Music to Check Out

Mr Twin Sister is an American band from New York City. Their music has been described as chill wave, indie pop, dream pop, and disco. They have been compared to Cocteau Twins and Portishead. They have toured the US and Europe and have so far released three EPs and three LPs.

Donny Benét (born Ben Waples) is an Australian recording artist, based in Sydney. He is notable for his anachronistic musical style, borrowing heavily from 80s post-disco sounds. In 2011, he released his debut studio album Don't Hold Back through indie label Rice is Nice. His fifth studio album, Mr Experience, reached #26 on the ARIA Charts in May 2020.

Benét was born Ben Waples to a family of an Italian mother and a father who, like Benét, is also a musician. According to an NME interview in 2020, Ben Waples developed his Donny Benét persona when he watched an Italian accordionist perform to nursing homes. Prior to his solo career, he played double bass for jazz bands in Sydney.

Donnie and Joe Emerson are an American musical duo. Their late 1970s work was largely unknown until it was rediscovered by a new generation of fans in the 21st century.

The Atomic Bomb! Band are a touring supergroup who play the music of Nigerian funk musician William Onyeabor. The core group is music director Ahmed Gallab and his band Sinkane (composed of Jason Trammell on drums, Ish Montgomery on bass and Jonny Lam on guitar), Alexis Taylor (of Hot Chip), Pat Mahoney (of LCD Soundsystem), Money Mark (of the Beastie Boys) Lekan Babalola and Jas Walton (of Antibalas).

William Onyeabor took the classical HighLife style of West Africa into a more electronic and individualised approach, merging it with the approach to music to be found in groups like Yes, Focus, Kraftwerk and Simple Minds, while retaining the aspects of style which informed early hip-hop and rap. To a great extent Atomic Bomb! returns the style to a more instrumental band-based approach, as the use of a huge backing choir and the combination of several bands using a wider range of instruments shows, although the more folk-ethnic approach of Hi-Life in the 1950s and 60s has largely disappeared.

The Best Kept Secret festival is a three-day music festival held inside the Safaripark Beekse Bergen, within the village of Hilvarenbeek in the south of the Netherlands, since 2013.

Rostam Batmanglij, known mononymously as Rostam, is an American record producer, musician, singer, songwriter, and composer. He was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend, whose first three albums he produced. He has been described by Stereogum as one of the greatest pop and indie-rock producers of his generation. Rostam also works as a solo artist and is a member of electro-soul group Discovery. He produced his first number-one album, Vampire Weekend's Contra, when he was 27 years old.

Sampha Lahai Sisay is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer from Morden, South London. Sampha is widely known for his collaborative work with Kendrick Lamar, SBTRKT, Jessie Ware, Drake, Kanye West, Solange and others. Sampha has released two solo EPs: Sundanza (2010) and Dual (2013). Sampha's debut album, Process, was released on 3 February 2017 by Young and won the 2017 Mercury Prize.

Connan Tant Hosford, better known by the stage name Connan Mockasin and sometimes credited as Connan Hosford, is a New Zealand musician, composer and record producer. Critically acclaimed and described as "a psych-funk oddball...a contrarian", Mockasin has been credited with the 21st century crossover of psychedelic and indie music, and praised for his unique and isolated approach to songwriting.

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.

TOPS is a Canadian indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, which currently consists of Jane Penny, David Carriere, Riley Fleck, and Marta Cikojevic. They were formed in 2011 following the disbandment of synthpop group Silly Kissers, of which Carriere, Penny, and Gillies were members, along with notable Arbutus Records recording artist Sean Nicholas Savage. TOPS are prominent within the Arbutus Records and Canadian indie music scenes. Their debut album, Tender Opposites, was released on February 28, 2012, in Canada and the United States, and October 1, 2012, in the rest of the world, to generally positive reviews. The album was named the eighth best album of 2012 by Gorilla vs. Bear. Their second studio album, Picture You Staring, was released in 2014 on Arbutus Records and featured artwork from LA-based artist Jessica Dean Harrison.

The Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is a music festival held annually in San Francisco, California, at Golden Gate Park. The festival is produced by Another Planet Entertainment, Superfly Presents, and Starr Hill Presents. It is the largest independently owned music festival in the US. In 2019, it was one of the world's highest grossing festivals with revenues of almost $30 million.

Jamila Woods (born October 6, 1989) is a Chicago-based American singer, songwriter and poet. Woods is a graduate of St. Ignatius College Prep and Brown University, where she received a BA in Africana Studies and Theater & Performance Studies. Her work focuses on themes of Black ancestry, Black feminism, and Black identity, with recurring emphases on self-love and the City of Chicago.

In 2012, Jamila Woods published her first chapbook, entitled The Truth About Dolls. Her work can be found in the anthologies The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015), Courage: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls (2014), and The UnCommon Core: Contemporary Poems for Learning & Living (2013). Her influences include Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, and Frida Kahlo.

Francis and the Lights is an American pop project led by Francis Farewell Starlite. The term "and the Lights" refers both to the lights on a stage and pixels on a computer screen.

Nilüfer Yanya (; born 11 May 1995) is an English singer, songwriter and musician.

Yanya is the daughter of two visual artists, her mother is of Irish and Barbadian heritage and her father is Turkish. Yanya grew up in Chelsea, London listening to Turkish music and classical music playing at home. She gravitated to guitar rock and learned how to play the instrument at the age of 12.

Informally starting her musical career with demos uploaded to SoundCloud in 2014, Yanya turned down an offer to join a girl group produced by Louis Tomlinson of One Direction and focused on developing her own music instead. She has spoken out against this model of talent acquisition, telling The Guardian “‘Let’s go and pinch some young people, tell them we’re going to make a really successful group but we’re obviously going to make a lot more money than them.’ It’s a very selfish thing to do.” The project was reportedly abandoned after a year.