A while back, Taylor Casey asked if I’d sing some backgrounds on his EP. All I knew about the project was that Taylor — who grew up alongside my baby brother — was a nice, Southern California kid whose love for music brought him to the big city. One of my favorite singers happened to be staying…
Laura Moody is a wildly alternative cellist, singer, and performer based in London. As a member of the genre-defying string ensemble, the Elysian Quartet, and a performer for Hot Chip, The xx, Aphex Twin, and more, she has toured extensively, performing the works of both classical and contemporary music in the great halls of Europe…
William Ryan Fritch is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter who has been making music for film and releasing records professionally for about 7 years. I only came across his music recently but was immediately taken aback by his wide range of sounds and compositional tactics, that despite their different origins, all feel distinctly and familiarly…
We at Soundfly love the piano. In many ways, it’s the Mother of Modern Instruments, a musical Khaleesi that’s ruled the stage for hundreds of years. Since its birth in the 1700s, the piano has appeared in almost every style of music you can think of — jazz, rock, classical, blues, cat music — and been played…
Carter Lee and Michael Summer are the minds behind Brooklyn’s Playground Sessions Hip-Hop Jam and its host band, Tiger Speak. The concept behind the jam is an intriguing one — a live band, complete with vocals, horns, and a rhythm section, plays a set of music tributing a hip-hop legend and then the stage is opened up…
About a year ago, I was fortunate enough to meet Jen Baron — a remarkable musician and passionate educator. Her zeal for teaching music as a means of building confidence and fostering self-expression in her students is nothing short of inspirational. Jen launched the Santa Barbara branch of Girls Rock just a few years ago and already it’s given hundreds…
Allen Tate is best known for his distinctively baritone serenades as one of the lead vocalists for San Fermin. Their self-titled first album was released in 2013 to rave reviews. It is an operatic musical journey of serious proportions, not least because of the full complement of orchestral instruments they employ, but also the male…
A couple weeks ago I got an email out of the blue from Sophie Chernin of Brooklyn band Madam West. Little did I know at the time that I was just part of her daily ritual—send one press email, one booking email, and one studio or engineer email every day. In fact, the more I…
Photo credit: Conor Doherty On stage, Shea Rose is breathtakingly talented and charmingly charismatic. She exudes power and confidence through a presence that somehow radiates both comfortable ease and careful coordination. Offstage, she is easy to talk to and surprisingly humble—especially when you consider some of her achievements. From being a spokesmodel for CoverGirl to…
There aren’t many musicians who are able to balance organic emotion and technical prowess in their playing. Most of us lean in one direction or the other. However, in the time I’ve known him, I have never seen Jared play a solo that wasn’t equal parts instinct and practiced skill. As a performer, he is…
