Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by Chicago-based songwriter Conor Lynch.
Recently making the move from Michigan to Chicago, Conor has become a staple in the Midwest roster of beloved DIY artists that a few places are lucky enough to claim. Writing from the barebones of a certain folk-antiquity, Conor’s words fill a room, offering something easy to latch on to and pocket for later. Starting over ten years ago with SoundCloud releases and sparse single drops, each release since has seen the swift and natural progressions in his growth as a writer. Counting the telephone poles out the car window, following the changing rhythm as it speeds and brakes along the stretch of road, Conor’s songs revel in these moments of commute and rumination; finding some peace within the balancing act of holding the steering wheel steady, brushing the crumbs off your lap and stuffing the wrappers from your snacks into the cup holder, the collection growing larger between each pit stop until you get home.
About the playlist, Conor shared;
“I really love that ugly hug is using YouTube for these guest playlists because for over a decade now YouTube has been one of my most fruitful pathways for discovering new music. There are so many incredible YouTube channels doing legitimate archival work by uploading lost/deleted projects, demos, live show footage, etc. I tried to find songs in my liked videos that aren’t on other streaming platforms besides maybe Bandcamp or the former GOAT, SoundCloud… Also, huge shoutout to all “youtubetomp3″ sites.”
Conor also was one of the first musicians to remove their catalog off of Spotify in protest of the company’s treatment of artists and the funding of AI music and weapon manufacturers.
You can purchase Conor’s full discography now on bandcamp.
Today, the Athens-based band, Crazier, share their debut single “Boat Music”, a stunning display of self-agency and confrontation in the face of harassment and antagonistic patterns. Previously performing under the name Starpower, Crazier is now made up of guitarist and vocalist Eli Raps, guitarist Winston Barbe, drummer Alex Dillon and bassist Kevin Cregge. As a standalone track “Boat Music” showcases a band performing with both ferocious grit and alluring delicacy as Crazier stakes their claim and prepares for their debut EP set to be released this April.
Caught in a rhythmic pull, a formidable progression of rolling guitars and tempting percussion, “Boat Music” takes control with a defining confidence right out the gate. “Picture this: I love you / Then I stop / what are you gonna do now?”, Raps offers with her unique vocal style, moving with the momentum of the band and in no way offering space for a conversation to be had. Written about a period where Raps became the target of persistent harassment for speaking openly about the sexual assault she experienced while operating within the Athens music scene, the command of “picture this” becomes stronger in its repetition, driving each point further into a delusional perception as Raps and the band break through to the other side with full-bodied synths and satisfying guitar voicings.
Watch the music video for “Boat Music” here.
You can listen to “Boat Music” out everywhere now. Crazier is gearing up to release their debut EP this April.
Written by Shea Roney | Photo courtesy of Ruination Records
Always testing the boundaries of perspective and “surrendering to the loneliness of having a good time”, Brooklyn’s Jackie West is no stranger to writing from the multitudes stacked within her surroundings. Today, West returns with her new single, “Silent Century”, the title track of her upcoming LP out on February 27th via Ruination Records.
Simple and steady, West becomes entrenched in the rhythmic display of “Silent Century”, embracing the sonic vibrations that she has been foraging for so long now, giving space to root and to blossom both her and the track’s natural progression of growth. Playing alongside Dan Knishkowy (Adeline Hotel), Sean Mullins (Moon Mullins), Nico Osborne (Nicomo), “Silent Century” shifts between instinctive folk melodies and colorful pop hooks, where the complexity of feelings can rummage through different sonic interpretations that really bring life to this expressive and enduring motive – something that has made West such an absorbing and poignant songwriter to watch over the years.
About “Silent Century”, West shares, “some experiences—especially intimate or spiritual—communicate without language, moving through us like traditions or instincts that endure quietly for generations. “Silent Century” draws on the Taoist idea that silence is a medium of understanding—the flower doesn’t explain itself, and water doesn’t lecture the stone; yet both express and reshape the world over vast spans of time.”
Listen to “Silent Century” here.
Silent Century is set to be released February 27th via Ruination Records. You can listen to the single out now, as well as preorder the album on vinyl.
Written by Emily Moosbrugger | Featured Photo by Noa Francis
Last month Minneapolis-based songwriter runo plum released her debut album “patching,” after five years of self-releasing a series of singles and EPs. Joined by co-producer Lutalo and instrumentalist and girlfriend Noa Francis, runo recorded the album in two weeks in a cabin in rural Vermont. The resulting 12 songs were described by runo as “emotional fragments” of her healing process compiled into one project.
Rooted in the aftermath of a recent heartbreak, “patching” places its trust in life’s natural cycles. As early as the opening line, runo’s plainspoken, cool delivery echoes a calming sense of patience amidst her growing anxieties: “As long as it doesn’t mean it’s a big sickness/ Mighty fine with me, I’ve been already through this.” The record moves through the ebbs and flows of emotional reconstruction, drifting from daydreamed fantasies of sweeter times to soul-baring introspection. “There’s gotta be a way to get out from under the mud,” she sings on “Pond” with a yearning for clarity. It is moments like these that define “patching,” in which runo makes clear that even in her deepest melancholy, she is held together by a faith in her natural ability to be put together again.
Photo by Alexa Vicious
Congratulations on your first record release? How does it feel to have it out?
Hello! It’s surreal, and a big relief.
You described these songs as “emotional fragments” of your healing process patched together into one project. In addition to writing these songs, do you feel like sharing them with the world is part of your process of healing?
Absolutely, it feels like the final step in some way.
You mentioned you had written enough material for three records at the time of writing “patching” – how were you able to separate these songs from everything you wrote at that time?
The main two are split between the more “folk” ones and the heavier more “rock” ones. The third are just shitty sappy discarded songs that I will probably never use lol!
I read that you put out your first release through Bandcamp in 2020. You’ve been able to gather a community of listeners from around the world since then – has having a community like this impacted your relationship to music making?
Totally. It’s definitely kept me going during certain moments. It’s really touching to be able to make something that is meaningful to more than just myself.
Had you been writing music for a while before you started releasing your songs?
Never consistently. I would write occasionally since I was like 14 ish. Maybe like a dozen songs in total in my teen years. Then I really started writing in my 20s.
How do you feel your songwriting and recording process have changed from the time you started putting music out to now?
My songwriting especially has gotten a lot more meaningful to me. I’ve had a hard time being able to access that in the past, and being able to properly articulate how I was feeling. In the beginning I had a lot of songs where I wasn’t really saying anything, I was sort of just rambling about random things. I still write like that sometimes but generally it all feels more cohesive to me.
For recording, in the beginning I had no idea what I was doing. I taught myself how to produce and record for the first couple years, and then Phillip Brooks came along and helped me record the early stuff I have out. But we were really just both figuring it out as we went. A lot of the songs on ‘patching’ feel like the sound I was trying to get to for many years.
One of my favorites on the record is “the Quiet One” – You open with the line “how can I make this as vague as I possibly can?” – I love that because you touch on wanting to come off strong to your subjects yet your songwriting is so intimate and raw. How would you describe your relationship to vulnerability within songwriting?
Oh wow, yeah. That one is somewhat of a black sheep of the album that I made fit in. It’s funny because I started with that first line, and then it turned out to not be so vague. This song was a place for me to put my feelings about a short lived thing I had with someone. I never shared it with them, so having it out is definitely pretty vulnerable, but I think that is just a part of being an artist, and especially a writer. It is all just very human feelings and I know so many relate to this stuff so that makes it easier to share.
The outro stands out from the rest of the record both lyrically and instrumentally – can you tell me a little bit about that imagery and this song?
Yeah! This was originally a poem I wrote during a really beautiful walk I had last summer. It was one of those weird weather moments when it was slightly raining and also sunny. It felt very representative of the contrast I was feeling in my emotional world. At that point I was falling in love again after the breakup that was the catalyst for patching, and I had reached a level of beauty and peace that felt really unexpected.
You can listen to patching out everywhere now as well as grab it on vinyl, CD or cassette via Winspear. Catch runo plum on her first headlinging US tour starting in February.
Interview by Ella Hardie | Photo Courtesy of Gren Bee 4/20/2025 at Empty Bottle.
The first time I saw MaryMary! perform live was in 2023 at a short-lived DIY venue in Avondale called “The Rabbit Hole,” with her nest of wires, synthesizers, and pedals set up on a couple of folding tables. This was among the first house shows I’d attended in Chicago, the very first electronic show I’d ever seen, and one of the first times I’d seen Mary, my coworker at the time, outside of work, though this wasn’t Mary’s show—it was MaryMary!’s show. Her backdrop could’ve just been the basement’s paint-chipped walls sparsely adorned with band stickers, sharpie’d declarations of love, and duct-taped fliers from shows past, but she turned the space into a spectacle: on her left, neon green lasers swirled on the wall and live camcorder footage of herself was projected on her right. These visuals and an epic cover of Big Thief’s then-unreleased “Vampire Empire” made for a night to remember (and be forever immortalized via blog).
A lot’s changed since: Mary and I haven’t worked together in a hot minute, she released two singles in October, and she just headlined Empty Bottle for the second time this year. MaryMary! is a Chicago-based experimental synth-pop artist, though using the term “experimental synth-pop” for her work feels a bit limiting. There are a lot of words you could use to describe MaryMary!’s music: intricate, delicate, heavy, staticky, glitchy, bubbly, jangly, industrial, innovative, super fucking awesome, etc. It’s hard not to cast a wide net when trying to pin down an artist whose personal mantra is “I CAN DO ANYTHING.” Maybe it’s better not to pin her down at all… In the years since that basement show, MaryMary! has cemented herself as a fervent advocate of DIY culture and a fixture of Chicago’s prolific electronic music scene. With her knack for elaborate, meticulously planned live shows, her inimitable stage presence, and a repertoire of covers ranging from Big Thief to Ween to obscure 1970s alt-disco artists who don’t even have Wikipedia pages, MaryMary! is a force to be reckoned with.
Photo from MaryMary!’s 4/20/2025 show at Empty Bottle by Noah Sebek.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mary finds me by the bar wearing a Celebrity DUI sweatshirt over her stage outfit with an Old Style in her hand. We scurry upstairs to Empty Bottle’s green room, which has less of a punk-rock vibe and more of a cozy millennial office vibe than I was expecting. Her friends and fellow performers—one of which is dressed up as a nun—sit on the couch while Mary and I take over the end of a large wooden table, sitting in swivel chairs. We chat for a few minutes before the “formal” interview begins, but we’re in a bit of a time crunch because the first act is on in a little over half an hour.
Overlapping chatter in the background. I move my phone on the table closer to Mary and start recording:
E: So… tonight is a big night…
M: It’s the MaryMary! Rock Show here at Empty Bottle! I’m very excited.
E: How long have you been sitting on this and planning this night?
M: This show in particular has been kind of a vague sketch of an idea for a few months, and only over the past few days has it fully materialized…I dunno, this is my second headlining show here at Empty Bottle, and the first one was a HUGE spectacle that I put, like, everything I had into—well, I’m certainly throwin’ a lot of myself into this one too—but that first one I did, pretty much every single detail was planned in advance. I had a lot of stage design and costume design and choreography and a five-piece band… Now there’s gonna be three of us onstage, it’s a little bit less going on… I took the remnants of the things I thought worked for that show and stripped it down a bit so it didn’t have to be a thing that took over my life for months. But it still has a degree of spectacle beyond just, like, a show that I just get thrown on, y’know?
[In classic Mary fashion, this show still had giant tentacled inflatables, flashing light sequences, and multiple tv screens onstage.]
E: Did you also put the bill together?
Mary nods and smiles.
E: Is it friends… or…?
M: Some friends… WOOF, who play before me, I don’t know them super well personally, but I saw them play at a friend’s house party a while ago and was really into them. I thought that they’d make for a great vibe. And then Celebrity DUI, who play before them, are dear friends of mine. Morrigan, who’s the singer and guitar player, played in my band back in April. All good people, great performers.
E: I’m curious about the “Rock Show” part specifically tonight, what’s different about this show? Is it the partial band aspect? The general vibe?
M: Partial band aspect, partial vibe… We’re really leaning into our more punk arrangements, just very grunge-y in vibes. We’re playing a lot of covers tonight, re-vamping a lot of songs, still with the “Mary Flair” —
E: With the Classic Mary Flair, of course—
M: Exactly. This is kinda my excuse to pick a lot of, like, rock songs that I’ve always thought I would love to either hear live or play live, and just do it, y’know? And those will be interspersed with some of my favorites of mine that are more guitar-centric.
E: Can you tell me what any of the covers are…? Or you could leave it a surprise, it’s up to you…
M: Yeah, I’ll do artists! I’m covering a song by Ween—
E: OH MY GOD, what song?
M: “Doctor Rock?” From “The Pod!”
E: YES! YES! I’ve gotten really into Ween in the past, like, month and a half—
M: They’re the best, they fuckin’ rock. All in on Ween.
E: You don’t even have to say any more, I’m sat—
[More chatting about Ween that I have to cut for time.]
M: Yeah, we’re opening the show with our Ween cover, we’re playing some Harry Nilsson, we’re covering this great song by Ingrid Mansfield Allman, who’s a great alt-disco artist of the 70s and 80s; she also just went by “Ingrid,” and she played in Ian Drury’s band, The Blockheads. There’s a song of hers I’ve been playing for a year at this point, pretty much at every one of my shows. It’s a cover—y’know, because I didn’t write it—but I kinda rearranged it from the ground up. It’s called “Stop Wasting Your Time, You Could be Wasting Mine,” and I dunno, it’s just one of my favorite songs. The original is more of a disco-funk, alternative synth-pop kind of thing and the way I arranged it is a more grunge-y, feedback-y, more post-punk-y situation.
E: Oh hell yeah. How do you pick a song to cover?
M: I’d say, more often than not, it’s a song that I hear and I think, “Oh, I think I could have a fun handle on this.”
E: More people need to think about covers that way…
M: 100%! The Harry Nilsson cover tonight [“Jump into the Fire”] is the first time I’ve ever approached a cover being like, “I just wanna play this straight.” I just want to play it how the song sounds, ‘cuz it’s a song I’ve seen LCD Soundsystem play a cover of before and that rocked my shit. They just kinda played it as it’s recorded on Nilsson Schmilsson, so I may as well just carry on that tradition.
E: Yeah, sometimes it’s more of a “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” situation.
M: Exactly, exactly. But then, I’m also playing a cover of one of my favorite songs, “The City,” by Dismemberment Plan, and that’s a song that I’ve been playing a cover of since… God, what year is it…? I’ve been playing that song for four years at this point… It was one of the first songs that I arranged when I first got into step-sequencers and drum machines. That song is a math-y emo song from the late 90s, and I rearranged it as a synthesizer-based dance pop song. That’s like, the closest I get to purely pop music tonight, but y’know, I figured I’m covering a grunge-y emo band, so I might as well loop it in there.
[I had no idea this song was a cover… I’ve been under the impression that “The City” was an unreleased MaryMary! original for years… ]
E: Are you planning to play either of your two newest singles?
M: Yes! I’m gonna be playing the B-Side to the single I just put out, “Self Love in the Time of HRT,” which is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. The song that’s the A-Side, “Never Ever Ever (kms)” is a song that I have a lot of fondness for, and I kinda put this show together thinking, like, “Well, I’m putting out these two singles, I’ll find a way to work them both into the set,” and then… I just didn’t really find a way to work in the A-Side…but I’m very excited to play “Self Love.”
E: Mary, that song is so beautiful! It starts so slow and lulls you into… I dunno if it’s necessarily a “false sense of security,”but the complete vibe-shift in the middle is SO disarming and awesome, I was just talking to Aphra about it today—
M: Yes! Aphra Jane, who is the best in the world and who, for the reader at home, masters my stuff. She’s a fucking creative genius—
[We spend the next couple minutes gushing over Aphra Jane and her work. I also have to cut this for time but WE LOVE HER.]
E: I want to talk more about those two recent releases, which are very timely in a number of ways, and this is a super general question—perhaps a bit of a loaded one—that you can take however you want to, but: What’s the story behind these songs?
M: “Self Love,” the song I’ll be playing tonight, has a little bit more of a longer history… That was a riff I was playing on the acoustic guitar for years before I worked it into a whole thing. I think this last November, especially post-election, I had a Crisis of Self where I was like, “What am I doing if I’m not making art about the fear that I feel in this moment, but also about the affirmations I need to give myself?” And “Never Ever Ever” is kind of an escalation of that. I wrote that over the course of, like, one day in February where the news was just getting worse and worse, specifically in regards to trans rights, and I was spiraling really hard. I kinda wrote that song as an affirmation of, “Well, they can fight as much as they want, I’m gonna stay alive, I’m gonna keep doing my thing and do a really good job at it.” And then I sat on it for a while and didn’t release it until earlier this month. I still have a lot of love for that song, but I feel the immediacy kinda left? When I wrote it in February and played it live for the first time the week after I wrote it, that was the best I’ll ever play that song. It was so fresh and I think the energy in the room was just really feeling it. While I definitely think it’s a song that I need and a song that will do good by people, I also think nothing will top the first week after having written it and playing it live. I released them as a dual-single ‘cuz they both celebrate similar—well, not “celebrate,” but they both explore similar themes while varying pretty greatly in tone and sonic style. “Never Ever” is more electronic pop-country—we’ve got a pedal-steel solo and the primary instrument’s the acoustic guitar on that one—while “Self Love” is more creepy synths and acoustic guitar that explode into a grunge thing…
She trails off to find the words:
M: It’s hard to explain that one, but, y’know…
E: Everyone should probably just go listen to it—
M: Yeah, it’s more acoustic… into grunge… with an electronic backbone. But I feel like the two songs are split sides of the same coin—
E:Spiritual sisters, if I may…. M: Yeah, definitely. I think “Self Love” is going to end up on my LP that I’m working on finishing right now, which I’m very excited for. I’m not sure about “Never Ever” yet, I’m still debating…
4/20/2025 at Empty Bottle.
E: You touched on this a little bit earlier, but in response to the fucking shit show that’s going on right now, you’re someone whose social media presence—and just in general, knowing you as a person—is so community-oriented and always boosting other people’s stuff. I feel like half the time you’re on Instagram like, “I’m doing this cool thing!” and the other half is, “Look at this cool thing my friend is doing!” Which I think is super awesome and you’ve put me onto a lot of things I never would’ve found on my own. To you, what’s the value of creative communities, going to live shows, and generally turning to art in the face of all the… awfulness, I guess, for lack of a better term?
M: I feel a lot of conflict with that. There are times where I kinda feel guilt and shame throwing so much energy into art while there’s so much targeting my community and so many other groups. Chicago as a whole is… kind of a mess right now, but being able to platform other queer people or trans people, or just anyone being targeted by this horrible administration, just feels very… It feels very great to know that we’re going to continue doing this and making this, and by doing so establishing that we’re all here for each other. The connections keep growing and the love keeps growing. I also sometimes worry that it’s a distraction, to an extent, and a big thing I’m trying to grapple with is how to be a little more politically minded about how I do this. I love elevating my fellow artists, but also I need to make sure that I’m not just, like, doing the plot of Cabaret, y’know?
This last line gets me good. Mary pauses while I chuckle.
M: Which is a thing that I think a fucking lot about, like, art spaces are very important in times like this, but also I can’t let this serve as a distraction of what’s going on outside of those art spaces.
E: That’s so true. Of course, there’s so much to be said about art being a grounding thing in these moments, but it’s only one part of a bigger thing that needs to happen and is happening—
M: Oh, absolutely! I don’t think we should all put away our instruments or whatever, I’m still putting on these shows, but I guess it’s more about refusing to ignore reality. Like, right now in Chicago, ICE is sweeping people off the streets—I almost said “indiscriminately,” but actually very discriminately… They’re doing nothing but selecting people based off the color of their skin to detain, kidnap, whatever verb you wanna use, and it’s hard not to feel extremely bogged down and scared every second of the day watching this happen—
Mary gets interrupted by A HUGE (obviously unrelated) wave of laughter rippling over the musicians sitting on the couch across the room. We all lose our trains of thought.
A beat.
M: I dunno… I don’t know where I’m going with that, but shit’s horrible right now and I just don’t want to forget the reality of what’s going on, even if I know there’s importance to making art at this time.
E: It’s a hard line to walk and, like, no one is doing it perfectly, and I think even the fact that you’re thinking about it this much and talking about it during an interview about yourself says a lot.
Mary sighs.
M: Well, thank you.
E: Thank you. And not to be super corny, but at the end of the day…we all have each other!
M: We’ve all got each other. So I guess another part of putting shows like this on is just being intentional about who I book and making sure it’s folks I can stand by. Not only their politics, but knowing I’m not taking the easy way out with who I platform. Like, I have a lot of friends who I could put on the stage with me and I want to make sure I’m venturing outside of who I hang out with on a daily basis.
E: That’s actually a perfect segue into my last question… Back in the day at the ol’ Trader Joe’s—
M: Yes, when we worked together at Trader Joe’s—
[2022-2023]
E: Yes, the things we bonded over immediately were, like, Big Thief and Adrianne Lenker, Talking Heads, a bunch of different movies, all those things. One of your tags on Letterboxd—which has a ton of movies on it, by the way—is your “dope and inspiring” tag…
Mary beams.
M: YES!
E: I just love that. And I associate that phrase with you so much—
M: That means the world to me! I love art that is dope and inspiring!
E: It’s just such a quintessential Mary phrase, and any time I’m stumped on what movie to watch I’m like, “lemme see what Mary liked…” I seriously reference that list all the time—
M: Ugh, that’s a dream, that makes me so happy to hear—
Now we’re both beaming.
E: So the question with that is, and I’m sure you can guess where this is going: Who are some artists you find dope and inspiring? It doesn’t have to just be Chicago, but—
M: I can stick to Chicago people! Some of the most dope and inspiring artists out there are, well, everyone on the bill with me tonight—not to play the politician—but WOOF and Celebrity DUI for sure. My dear friends Future Nest and Anne Helen Wells are incredible… Sulffffffur and her group Anti-Soul Organization…Sulffffffur spelled with six F’s, by the way—
E: Yes, yes, I remember her set from that show you played in [____]’s basement!
M: Yeah! Oh my God, wow…
E: That was a while ago—
M: But her work and her group’s work in particular is some of the most forward-thinking electronic music I’ve ever heard, like, fucking incredible stuff. It’s so felt, it’s so organic, but also it’s so well intentioned and articulated, stuff I could only dream of making. Bloodhype’s a great local duo who make very fun, dope and inspiring music… Let’s see…oh my gosh, so many people that I’m probably forgetting… Ishtar Sr! She’s not a Chicago person, she’s based in Philly, but her record, wifef*cker ultra, is some of the coolest shit in the fucking world. I bought it on a flashdrive when she came here on tour. Um… Yeah… And I also want to shout out the films of Edward Yang! He died years ago, but I’m not gonna stop shouting out A Brighter Summer Day and Yi Yi, some of the most dope and inspiring shit I’ve ever seen!
E: Hell yeah! Any last closing remarks…?
M: Fuck ICE, Free Palestine, and listen to music by trans people.
You can find MaryMary! anywhere you listen to music.
Room in Heaven, the new label out of New Jersey, recently shared their digital debut release First Winter Day, a compilation of fourteen ambient, folk, primitive guitar, and otherwise unclassifiable tunes for Christmas and the frigid months ahead. Founded by Chris Grillo (Cricket), Room in Heaven is a DIY collective, beginning as a way to curate the often-hidden sounds made by friends and fellow travelers within this beautiful and limitless world.
First Winter Day Contains contributions from The Howard Hughes Suite, Devon Flaherty, Cla-ras, Ethan W. Olsen, Bug Bus Piano, derek white, Shonepine, Anthony Pasquarosa, Cricket Embry, Eleanora, Armbruster Friends of the Road, Linden Pomeroy and Liam Grant.
Artists also shared statements about their individual tracks;
Jeremy Ferris (Cla-ra’s) on “Petal (acoustic)“: “This song is built on the skeleton of Bach’s Pastorale in F Major, which supposedly is meant to evoke the droning bagpipes (zampogna) of an Italian shepherd at Christmastime. I imagine the shepherd playing by their campfire during the season’s first snow, hoping that the wild dogs stay away.”
Derek White on “xmas set for cricket radio_12 17 25“: “This piece was constructed using my favorite parts from my favorite Christmas songs, I edited the songs down to 2 second samples of sections that had sentimental value to me, the exact moments that trigger my memories of Christmas. I repurposed those samples into various overlapping loops and made many of them unrecognizable. I wanted a rhythmic synergy, almost hypnotic. Like several scratched records looped together but also communicating in a Phillip Jeck-like fashion. You can hear micro fragments of Wham, McCartney, Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Bowie & Bing, The Drifters, Elvis, Beach Boys, Carpenters, Yoko Ono, Vince Giaraldi, perhaps others.”
Devon Flaherty on “Rufus the Goofus”: “Here is a track for the holiday compilation, a really dumb song I learned from a local privately pressed 45 by Kelly Sears of Siler City, NC. He was a contemporary of Charlie Poole and they both learned to play banjo from the same person.”
Bug Bus Piano on “White Snow Green Needles”: “Made using custom noise device, simple sine keyboard, MIDI piano loop. Mixed as one ice clear tone. Piercing sound signal. Bug Bus Piano would like to share a wintertime memory: 2013(?), WA. Driving through the pass, looking up at massive dark green pine trees covered on their tops in dark white snow along the road. The size, the distance, the amount, the colors- all comes together to make something so serious and solemn, it’s beyond anything else in that moment. Everything else seems insignificant.”
Anthony Pasquarosa on “Pastorale di Natale (Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle)”: “Here is my track, it should be labeled Pastorale di Natale (Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle) like that. It is a version of the most famous Italian Christmas Carol (Tu Scendi…)) which is traditionally played on bagpipes, ciaramella, and sung. The “Pastorale” is often reflecting the manor in which Christmas songs are performed, and since there is an intro and outro to it, that is why I labeled it that way. Lastly the most famous 78 version of Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle is actually labeled as Pastorale di Natale (Pasquale Feis), so its a nod to that…. Anyways, sorry for the long winded explanation. Oh, also I sampled the sizzle from the Chicken Cutlets I pulled out of the oven and looped it under the whole recording.”
Cricket Embry on “Martinmas Time”: “Recorded late one evening in the lonesome, echoey upstairs bathroom of my former workplace when I was supposed to be taking out the recycling.”
Eleanora on “Ceremony of Carols”: “This is an improv piece inspired by Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols Harp Interlude. The carols are usually performed around Christmas time and were written by Britten in 1942 while traveling back to England from America, inspired by a book of medieval poems. The harp interlude from the carols is one of my favorite solo pieces to play and I wanted to improvise an ambient piece based on it.”
Album artwork by Jeremy Ferris
You can download First Winter Day for free via Room in Heaven’s Bandcamp. You can also listen to the whole compilation on YouTube.
Back in August, songwriter Jake Brower shared his latest album Long Term Wave via the Athens, Georgia label, Attaboy Tapes. Releasing colorful home recordings since 2014, Long Term Wave is just as much about the process as it is about the product for Brower. Following the release of his previous album Psychofunky Dancing back in 2023, prior to his move from Athens to Chicago, Brower brought to these songs a challenge to reshape what he considers to be his given perspective; a statement of being stuck in the here and now and being okay with that for once.
Performing in a more stripped-back nature, Brower brings both conscious and explorative poise to these gentle tunes, enduring melodies and engaging simplicity, as he sets out to define the feelings and beings that he takes inspiration from in his day-to-days. “Every little task is made up of a million other little annoying tasks. The pressure from the cooker hits the looker at last” – Brower’s convoluted melodies are no more of a chore than they are a natural progression, where movement and language swirl together like a potion, a remedy, a blend of simple ingredients that perform such a poignant task in such a short time. But it’s in these transparent moments, regardless of how fleeting, where Brower’s musical instinct paints a picture much larger than we could have ever expected.
We recently got to catch up with Jake Brower on a cold Chicago day to talk about exploring his expressions, alternate dimensions and how his neighbors shaped the way Long Term Wave sounds.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You recently put out Long Term Wave, which is not your debut, but your first full length in a while. Is that right?
I released an album in 2022 called Psychofunky Dancing that I kind of consider to be a debut, but I’ve been recording and releasing music for over a decade now. Psychofunky Dancing is more of a fun, psychedelic album that sort of propels the listener into a weird alternate world. I made it almost 100% on the GarageBand app on my phone, so it’s very lo-fi and poppy. And then Long Term Wave is sort of like a response to that I think. I wanted to challenge myself to write songs that were rooted in my real day to day experiences, and have them be very direct and stripped down.
Coming into this record with the intention of writing something that’s more personal, more rooted in yourself, was that a challenge for you? Did it feel weird at first?
It was definitely a challenge. I spent about three years working on the album. It’s not that the recordings or songs themselves are super labored over, they’re very simple and bare bones. But it just took me that long to figure out how to shift my songwriting and style to be able to convey what I wanted. Over those 3 years I wrote about 30–40 songs, and experimented with tons of different versions and variations of things. And then the 13 songs that ended up on the album were the ones that really rose to the top of that group.
I mean, just by sheer numbers of songs you were working with and practicing, what sort of things were you picking up on that you knew you needed to work on? Were you able to decompartmentalize what you wanted to hear vs. what you were hearing?
I really wanted the songs to have an emotional directness to them and wanted them to speak to the real dynamics of my everyday life. I also wanted to make sure that they were still playful and funny while at the same time being emotional. So, out of all of the ones that I was working on, the ones that I ended up prioritizing were the ones that came as close as I could to that balance.
That’s funny, I wrote humor and heart in my notes. Even though these songs are so strikingly personal to you, it creates this place that people are able to feel comfortable in. Where does that humor sit in your way of expression?
I think the humor for me is an important counterpoint to the emotion in the songs. A lot of the challenge for me is in trying to write songs that are rooted in feelings, but that avoid sentimentality or the typical tropes of emotionality. Another way I think I do this is by rooting the songs in banal domestic experiences. So it’s like, okay, this song is about laundry, but it’s emotional at the same time.
Does it create new depth for you? To be able to explore the ways that you could describe doing laundry, almost characterizing it as you slow down? Does it help you to be present, rather than approach laundry with indifference?
Yea, that’s exactly what I was trying to do. I really wanted a listener to be able to gain a sort of heightened perspective on the everyday. And it’s also personal for me, too, where the process of learning how to write these songs meant that I had to learn to attune myself to those little dynamics that are going on all the time. There’s this song on the album called “Can’t Play Tambourine,” that came out living in a multi-unit apartment building, and not wanting to disturb my neighbors when I play music. There’s a line that’s like, “my upstairs neighbor likes to play the acoustic guitar. I hear the way it sounds when it comes through the walls, and I don’t want to be like that”. It’s about the self consciousness that I’m feeling as I’m playing and recording the song that the listener is hearing.
That says a lot about you too, like how you explore your place in the world. I like how you said alternate dimensions, with this album being very much stuck in the dimension that we have. Was that something you were searching for prior to this record? Were you trying to understand something that just wasn’t super comprehensible to you at the time?
Yea, I think I was looking for a way for my songwriting to help me tap into the present. Like opening up portals in routine experiences.
Do you think your writing is more of a method of exploration or explanation? I mean, do you feel settled at all when you finish? Or do you feel like it pushes you further down the rabbit hole?
That’s a really good question, I think it’s both. I do feel like when I finish a song, especially one that resonates more deeply, it feels like a little token or something that I can have and carry with me. But that process never really comes to a resolution. I’m always churning and I love writing songs. So, it’s a good problem I would say!
Do you find comfort in that? That there’s always more work to be done? Or maybe the comfort in that there’s always gonna be the next one?
I think so. I mean, I think right now songwriting for me is sort of like a life practice. My songs are always basically written in my head, while going about the daily tasks and work of my life. I never really write a song by picking up a guitar and strumming and creating something intuitively like that, like Paul bashing out “Get Back” in the documentary. It’s something that I just kind of carry with me through the day. I love how writing is portable, like a language game that I can play. A lot of the time I’ll write a song completely in my head over the course of a few days, and then only after it’s fleshed out I’ll get my guitar and figure out what the chords are. I’ll do that in front of a mic, and then the recording that ends up on the album might be one of the first few times I’ve played the song.
And you just self-record in your apartment?
Yes, I just self-record. It’s important to me that it feels true to the small bedroom that I record it in, so there’s no drums or instruments on this album that weren’t true to that space.
Do you think your worry of disturbing your neighbor influenced the way the album sounds?
Very much, yes [laughs]. I wanted to adapt my music making to my life, rather than trying to find a way to get to this ideal sound that wasn’t really related to my circumstances. Playing at a softer scale so I didn’t disturb my neighbors ended up very much shaping the aesthetic of the music.
Have you been playing shows in Chicago?
No, I’ve been playing and collaborating with some friends, and we might try and start playing some shows together. But performing isn’t really a huge driving motivation for me. I’m also a painter, and I almost think of my music as similar to painting, where it’s just this experience of making this thing, coming back to it and layering over time. Writing and recording are the things that I connect deeper with, rather than performing.
So, how do you feel when something gets put out once it’s out of that creating process and considered finished?
A lot of the time when I put something out, I feel like I just really want to make the next thing to correct for what I could have done differently on it [laughs]. With this album, it was such a process of figuring out a new method of writing and working. Now that it’s done, I can see the bigger picture and feel like I’ve gained some confidence from that. I feel excited to keep exploring.
You can listen to Long Term Wave out now via Attaboy Tapes.
Rug is nothing new to the Columbus scene, having been frequent participants in their local live show circuits for some time now. But just recently they became the latest in the cities calvary of creatives with the release of their new self-titled EP back in October. Made up of members Alice Wagoner (guitar, vocals), Jenna King (guitar), Elliott Hogue (bass, production, mixing) and Jonah Silverman (drums), Rug also brought in Abel’s Isaac Kauffman to help record and mix these tracks, laying it all out within their type of midwestern rock n roll fluency, where the blend of dynamic noise and earnest storytelling find revelries in the caricatures that foster life in the middle country.
These songs are reluctant for any immediacy, each track wholeheartedly animating the tiny yet tricky grievances of growing up, dragging its feet towards any concrete answers before lost to false memory or arbitrary nostalgia. “What’s this for, being so sore and so tired? Do I really feel this way or just or is it comfortable?” opens both the EP and the song ‘2%” with a blank space; a moment to revel and resent, to formulate and to sabotage, to break and to heal in your own time, at your own pace. Throughout it all, Wagoner’s voice drips from the tracks like blood from a freshly scrapped knee; the combination of rumbling distortion and sincere melodies both holding a place of fondness for rebellion and self-determination in the loathing territory between young adulthood and foolhardy youth.
We recently got to ask Rug about their self-titled EP and how the project came to be.
This EP has been a long time coming for you all. How does it feel to get this project out?
It feels really great to get this project out. These songs are what really catapulted Rug into a project so they mean a lot to us as a band. We wrote these songs back in 2023 and have been sitting on them since so it’s been a long time coming.
I know this group has gone through some changes since the initial formation, making the move from Athens, OH and joining the Columbus scene, as well as a few lineup changes. How did you embrace these shifts in the project, and did they have an effect on the way you approached making and releasing this EP?
Yeah we have had a lot of changes since the start! In 2024, our drummer moved out of state, and Elliott, who played bass, switched to drums. I knew our new bassist through her solo project, Coralilly, and it all just kind of worked out. When we first switched up the lineup we were worried things wouldn’t mesh the same as they did before, but any worries we had really faded away when Cora joined, she’s the best.
Joining the Columbus scene has been really great– everyone we’ve met has been super supportive and we’re really happy to be a part of this community. We honestly got super lucky with meeting some great people who really try to lift us up, so it’s been a really smooth transition.
Joining the Columbus scene really helped push us to put out the EP. Like I said, we had been sitting on the songs/recordings for a while. Athens is a college town which means a lot of the bands around here are temporary, so it’s really easy to get caught up in playing shows all of the time instead of recording and giving more longevity to your work. I think since the move we’ve really been prioritizing taking a step back from shows to hone in our skills and songwriting, as well as put out the EP and beginning to record future releases.
You included a lot of big players from the Columbus area to help bring this record to life. What was your introduction to that scene and what influences did you bring from those you worked with into this EP.
I think the people we can give the most credit to are our friends from Villagerrr and Abel. We recorded the EP with Isaac from Abel and he mixed it as well– so he is to credit for that whole process and we can’t thank him enough. We had played a couple shows with Abel in Athens when we first started playing out, and thought their recordings sounded great. He reached out and asked about recording a single for us, that being 2%, and then we later recorded the EP at his house because we were really happy with the way things turned out. All of their recorded stuff is fantastic, and they were really our first leg into the Columbus scene.
As for Villagerrr, we had all been huge fans of them for years. We ended up playing a couple shows with them in Athens and just built a relationship with them over time. Eventually, we ended up doing a weekend run of Ohio shows with Villagerrr back in March, and that was a great experience. We also had some mutual friends from another Columbus band, A-Go-Go. So we all just kind of ended up quickly building this community of all of these talented people pretty quickly.
You have been playing shows for quite awhile now, both full band and as a solo acoustic outfit. Where did these songs live in the live shows you played and did the back and forth of full band and solo influence the way you sit with these songs now?
We’ve been playing shows for a couple years now, which is crazy to think about. Most of our shows are plugged in with distortion and loud drums and the whole thing, but the root of all of our songwriting comes from just playing on an acoustic guitar. I think that’s why we love playing the occasional stripped back and all acoustic show– it allows us to return to the origin of the songs in a collaborative way. A lot of our inspiration in songwriting comes from folk and country music, so it’s really exciting to reimagine our songs in a new way each time we play an acoustic set.
What has putting this EP out meant to you all? Has it offered new things to explore in your lives as individuals and as a creative group? What are you looking forward to as Rug continues to grow?
Releasing this EP means a lot. Although we have been sitting on these songs for a long time, they are the first songs we wrote and performed for Rug and it’s cool to put that out into the world. We’re all at a very different place now then we were when these songs were written and recorded and our songwriting has developed so much as a band, so I think we’re just excited to keep moving forward. I think this has offered new opportunities in a way that we have something to show for ourselves now. Even though these songs were written a long time ago, we all think it’s important to have a physical record of the progress we’ve made over time. It’s also been rewarding to complete and release old Rug songs so we can move on to recording our new stuff. I know we’re all really interested in touring and playing more shows out of state as well, and are really excited to get back into playing shows in 2026!
The chordophonic limb of hemlock, Free Range, Ratboys, Squirrel Flower, Tobacco City, and more has added another exciting release to their solo discography. On November 21, Andy “Red” PK, released “Red/Waverly”, a dual single release that pulls in two opposite directions.
“Red” has an upbeat and feel-good tempo reminiscent of early 2000s indie-pop. PK emphasizes their expertise with a string-heavy track. The featured strings lean into a surprising, but well-integrated, southern twang midway through. With light and soothing vocals, “Red” paints a picture of sunshine and clear blue skies, whereas “Waverly” takes on the night. Its slow tempo, accompanied by PK’s relaxed voice, calms the adrenaline from “Red.” The track begins with a muffled ticking clock, which almost gives off an altered perception of time. At first, the heaviness of “Waverly” feels like a musical trudge. But the track ends before you know it. Its absence leaves you light and cold, in need of the heavy warmth of “Waverly” all over again.
By recording two contrasting melodies, PK shows the full range of their artistry. Rather than subjecting themselves to one note, they explore the various elements of their talent. The light and dark air surrounding “Red/Waverly” further characterizes the work of a guitarist held so fondly in many ensembles. From collaboration to solo work, Andy “Red” PK submits another beloved project for us to enjoy.
You can catch “Red/Waverly” and the rest of Red PK’s work out now on Bandcamp.
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by Dallas-based songwriter Tex Patrello.
Last year, Patrello released her long-awaited debut album Minotaur, a project that was seven years in the making and made entirely by herself in her bedroom. Conceived with the mindset of a musical, accumulating characters, thematic squirmings and the sheer magnitude of interpretations that make for a project of grand proportions, Minotaur is a modern Greek tragedy, one to hold the scaffolding of each story that follows its expansive, and oftentimes charmingly offensive, production styles and faltered scribblings. And through it all, without wearing thin, Patrello’s expression is reluctant to let up, simmering with haunting avant-pop contusions, waltzing, hollowing lows and high spiritual frenzies that fluctuate within her own throbbing, veiny heart.
“These are my 15 favorite Billy Joel songs. I was obsessed with Billy Joel when I was fifteen. I used to pray to him, make wishes. My first huge crush was a bigger fan than I was, and we saw Billy together in Houston in 2015. After that, his music started to make me feel sick. But both guys will always be present in my songwriting.”
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