Artist: Matt Koziol Hometown: Linden, New Jersey Latest Album: Last of the Old Dogs (out April 5, 2024) What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician? I was probably 4 years old and I saw Elivs on TV. It was like watching lightning in a bottle and I wanted…

Since her solo debut in 2014, Vari-Colored Songs: a Tribute to Langston Hughes, multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, and thought leader Leyla McCalla has routinely and consistently expanded her own sonic universe. But these have not been gratuitous or ambitious artistic reinventions. Instead, the cellist and multi-instrumentalist intentionally and organically brings in new and exciting textures, influences, stories, cultural…

Artist: Kendl Winter Hometown: Olympia, Washington Latest Album: Banjo Mantras Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): "Lower half of The Lowest Pair" What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music? I like this question, because I think everything you do, witness, consume, walk by, dance with, or touch informs…

My new album, The Liberated Woman’s Songbook, reimagines folk songs about women’s activism from a songbook published in 1971 at the height of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Songbooks were the playlists of the past. Before people could burn CDs or make mixtapes, if they wanted to share songs they would make books or zines. When…

Artist: Hannah Connolly Hometown: Los Angeles, California (via Eau Claire, Wisconsin) Latest Album: Shadowboxing Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Han, Hannah Banana, Hannah Montana, Hanny How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it's actually “me?” Most of the songs I’ve written and recorded so far have…