New Music Discovery: Week of April 20

Get your weekly dose of New Music Discovery with SONiC Music Director Brandy Taylor, every Sunday and Tuesday at 10pm!

1. twenty one pilots – ‘Level of Concern’

All about living life in quarantine, ‘Level of Concern’ is actually frontman Tyler Jospeh’s first attempt at writing a song on an electric guitar. The video also features his wife and their new baby, Rosie.

A portion of the proceeds from the song will benefit Crew Nation, an organization providing financial aid to live music industry workers who have been laid off as a result of the pandemic.

2. AJR – ‘Bang’

This song from brothers Adam, Jack and Ryan (A-J-R, get it?) is about that awkward transition between being a teenager and an adult.

The band stated in a press release that “The fact is, adulthood is bound to hit us at some point, so the plan we made in the song is to ‘go out with a bang’.”

3. KennyHoopla – ‘how will i rest in peace if i’m buried by a highway //?’

KennyHoopla (real name: Kenneth La’ron) is originally from Cleveland, OH, but currently lives in Oshkosh, Wisconsin (population: 67,000). Since Oshkosh doesn’t have a proper recording studio, nor does he own the equipment himself, he calls his creative output a ‘product of limitation’.

The song is a reflection on the cliche of finding what you love and letting it kill you.

4. Powfu – ‘Death Bed’

Powfu is actually Isaiah Faber, from Vancouver… a name you might recognize, since his dad is Dave Faber of Faber Drive. Powfu has said that growing up with a dad in a punk-rock band is what inspired him to get into music and start creating his own.

As for the song ‘Death Bed’, it was actually inspired by the book and movie, The Notebook. 

5. July Talk – ‘Governess Shadow’

‘Governess Shadow’ is off July Talk’s upcoming album, Pay For It, coming out July 10. The song is about lead vocalist Peter Dreimanis’ grandmother, Alice, and her two sisters who “were sent to finishing school in Moscow as teenagers to learn how to serve the wealthy families of the day… It’s also about the deep imbalances of power in our world, and specifically how people are separated by wealth and gender.”

Dreimanis hopes the song will “raise a flag and a dagger and call out that uncomfortable complacency”.