Mark Templeton, born 1974, is a choral composer, conductor, and countertenor. He teaches and resides at West Nottingham Academy in Colora, MD, the oldest boarding school in the United States. Templeton’s music has been performed all over the world at various international festivals and ACDA conventions. Some of his music is published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing, and he has recently started to self-publish. He also enjoys coaching, playing, and watching soccer when he is not working. He is available for commission upon request.

Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack of Wye Oak have spent most of their lives in Baltimore, Maryland. But after two years of constant touring with Civilian, their highly lauded 2011 album, they landed on opposite sides of the country with an unforeseeable future ahead. Despite this newfound uncertainty, the two bandmates embraced their physical distance, passing ideas back and forth, allowing new work to evolve in their respective solitudes. Shriek is Wye Oak’s fourth full-length and the culmination of their intent to express the emotional and intuitive self by acting out animalistic exclamations through cathartic release. It is their most personal and confident declaration yet.

Newly inspired by playing bass, Jenn took up songwriting in a setting where the guitar did not dictate harmonic boundaries or require a call-and-response relationship with her voice, a hallmark of previous Wye Oak records. With her phrasing freed, now it is often Andy who interacts with Jenn’s vocals, playing syncopated and meditative keyboard parts, and the duo’s collaborative arrangements provide a backdrop in which both the arcs of melodies and the new rhythmic elements flourish.

To engineer, mix, and co-produce, they brought in Nicolas Vernhes of the Rare Book Room in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, whose inventive and forward-thinking approaches to production complemented their new direction. The result is a record of indisputable humanity. Shriek is a complete narrative of disorientation, loss, renewal, and empowerment.

Brooklyn-based band led by Ellis Ludwig-Leone.

Split Party is a duo made up of David Appelbaum (keyboard,  samples) and Andy Warren (drums) of the popular alternative rock band The Mowgli's. From Los Angeles, Split Party takes your favorite hit songs and mashes them up into a psychedelic, high energy dance party. Imagine Girl Talk, but with live instruments playing over the mind bending, groove heavy arrangements. One moment you’re dancing to Britney Spears' Toxic, smashed up with Blur’s Song #2. Then before you know it, time and space has been altered, combining MSTRKFT with The Talking Heads and Jimmy Eat World. Any genre is fair game: funk, pop, hip hop, even video game music. The live set fits comfortably in the EDM/DJ world, offering a unique spin of live, instrumental elements. As members of the rhythm section for the popular band The Mowgli's, the sound is also inherently connected to the world of rock and roll. Split Party’s mission is simple: get lost in the music. Dance, sing, laugh. After all, as the name implies, it’s a party, and everyone is invited.

BIG DATA is the paranoid pop brainchild of producer, Alan Wilkis. His music explores the relationship between man and machine, and the ways in which technology is reshaping the human experience, all with a healthy dose of distrust.

In 2014, BD made waves with the #1 alternative hit, “Dangerous (feat. Joywave),” which has since been certified Gold in the US and Canada, and with nearly 40M streams. Big Data’s 2015 debut album, 2.0, featured collaborations with Kimbra, Rivers Cuomo, Twin Shadow, and Jamie Lidell.

3.0 is the long-awaited upgrade from Big Data. In creating 3.0, Wilkis became obsessed with the subject of artificial intelligence and its many possible applications in our not-too-distant future. While AI may become humanity’s greatest achievement, it carries with it a potential risk that is both existential and irreversible… one of many reasons why experts refer to AI as our “final invention.” This tension is both fascinating and terrifying all at once, and it is the chief inspiration behind Big Data’s latest effort.

Growing up in Falls Church, VA, Thao Nguyen first picked up a guitar at the age of 12 and began performing in a pop country duo in high school. She spent most of her 20s touring, supporting one critically acclaimed album after another. She's worked with a laundry list of vaunted artists including Andrew Bird, Mirah, Laura Viers, and producer Tucker Martine. She even toured the US with the nationally syndicated NPR radio program Radiolab. Thao's 2013 album, We The Common, was described by The New Yorker as "music that makes you move from your bones out...[it's] keenly intelligent and original" and in November 2014, she performed on the world famous television show "Austin City Limits". Her latest album, A Man Alive, was released on March 4, 2016.

Royal Blood are a two piece band formed in Brighton, UK.

TYPHOONS. Out 30th April 🌀
https://royalblood.me/typhoons

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