The Prenup

On a Thursday afternoon, a couple of college guys are drinking beers out on the porch. It’s the end of the semester. Maybe they have finals to study for, but it’s definitely more important to hang out with your boys and soak up the late-afternoon sun. There’s a song playing out of their bluetooth speaker. That song is “Can’t Imagine Feeling Better.”

Cheriton’s latest single My Reverie opens with a lyric that any twenty-or-thirty-something can relate to. “I haven’t watered the plants in a little while, I guess I’m sad about that. I haven’t spoken to you in a little while, I’m just no good at getting back.” In other words you only reap what you sow, a hard aphorism to swallow in a year where starting projects and maintaining human connection has felt nearly impossible.

In the endless quest to find more genre-bending music to add to my collection, I stumbled upon Rae Isla and her world of magical realism.

After taking a listen to her single "Lovely Lies", then watching the video for it and pretty much obsessing over her perfectly-crafted discography, I wanted to learn more about the artist behind the art. Last week, I got to sit down and ask her questions about the single that led me to her.

Gummi Bear is the fourth single release from LA-based musical duo, Valley Boy. The song is more straight-ahead Indie rock than the group’s previous work (January’s Sad Girl veered into Frank Ocean territory at times) and despite the title, it’s delightfully earnest. A nice surprise from a group whose Spotify bio simply reads, “sucks.”

I’ve never been to the West Coast, but in my imagination, this is the soundtrack to the night air blowing through my hair as I cruise the streets of Los Angeles in a convertible. That’s what happens in California, right?

The discography of the UK-based project Sunspire sounds like what would happen if The Cure made shoegaze music. Their latest single, "Wildflowers," features textbook dream-pop instrumentation, yet still manages to feel fresh.

"Let Me Breathe" catches you by surprise. Slinky electric guitars envelop Shayla McDaniel’s vocal as it lilts like a leaf in the breeze. Seems like a typical indie rock song. Nothing out of the ordinary here! But be warned: there are drums. Big drums. These drums have weight. There’s bound to be a gravitational pull. Where can the leaf go, but down?