Quiet Light is a tour de force; Houston native Riya Mahesh has not only produced five albums and two EPs in three years but has done so while being a full-time medical student. She recently came to indie fame from her 2023 folktronica album, Blue Angel Sparkling Silver, hot on the silver heels of her other 2023 album, Fourth of July. She’s already opened for Superfan, Hovvdy, and Luna Li, and has managed to offer us her new project just three months after her fourth album.

Quiet Light is a tour de force; Houston native Riya Mahesh has not only produced five albums and two EPs in three years but has done so while being a full-time medical student. She recently came to indie fame from her 2023 folktronica album, Blue Angel Sparkling Silver, hot on the silver heels of her other 2023 album, Fourth of July. She’s already opened for Superfan, Hovvdy, and Luna Li, and has managed to offer us her new project just three months after her fourth album.

Quiet Light is a tour de force; Houston native Riya Mahesh has not only produced five albums and two EPs in three years but has done so while being a full-time medical student. She recently came to indie fame from her 2023 folktronica album, Blue Angel Sparkling Silver, hot on the silver heels of her other 2023 album, Fourth of July. She’s already opened for Superfan, Hovvdy, and Luna Li, and has managed to offer us her new project just three months after her fourth album.

Quiet Light is a tour de force; Houston native Riya Mahesh has not only produced five albums and two EPs in three years but has done so while being a full-time medical student. She recently came to indie fame from her 2023 folktronica album, Blue Angel Sparkling Silver, hot on the silver heels of her other 2023 album, Fourth of July. She’s already opened for Superfan, Hovvdy, and Luna Li, and has managed to offer us her new project just three months after her fourth album.

Oklou is entrenched in the scene, though you may not know it. She’s released an EP on the record label/artist collective NUXXE (founded by Sega Bodega, Shygirl, and COUCOU CHLOE), and been involved with PC Music: appearing on Namasenda’s Unlimited Ammo, A.G. Cook’s Apple vs, 7G, even remixing Caroline Polachek’s “Door.” She’s also appeared as a collaborator in more mainstream one-offs with her remix of Dua Lipa’s “Fever” and appearance on Flume’s “Highest Building.” Her 2020 track, “God’s Chariots” has even amassed over 8 million streams. Yet, in the space of modern French electronic music, she’s often overlooked.

Ethel Cain’s musical craftsmanship reached new heights on Perverts. On January 8th, the Florida native dropped the highly anticipated follow-up to her 2022 debut, Preacher’s Daughter. The nine-track “project” breaks the 90-minute mark, with individual songs spanning over fifteen minutes. 

If a breakdown is the disassembly of a riff/groove to its heaviest, most primal instincts, Spineless takes theirs to a different level. The sheer force of Spineless’s instrumentals is so violent that it seems like even the microphones struggle to contain it. The sound itself begins to break down, the audio overmodulating at the most intense moments. The low end overpowers everything; trading hard-hitting rimshots for an earth-shaking, headphone-obliterating rumble. Every sidechained kick drum is a punch to the stomach. The guitars are oversaturated with an incendiary midrange, burning over thick distorted basslines.