The Bellwether

Wednesday is a band from North Carolina led by Karly Hartzman, with guitarist MJ Lenderman, bassist Ethan Baechtold, drummer Alan Miller, and pedal steel player Xandy Chelmis. Half-funny, half-tragic dispatches from the American South unfurling somewhere between the wailing skuzz of Nineties shoegaze and classic country twang, Wednesday’s music defies categorization. Hartzman calls it “creek rock” – there are sleepy country-imbued love songs, moments of screaming hardcore propulsion, distorted pedal steel and Hartzman’s sweet voice slicing through the din.

Hartzman, the songwriter/vocalist/guitarist at the helm of the project, is a story collector as much as she is a storyteller: a scholar of people and one-liners, in constant awe of memory and the minutiae of everyday life in North Carolina, she’s an empathetic writer weaving together the weight of memories and possibility of what’s next into one patchwork of sound.

Wednesday’s most recent album, 2023’s Rat Saw God, was released to global critical acclaim from the likes of Rolling Stone, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New York Times, AP, and many other major publications across the globe. On the heels of that release, the band toured extensively and internationally, headlining sold-out shows across the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand across the last several years.

Draag inhabits the space between bliss and pain, interweaving shoegaze, electro-industrial, and punk elements within a pop ballad. Originating in Sylmar, a forgotten neighborhood in Los Angeles, Draag began when Adrian Acosta (songwriter, vocalist, guitarist) revived songs he recorded on his karaoke tape deck when he was 10 years old. After years of refining their sound, five-piece Draag gained a reputation for their sonically immersive live shows in LA, largely by word of mouth, known for transforming any range of DIY to high production stage into a wall of sound described as a storm in slow motion.