Wednesday 4/20
Sylvaine (opening for Amorphis) at the Skyway – TICKETS
To speak to Sylvaine, the one woman multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, and composer born Kathrine Shepard, is to speak to some spirit that exists beyond the veil of convention and stereotypes. This is not a woman playing to the vogue dark melodic folklorist trope that has become so prevalent in the metal scene but rather, this is a woman who is a serious and classically trained composer and arranger whose songs, that originate on unplugged electric guitars in lavender and black bedrooms, end up exploding against the unlimited conventions of what modern music can accomplish.
Friday 4/22
Yumi Zouma at the Turf Club – TICKETS
Yumi Zouma’s Josh Burgess likens the band’s songwriting process to gardening, “Someone brings in a seed and through collaboration, it grows into a song that is vastly different from its original form.” Like any garden, this one requires dedicated tending, a practice that seems rather inconvenient if not straight-up difficult, considering the fact that the four members live in disparate parts of the world – calling New York, London, and New Zealand home – but long-distance has always been a feature of their songwriting process, not a bug. Their new album, Present Tense, is the product of those efforts, a work Christie Simpson describes as “a gallery wall displaying these different moments in each of our lives. A process of curation, revisiting the past and making it relevant to the present.”
You might assume that while some artists have struggled to rethink their processes during a pandemic, Yumi Zouma would be perfectly suited to the COVID-19 lockdown, but the opposite proved to be true. Without looming tour dates driving them to release new music, the prolific band found themselves at a standstill. So they set a date. By September 1, 2021, the album needed to be finished, regardless of whether they’d be able to tour it or even meet to record together. What began in fits and starts became a committed practice again as Yumi Zouma dug through demos from as early as 2018 to collaborate on and make relevant to the peculiar moment in time the band, and world, was experiencing, memorialized on album opener, “Give It Hell.”
Sunday 4/24
Bre Kennedy (opening for Joy Oladokun) at the Fine Line – TICKETS
Singer-songwriter Bre Kennedy creates music soaked in rich storytelling with piercing pop sensibilities. For many years she wrote with other artists and for other artists, and is now allowing her own music to take center stage. Influenced by mesmerizing talents like Brandi Carlile, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, and Cat Power, her delicate, raspy sound simply soars.
Throughout her music, she touches on profound themes of life’s messy moments and self-growth. She has been featured on notable publications such as Billboard, Atwood Magazine, Paste Magazine, and American Songwriter. The singer has also opened for renowned artists such as Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr., and Birdtalker.
In 2019 she released her acclaimed, buzzworthy EP Jealous of Birds making her a definite artist to watch. With her second EP released the following year in 2020, Twenty Something, she continues to build that momentum leading to an exciting
