The following DIY indie songs have been spinning on our digital turntables recently and include new artists like WaxCat and The Broader Sound as well as more veteran artists such as Carol Martini, Fornis and Amalgamation. Enjoy and please share.
Wax Cat – Denver, Colorado
The Broader Sound – Langhorne, Pennsylvania
Carol Martini – Los Angeles, California
Fornis – Sacramento, California
Amalgamation – San Francisco, California
Wax Cat – “Oceans”
With more than 200,000 streams on Spotify, Denver indie band Wax Cat has experienced quite a big rise out of the gates with their debut single, “Oceans.”
The song is sparse and atmospheric, driven by electronic sound effects and beats overlayed with emotive vocals and psychedelic keys.
The interplay between the vocals, the instruments, and the beats is really interesting and you can tell they worked on it to make it work just the way they wanted. And they pulled it off – and nearly a quarter of a million listeners agreed.
Originally from Ohio, the band moved to the Mile High City to pursue their music careers at a new level.
On February 21st, the band will release a follow-up single titled “Comin’ Down Slow”. The band members are Jake Myers (vocals), Nick Nord (guitar), and Chris Comisar (production).
The Broader Sound – “The Broader Sound”
Pennsylvania alternative rock artist The Broader Sound, formerly known as The Tipping Velvet, is releasing a series of tracks over the coming months, including the lo-fi rock track of the same name, “The Broader Sound.”
The artist behind the moniker, Scott Melnick, describes his sound as “Led Zeppelin guitar solos meet Gin Blossoms’ bright chords while structured in a Nirvana-like verse/chorus pattern.”
Other comparisons that we feel are appropriate stylistically include Beck (circa 1990), in listening to the snarly, muffled vocals front and center flanked by heavy, lo-fi percussions and a crunchy, ringing rock guitar wailing away.
For a song that is basically minimalistic in its structure, it packs a damn good punch.
Melnick lives in Langhorne and crafts and records all of the instruments and tracks for his songs and mixes and masters them himself.
Melnick has other songs in production like “Shake Me,” and the more pop-oriented, “Tell Ya’ What I Remember” & “Fake News,” which exhibits more teeth overlayed by a dark mood.
Carol Martini – “Hit Man”
Southern California musician Carol Martini recently dropped her seventh album, The Art of Singing While Drowning,” featuring a hefty 23 tracks. The single from the album is the evocative ballad, “Hit Man.”
Martini said that the single is a “rock/pop-rock song based loosely on Phil Spector” adding that the song was written in a “major key,” she says, “with hints of the Phil Spector ‘girl group sound’ (the layered female vocals)” and a touch of “his famous ‘wall of sound.'”
She admits that it was satisfying to weave a narrative and chorus. “I got a kick out of using the double entendre of hitman usage,” she adds.
“With this song, I got to write about a fictional character. I like how I was able to get a reference to a single (a 45-record) and a 45-gun in the bridge. These little allusions put a smile on this songwriter’s face.”
The producer, Daniel, played all of the instruments. “I love how he put a B3 organ sound in the mix and at the end of the song, the glockenspiel is the perfect touch. It was really a blast to record.”
Fornis – “Endless Night”
Sacramento DIY rock band Fornis has been rocking the city clubs and various venues throughout California’s northern reaches for nearly a decade now.
Recently the band dropped its sophomore album, Endless Night, the follow-up to the 2017 debut, Generic Hope. The title track of the new album is a solid rock and roll single.
The band’s lead singer, Todd Pittman, is also the band’s songwriter and guitarist. His personal musical influences are old school punk rock, doo-wop and old rock and roll. The bottom end percussions are supplied by veteran drummer Trapper Herzog and keyboard accentuations come via keyboardist Keydragon.
Herzog has played in the past with bands like Tower of Power, Elvin Bishop, and The Cliff Fields Group while Langford has been active in the music scene since the 1970s.
Pittman began Fornis in 2013. The band’s persona is at heart rock-a-billy, although it’s difficult to categorize the band’s music into one genre. The band’s style is an amalgam of tastes and sounds.
Related: Fornis featured in 2017 in a Fresh Tracks post
Prior to Fornis, Pittman fronted two other bands, a punk rock outfit called Pruno (named after the ‘jail juice’ prison inmates drink) and a punk band named Duodenum.
Amalgamation – “We’re Not The Only Ones”
As an established band in the San Francisco, and having been voted best band a couple of times, alt. rock band Amalgamation doesn’t really need much of an introduction, at least not to the musically-connected in the Bay Area.
With powerful vocals, big beats, and riveting guitars, frontwoman Robin Lovejoy and guitarist Ivo Mijac offer nimble arrangements with a lot of energy behind what they like to call “conscious rock. ”
That’s not too surprising; it’s the Bay Area after all. The duo got its launch after meeting, and then playing at, open mic nights at the Cafe International in the city’s Haight-Ashbury district.
Their new single, “We’re Not The Only Ones,” booms with a mysterious darkness and grit that runs through the song like a vein.
The duo’s other recent single release, “Boomerang”, incorporates contemporary bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Phantogram, and My Morning Jacket, with crisp melodic twists, heavier rhythms, and dynamic production.
They have already released a debut full-length album, Queen of Dreams, followed by the EP, Circadian Rhythms.