Space Elf

Austra is a Canadian electronic music band from Toronto, founded in 2009 by composer, singer-songwriter, and producer Katie Stelmanis. Stelmanis is the only permanent member of the project, with a rotating live band that has included Maya Postepski (drums), Dorian Wolf (bass, Moog), and Ryan Wonsiak (keyboards). It previously also featured the twin backing singers Sari and Romy Lightman of Tasseomancy. The band has released four studio albums—Feel It Break (2011), Olympia (2013), Future Politics (2017), and Hirudin (2020).

In 2004, Stelmanis and Postepski played in a band called Galaxy, together with Emma McKenna. At the same time, Stelmanis started making electronic music at home and was also writing industrial-inspired soundtracks for performance artist Zeesy Powers. Powers convinced her to start performing her songs live, and in 2008 Stelmanis' debut album Join Us, which appeared under her own name, was released through Blocks Recording Club. She toured Europe with Postepski on drums and xylosynth. In 2009, Stelmanis decided to change the name of the project from her own in order to increase her bandmates' visibility, and because she felt too many people were mistaking the project for being an acoustic-folk act.

XL Recordings is a British independent record label founded in 1989 by Tim Palmer and Nick Halkes. It has been run and co-owned by Richard Russell since 1996. It forms part of the Beggars Group.

Michael Alden Hadreas (born September 25, 1981), better known by his stage name Perfume Genius, is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Hadreas's music explores topics including sexuality, his personal struggle with Crohn's disease, domestic abuse, and the dangers faced by gay men in contemporary society.

Hadreas is of Greek descent and was born in Des Moines, Iowa, moving to the suburbs of Seattle, Washington at age 6 or 7. Hadreas studied painting in school and took piano lessons as a child. His mother was a special education teacher, and is now an assistant principal at a middle school. His parents divorced when he was a teenager.

Growing up, Hadreas was the only openly gay student at his school, and he received death threats that were ignored by the school administration. He dropped out of high school during his senior year. Two years after dropping out, he was attacked by several young men in his neighborhood. He moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and worked as a doorman for a club in the East Village. In 2005, Hadreas returned home to Seattle and began recording music. In 2008, Hadreas set up a MySpace page under the name Perfume Genius, beginning his music career. The moniker comes from the genius perfume-maker in Tom Tykwer's 2006 movie Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

Jessy Lanza is a Canadian electronic songwriter, producer, and vocalist from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She has released three albums, Pull My Hair Back (2013), Oh No (2016) and All the Time (2020), to critical praise on UK label Hyperdub.

Azealia Amanda Banks ( ə-ZEE-lee-ə; born May 31, 1991) is an American rapper, singer and songwriter. Raised in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, she began releasing music through Myspace in 2008 before being signed to XL Recordings at age 18. In 2011, her debut single "212" went viral and entered several international charts. Banks subsequently signed with Interscope and Polydor Records before later separating in July 2013. Banks ultimately became an independent artist and started her own independent record label, Chaos & Glory Recordings, after multiple negative experiences with previous labels.

Banks has released three mixtapes (Fantasea in 2012, Slay-Z in 2016, and Yung Rapunxel: Pt.II in 2019), one studio album (Broke with Expensive Taste in 2014), and two extended plays (1991 in 2012 and Icy Colors Change in 2018). Her long-delayed second and third studio albums, Fantasea II: The Second Wave and Business & Pleasure, await release. The lead singles from each respective album, "Anna Wintour" and "Black Madonna" were released in April 2018 and June 2020 respectively. In December 2017, Banks had her film debut in the musical drama Love Beats Rhymes, portraying the lead character.

Future Islands is an American synth-pop band based in Baltimore, Maryland, comprising Gerrit Welmers (keyboards and programming), William Cashion (bass, acoustic and electric guitars), Samuel T. Herring (lyrics and vocals), and Michael Lowry (percussion). The band was formed in January 2006 by Welmers, Cashion and Herring—the remaining members of the performance art college band Art Lord & the Self-Portraits—and drummer Erick Murillo.

Future Islands came to prominence in 2014 with their fourth album Singles released by 4AD. Its lead single "Seasons (Waiting on You)" was considered the best song of 2014 by Pitchfork, and NME and its performance at the Late Show with David Letterman in March 2014, became the most-viewed video on the show's YouTube page.

Mykki Blanco is an American rapper, performance artist, poet and activist. She has collaborated musically with artists including Kanye West, Teyana Taylor, and Blood Orange.

iamamiwhoami is the electronic music and audiovisual project of Swedish singer-songwriter Jonna Lee in collaboration with her longtime record producer Claes Björklund. The project has, since 2009, released audiovisual series on their YouTube channel followed by a large international audience. Visual collaborators of the project include Swedish director Robin Kempe-Bergman, until 2013, and visual collective Wave, consisting of Lee and cinematographer John Strandh, and formerly Agustín Moreaux.

Lorely Rodriguez, known professionally as Empress Of, is a Honduran-American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer based in Los Angeles, California. To date, she has released three studio albums via XL Recordings and Terrible Records, her critically acclaimed debut, Me (2015), Us (2018) and I'm Your Empress Of (2020).

Caroline Elizabeth Polachek (born June 20, 1985) is an American singer and songwriter. Raised in Connecticut, Polachek co-founded the indie pop band Chairlift while studying at the University of Colorado. The duo emerged from the late-2000s Brooklyn music scene with the sleeper hit "Bruises.”

During her time in the band, she worked on the solo projects Ramona Lisa and CEP before embarking on a career under her own name after Chairlift's disbandment in 2017. Her debut studio album, Pang (2019), featured collaborations with producer Danny L Harle and was released to critical acclaim.

Polachek has worked extensively with other artists, collaborating with Blood Orange, Fischerspooner, Sbtrkt, Christine and the Queens, Charli XCX, and the British music collective PC Music, as well as penning material for Beyoncé ("No Angel") and Travis Scott.

Purity Ring is a Canadian electronic pop band from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, formed in 2010. The band consists of multi-instrumentalist/producer Corin Roddick and vocalist Megan James. They released their debut album Shrines in 2012 to critical acclaim, followed by Another Eternity in 2015 and Womb in 2020. The band released an EP, Graves, on June 3, 2022.

RUBEN XYZ (Ruben Sznajderman, born November 17, 1982) is a Swedish music video and short film director. He is currently based in New York. He is the director of the Zebra Katz music video for the song "Ima Read". The music video for "Ima Read" went viral after designer Rick Owens used the song for his Women F/W 2012 during Paris Fashion Week.

Alejandra Ghersi Rodríguez, known professionally as Arca, is a Venezuelan musician and record producer based in Barcelona, Spain. She initially began releasing music under the name of Nuuro. After attending the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, Ghersi first released the EP Baron Libre (2012) under the name Arca and subsequently released the EPs Stretch 1 and Stretch 2; the latter experimented with hip hop and brought her attention from prominent music publications.

Meghan Boody (born 1964) is an American artist. Her work consists largely of digitally manipulated photographs as well as some multimedia sculpture. It is surreal in nature – the surrealism movement began in 1924 – and heavily narrative, often focusing on themes of self discovery. The subject is usually a young girl, often elaborately dressed, who is placed in a bizarre setting. In the 1990s she began working with Adobe Photoshop, creating digital work based on composite imagery, and is considered one of the first artists to us this technique effectively.

Meghan Boody, born Margaret Liscomb Boody, was born in New York City in 1964. She was the only adopted child of her older parents and was raised on the upper east side. Her father worked at Columbia University and her mother worked as a tester for the Education Records Bureau. She spent lots of time alone, as she was the only child of two working parents, and created worlds of her own incorporating her toys, dog, and pet mice. Her family spent time in Long Island during the summer and weekends. She says of the experience that she “felt liberated and less alone, roaming the fields barefoot and shirtless, making forts with the neighborhood kids.” In 1995 Meghan married James C. Ayer Jr., who worked as a portfolio manager. He graduated from Yale and Oxford. Their marriage did not last, but they have a son together, who Boody credits as an inspiration to her work. She noticed that after his birth her work became “a little lighter and more reality based”.

Majical Cloudz was a Canadian music group from Montreal consisting of singer-songwriter Devon Welsh and Matt Otto. The group disbanded in March 2016.

Devonté Hynes, also known as Blood Orange and formerly Lightspeed Champion, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and director based in New York City. From 2004 to 2006, Hynes was a member of the band Test Icicles, playing guitar, synth, and occasionally performing vocals. They released one full-length album in 2005. Hynes went on to release two solo studio albums as Lightspeed Champion and subsequently five more as Blood Orange, between 2008 and 2019.

Icky Blossoms is an electropop trio formed in Omaha, Nebraska in 2011, bringing together singer/synth player Sarah Bohling and singer/multi-instrumentalists Derek Pressnall and Nik Fackler. The three became acquainted through the Omaha arts scene and Pressnall's sidebands Tilly and the Wall and Flowers Forever. In early 2012, Icky Blossoms signed to Omaha-based Saddle Creek, who released the band's self-titled, full-length LP on July 17, 2012. Produced by TV on the Radio multi-instrumentalist Dave Sitek, it is said to be an “album of sharp mechanical grooves and romantic attitude” by Spin magazine.

The Princess Weiyoung (Chinese: 锦绣未央; pinyin: Jin Xiu Wei Yang) is a 2016 Chinese television series starring Tiffany Tang in the title role, alongside Luo Jin, Vanness Wu, Mao Xiaotong and Li Xinai. It is adapted from the novel The Poisonous Daughter (Chinese: 庶女有毒) by Qin Jian and is a fictionalized account of Emperor Wencheng of Northern Wei's reign and Empress Feng (Wencheng)'s regency. The series aired on Dragon TV and Beijing TV from 11 November to 9 December 2016.

The series received mixed reviews. It was praised for its tight plot and fast storyline and vivid character personas. It was also praised for showcasing the story of growth of a strong and independent female lead, as well as fleshing out the background stories of various supporting characters. Viewership ratings also reached as high as 2%, making it one of the highest rated drama of 2016. However it was criticized for its cliché plot devices, illogical plot details, use of excessive and inappropriate makeup, and dubbing of actors' voices.