“The Bruised Reed” is a female-fronted, fuzzy indie pop band led by husband and wife team Josh and Kirsten Wheeler. The music leans fuzzy and ragged when it wants to, but contemplative and slowcore when it needs to.

The band started as a basement-bound side project for Josh to exercise some of his songwriting demons; composing, recording, and playing all instruments on their 2008 debut LP "Pass Around the Easy Lie", and 2010’s follow-up EP "New Words For Old Desires”; with Kirsten handling all vocal duties. 

They released the albums for free online, with no real intent for the project other than to have the songs available so people would get a chance to hear them.

Attention quickly followed as their music was picked up for local airplay on several radio stations, written about in local blogs, and even had a song featured in a Chevrolet commercial. The band went on to contribute the lead-off track to 2013's Elliott Smith tribute album "Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands."

Around this time, “International Pop Overthrow” Festival curator David Bash happened upon the recordings online and invited the duo to put together a full band and play at the 2014 event. Josh recruited local musicians to fully realize these basement noodlings as stage-ready songs. Shortly thereafter the band was invited to play 2014 and 2015's “Metro Times Blowout” festival, made a live appearance on WDET 101.9FM’s “Ann Delisi’s Essential Music”, and booked several surrounding dates; including performances at 2015-2017’s “Detroit by Detroit” showcase.

The band is hard at work on new music, issuing a regular series of two-track digital releases (not-so-cleverly titled “Doubles”). There are now three installments available for purchase and streaming at all major digital retailers. 

"...the band manages to weave dreamy layered melodies and Kirsten’s ethereal vocals together with angular chord changes in a way that is mellow and rocks at the same time. " - International Pop Overthrow

"...Kirsten Wheeler has a stunning voice, while Josh Wheeler can write a killer tune and thwack his axe. The results are hard-rocking yet gorgeous and soaring. A marriage made in heaven, then" - Metro Times Detroit

"...a band we're sure everyone will be talking about...the band is going big!" - HipinDetroit.com

A darker dream pop skewed toward a more cinematic, even operatic, staging, enticing those who dig nocturnal ballads curtained with willowy reverb and shadowy synthesizers. Alexis and Lee is Erica Stephens and Erin Williams, a Detroit-based wife-wife songwriting & production duo forging new wave romanticism with a film noir mystique.

-Jeff Milo
Deep Cutz

3ft's new LP out May 10th, 2019.  
*21st Century Drone*
links for video and more moR More

Detroit pour toi is a new project created by friends from Paris and Copenhagen who first met in Detroit. Our goal is to bring Detroit local artists to Paris, Copenhagen and Berlin to showcase their art to a european audience. So far, it is only an idea but we wanna make it happen!

ROCK MUSIC0
TRENDLASER
BY SCOTTY-D · JUNE 3, 2015 Rockbandom Magazine rockbandom.com

Snapshot_20140625_10

REVIEW

Talented singer/songwriter multi instrumentalist. Now if you like your music to be different and very unique then this is for you, with a huge array of instruments & sound machines there is no stopping the flow of pure genius. almost psychedelic in nature with heavy influences from old school rock bands imagine crossing T-Rex, The Beatles, The Smashing Pumpkins, with Pink Floyd &  Jefferson Airplane then to top it all with some Nirvana. Which ever way you look at it there’s something for everyone and this guy will defiantly keep your senses entertained. Vocally fantastic, Lyrically very good and the music pure talented uniqueness.


People still ask me what or who is Trendlaser?  Is he you?  No, he isn't me. I'd never say the stuff he does. And even though we've been writing songs together from the beginning, I don't know much about him, except that some of his comments are a bit... Anyway, they're not malicious.  Now, he claims he was conceived in a test tube in some clandestine government lab and was raised in a bio-pod from which he escaped when he was seventeen. Doubt it, but, who the hell knows. The guy is incredibly honest about everything else. Love him/hate him--he doesn't care--but I do! I want us to sell a zillion records.--Danny Bulla 
Note: Trendlaser got locked out of his Facebook account 'til he produces a govt. ID w/pic and personal info.  He has refused. (I told him, "why don't you just show them your Driver's License and be done with it.  They just want to verify your real name." He replied, "real name? You mean 'DNAspecimen 5763-4D'?"
 Winds up in LA with a suitcase and a few bucks. Had some more life experiences, took acting lessons, fell in and out of love a couple times. Pulled his strat from under the bed where it had been untouched for about a year. Started writing songs, the best he'd ever done (in content and emotion),  and voila! TRENDLASER  LIVES! (Released Oblivion Jan. 2015.  Then, Sliding,  May 2015.  Both are available on amazon.com (Sliding available as a CD), itunes, xbox, google play, spotify, the new Apple stream and most online music stores.  Or get it at https://trendlaser.bandcamp.com   Be bold--get TRENDLASER and don't be surprised if it becomes your favorite set of tunes in your collection.-Danny Bulla cowriter w/Trendlaser of all Trendlaser songs.

Rogue Satellites is following