Martin, Aaron Perez and Geoff Earle pulls together an exciting, genre-bending sound that lives somewhere between Rock n Roll, Experimental Pop, and mid-aughts French touch. “This Austin supergroup-of-sorts builds bops that hop around retro French flourishes, all things rock n roll, and experimental pop. An early recording of that killer combo piqued the interest of Spoon’s Jim Eno, who eventually decided to apply his Midas touch production to CC’s self-titled debut album, and boy is it a beaut.” -KUTX 98.9FM
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St. Terrible is a musician and performance artist based out of Boise, Idaho. Ranging from the beautiful to the bizarre, his work is eclectic and ever changing in it’s sound, form and presentation.

The Gospel of Nothingness was created by St. Terrible in 2015. Working in collaboration with a large cast of artists specializing in everything from music to dance to set design, The Gospel of Nothingness is an immersive experience that incorporates elements from a wide range of arts and music to create a unique and expansive world that is always changing and endless in it’s stories.

“St. Terrible, a Boise, Idaho-based self-dubbed “freak folk” artist, has been, knowingly or not, spreading his own Gospel of Nothingness that not only taps into these Buddhist themes, but celebrates them with a jubilance. Mixing the joyfulness of a sermon, religious iconography, and a transgressive approach to performance itself which seeks too subvert the performer vs. audience dynamic, St. Terrible and the Gospel of Nothingness have created an expansive and embracing experience that is vital and vibrant.” – Lex Voight, LA Music Blog