Swim Into The Sound's Staff Favorites of 2025

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It’s hard for me to talk about The Swim Team and not sound like a proud dad, but it’s true! I’m immensely proud of our writers because they’re the ones who make this site what it is. Sure, I’m the bozo editing stuff and hitting “post,” but they’re the ones doing the hard work pouring their hearts out onto the page. They’re the ones steering this site’s taste and dictating the culture of Swim Into The Sound. 

Through this multitude of perspectives, we’ve assembled what I believe to be the coolest and most talented bunch of music nerds this side of the internet. The wild part is this isn’t just a relationship cultivated through Google Docs, DMs, emails, and Discord. Throughout the year, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of meeting many of these people in real life, grabbing a beer or catching a show with them, and talking endlessly about the music that moves us. Surprising no one, they’re just as cool in real life as they are on the page. 

It’s a joy to know these folks, and I consider myself lucky as hell to have them as part of my life and part of this website. Their words, verve, and taste have helped me sharpen my own versions of those things. If that’s too lofty, the recommendations I’ve received from them have been enough to fill my playlists and music queue all year, and that alone is a gift. Today, I share that same gift with you in the form of our team’s favorite albums of the year. What follows are 20 recommendations from 20 different writers, all going to bat for their favorite record of 2025—a diverse spread of music straight from the heart, not the algorithm. As usual, I hope you discover something new and exciting to love; I know I definitely have.

– Taylor

David Williams | Hotline TNT – Raspberry Moon

Third Man Records

A couple of metrics for how I choose my record for the year: What’s the first album that pops to my mind when I recommend music? What album can I spin that instantly gives me that ever-elusive nostalgia fix? What can I listen to constantly without ever growing weary? Raspberry Moon by Hotline TNT checks all these boxes for me this year. Will Anderson has transformed his one-man show into a well-oiled, merciless rock machine by integrating a full band during the writing and recording process for the first time in the band’s history. Everything is grander in scale, from the anthem-level hooks in “Julia’s War” to the blown-out guitar riffs on “Where U Been?” I’ve seen Hotline TNT perform the album live on multiple occasions, and the collective unit plays the songs so muscularly that even Arnold Schwarzenegger would blush.

Raspberry Moon is a gigantic step taken with full force that feels like a band discovering their newfound powers. “The Scene” is a Scud missile of a jam that would fit in on the soundtrack to any Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game. “Candle” is a power-pop flame hit that will never extinguish. Every song on Raspberry Moon deserves to be played at the highest decibel possible, and when the cops start thunderously banging on your door, they’ll understand why once they hear what’s coming through your speakers.

David’s Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out

  • Wednesday - Bleeds

  • The Tubs - Cotton Crown

  • Water From Your Eyes - It’s A Beautiful Place

  • Total Wife - come back down


Caro Alt | Colin Miller – Losin’

Mtn Laurel Recording Co.

After years and years of homesickness, I finally moved back to the South over the summer. I made jokes about how I couldn’t take another winter in a place where it snowed, but I really just missed it here. I made my decision to finally return while walking around Georgia in the aftermath of the winter and listening to Losin’ by Colin Miller for the first time. (I also reviewed it here.) Since that day, I’ve spent the entire year listening to that soft, barely-there delivery of Miller’s, replaying his warped guitars, and feeling the phantom misery he writes about while in the driver’s seat of his car. Spinning his wheels, getting upset in a drive-thru, racing on the highway, picking you up from jail. Sputtering engines, rusting hoods, and watching for headlights. I love this album because it is full of songs about cars that are not actually about cars and songs not about cars that are actually about cars. If you give it a spin, do it while going home, I know I did.

Other Albums I Loved:


Ben Parker | Arm’s Length – There’s A Whole World Out There

Pure Noise Records

This has been a year of change for me. I have gotten back into shape, I traveled across the country, and I saw Arm’s Length three different times. Now, the biggest change awaits as I sit here, staring down a potential job change that will see me move out of Indiana for the first time to a city I have only been to once. In all of this, I find myself connecting to one line in “The Wound” by Arm’s Length where singer Allen Steinberg leads into the hook yelling out, “I’ve spent a lifetime longing to leave, how the fuck could I stay?”

Every single track on There’s A Whole World Out There features some lyric that translates to an actual thought, experience, or feeling that I have had. It makes me feel profoundly human, as I have spent my whole life giving myself to everyone and hardly ever asking for anything in return, beyond the slightest sliver of kindness. I hear the line “When you’re constantly talking sweet / I don’t trust the words / but I don’t really care cause none of them hurt,” and I can’t help but think of the moments I have shared with friends and lovers long past the lifespan of the relationship, when we just said things out of habit. 

Despite the strong, sad themes throughout Arm’s Length’s sophomore album, there is still something inherently hopeful about it. Their debut, 2022’s Never Before Seen, Never Again Found, showcased the ways that childhood trauma can affect someone for their entire life and create a cycle of violence. In contrast, There’s A Whole World Out There has the same sadness and pain woven into its DNA, but shows that, despite it all, you move forward. 

Every person on this planet will live a life, and in that time, we will experience the full breadth of human emotion, and at the end of it all, we will die the same. To some people, this creates a sense of hopelessness, knowing there is nothing you can do to change your fate, and maybe that’s true, but change comes, and it’s worth experiencing. With this album, I have looked my mortality in the eyes and shook its hand, knowing that, just as the final line of the album says, “On any day I may pass, in any way I am killed.”

Other Favorites of 2025:

  1. Infinity Guise - Summerbruise

  2. Reasons I Won’t Change - Tiny Voices

  3. I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven - The Callous Daoboys

  4. Pleaser - Pretty Bitter

  5. Blame It On the Weather - Kerosene Heights


Cassidy Sollazzo | Folk Bitch Trio – Now Would Be A Good Time

Jagjaguwar

“Am I lucky, or am I just sane?” Heide Peverelle asks on the opening track of Folk Bitch Trio’s debut album. I’ve been keyed into the Melbourne three-piece for a few years, surviving only off a few singles (“Analogue” is forever an all-timer) and the hope that an LP was in the works. In 2025, I got my wish. Now Would Be A Good Time is an evocative, stirring collection of songs written over the formative late-teens-to-early-20s years, yet delivered with a confidence and cohesion beyond their years. Peverelle, Jeanie Pilkington, and Gracie Sinclair are more locked-in than ever, each with their definitive voices, roles, and songwriting qualities. The album’s blunt and crass in some moments (“Had a filthy dream to the noise of the hotel TV” or the cutting “Say you wanna get sober, I say I’d like to see you try”), tear-jerking in others (“Moth Song” wrecks me, personally), always delivered with a Mitchellian chord progression and a knowing wink. I’ve seen the group twice since the album dropped in July, once during release week at Nightclub 101, then a few months later at Baby’s All Right on their North American tour (it should be a testament to my love for them that I set foot in Baby’s, my least favorite venue in all of Brooklyn). There is a literal magic that moves through the room during their sets, each of them captivating in their own way. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: not since Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young have we seen harmonies this crisp! Gives me chills!

I wrote more about the Trio and their album for Paste over the summer, if you are so inclined to go deeper on this group. We talked about their recording and songwriting processes, how their friendships play into their group dynamics, and how they’ve been taking to their newfound exposure. 2026 is looking big for them: Kilby Block Party, arena openings for Mumford & Sons, and King Gizzard’s Field of Vision II. Hopefully, you can say you heard it here first! 

Some more favs:

  1. The Rubber Teeth Talk - Daisy the Great

  2. Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory - Sharon Van Etten

  3. In Space - Edith Frost

  4. Cuntry - Cleo Reed

  5. Melt - Not For Radio


Britta Joseph | Pile – Sunshine and Balance Beams

Sooper Records

During one of the many conversations about music I had with my friends this year, the question “Where are all the riffs?” was posed. My immediate answer was, “They’re all on the Pile album.” I stand firmly by my assertion, because Sunshine and Balance Beams is a rager of a release. It’s made for screaming along to: each track a torrent of righteous anger and ethereal beauty, every cutting lyric and brittle snare hit landing exactly where they’re intended to.

The band dissects the cult dynamics of hypercapitalism as though they’re performing vivisection, laying bare the sinister implications of the reality we inhabit. As someone who’s survived severe childhood trauma and spent several years in a religious cult, I cherish Pile’s bold confrontation and thunderous rage against evil in modern society. (If you want to read more about how this album ties into my childhood experiences, I reviewed it in full here.)

Not only is the album’s message necessary and impactful, but the sheer magnitude of the intensely beautiful arrangements, scintillating production, and dense instrumentation has to be experienced to be believed. Frontman Rick Maguire is at his very best, screaming one moment and crooning the next: every song feels like he’s singing it specifically to you. And you know what? Maybe he is.

Five selections from my list of favorites this year:

  • The Spiritual Sound - Agriculture

  • thank god for you - Melancholy Club

  • Don’t Trust Mirrors - Kelly Moran

  • this is my outside voice - satsuma 

  • Catcher - siichaq


Ben Sooy | Flock of Dimes – The Life You Save

Sub Pop

Jenn Wasner has lived large in my musical life for years. I have an instinctual longing to listen to her band Wye Oak (especially their third album, Civilian) every autumn when the air gets frosty and my body pushes me outside to walk, smoke cigarettes, and stare off into the distance. Look at that bird, the leaves are changing, isn’t life just one cycle of life and death dancing all with each other all the time?

Jenn Wasner’s solo project, Flock of Dimes, is having a big year. She had a vocal feature with Dijon on Bon Iver’s SABLE,fABLE (she’s buddies with Justin Vernon, who, a couple of years ago, invited her to be a member of the Bon Iver touring band). The Bon Iver song is great, but her 2025 solo record, The Life You Save, is better. 

Wasner wrote an album about trying to love people who struggle deeply with real shit: addiction, codependency, poverty, etc. Through the arc of the record, you see Wasner struggle to try and save others, but she realizes she’s incapable of even saving herself. There are depths there underneath some very catchy tunes, inspired production, and beautiful vocal performances!

Honorable Mentions:


Lillian Weber | Total Wife – come back down

Julia’s War Recordings

I am permanently in my head about everything. About what other people are thinking, about what I’ve done, about what comes next. My thoughts are a perpetual whirlpool that has no bottom, just a constant downward spiral. But come back down by Total Wife has been an anchor. When I have the record blaring in my headphones, I sink to the bottom of the ocean of my thoughts. I drift down through chopped beats, smeared guitars, and cooed laments to hopes and dreams unfulfilled. From the moment I hear the first notes of “in my head,” I am relieved. Every second after is a warm embrace of understanding. But relief isn’t the only thing this record makes me feel, because this record has “make it last,” and that song doesn’t make me feel relieved – it makes me ecstatic. “make it last” is the air in my lungs and leaves me washed up on a beach gasping for breath. Listening to “make it last,” the euphoric rush of that feedback-drenched chorus hitting my eardrums at full volume, is the best feeling in the world.

Honorable mentions:

  • Lotto by They Are Gutting A Body of Water 

  • Gaman by Star 99

  • Times Up by Bootcamp

  • The Spiritual Sound by Agriculture


David Gay | Sharon Van Etten – Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory 

Jagjaguwar

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of jam bands, from Phish (the best band) to others like Eggy, Goose, and Taper’s Choice. There’s something magical that happens when a group of people let the music take them to an unexpected place, somewhere they may not have gone to in an orchestrated piece. 

In mid-September, Sharon Van Etten and her band, the Attachment Theory, performed at the Hi-Fi Annex in Indianapolis. At one point between songs, she said, “I’m in my 40s, and I finally learned how to jam,” and I realized that I was seeing her grow musically with the help of others, a band. 

After first hearing the rolling bass lines that calls back to 80s bands like New Order on “Idiot Box” to the full-band groove that permeates “Afterlife” and “Somethin’ Ain’t Right,” I immediately knew that Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory was going to be one of my favorite albums of 2025 and that I was going to see Sharon Van Etten in a new way from now on. This is something that was affirmed during her live show, while I was in the midst of a full-blown outdoor dance party, including folks of all ages. 

While the Attachment Theory isn’t a jam band in the traditional sense, it embraces what is so great about that kind of music – the importance of going with the flow and being willing to collaborate with other talented musicians to find a new kind of sound, arriving at something that hasn’t been explored before. This is why it’s one of my favorite albums of the year. 

Other favorite things from 2025: 


Elias Amini | Marasme – Fel

Discos Macarras

There’s been some discussion within the Swim Team about the difference between a “Best of” list and a “Favorites” list. Try as we might, the objective and subjective can blur all too easily. One of my favorite albums of the year, however, sits quite comfortably in that blur. Marasme’s aural black metal groovefest Fel is the band’s latest work, the fourth album to be released in their almost 20-year existence as a group, and the experience shows. Six pummeling, winding, groovy, and at times avant-garde tracks all build and flow into a relentlessly excellent listening experience. I couldn’t tell you that this was my favorite project I’d heard all year. But I can tell you that I loved listening to it when I was between other albums. I imagine some time in the future I may smack my forehead and realize that this was in fact my favorite album of 2025. For now though, I don’t feel the need to lay some exalted crown on this album, only to tell you that it’s a great, enjoyable record and heavy music fans will definitely find themselves coming back to it for more.

Some other records I loved:

  • Massa Nera - The Emptiness of All Things

  • Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer

  • Chevalier - Un dolore a cui non so dare nome

  • Shlohmo - Repulsor

  • Blue Earth Sound - Cicero Nights


Kirby Kluth | Fust – Big Ugly

Dear Life Records

Fust’s Big Ugly feels like an inside joke or a perfect memory from childhood, the kind where you still feel the warm wind blowing against you while all of your favorite people are in sight right there before you. I wrote about Big Ugly in our Q1 roundup because it reminded me of all the ways you can find beauty in The South. A couple of weeks later, Fust played the best show I’ve ever been to at my local venue, the Pilot Light. That little one-two-punch solidified my allegiance, and I’ve been calling Fust “the best band in America” ever since. 

My daughter just turned one, and she has been mimicking my wife and I for some time now. I have gotten her to copy me whistling, and she pretty often catches the right spot to make a true tune. I've been whistling and humming “Sister,” “Bleached,” “What’s His Name,” and “Heart Song” around her for months now, and I hope that someday soon she’ll be whistling a Fust song right back to me. 

2025, according to Kirby:


Noëlle Midnight | Blackbraid – Blackbraid III

Self-released

It’s hard to write about a record when the main thing you want to say is that it’s got really good riffs, but that’s where I find myself with indigenous black metal band Blackbraid’s aptly titled third LP: Blackbraid III. Opening with the sounds of a fire in the woods, an acoustic guitar comes in, setting the scene as night falls, and you are transported into the image depicted on the album art. It’s soft and gentle. Safe.

And then the riffs come in. 

Massive blast beats paired with 16th note riffs immediately tell you what type of record you’re in for, as “Wardrums at Dawn on the Day of my Death” comes on and blasts your ass off. For the next 53 minutes, that’s what you’re in for: acoustic sweetness pulling you into the scene, alternating with black metal speed applied to thrash metal riffs, dragging you through lyrics that tell of a “warrior’s fate to ride the storm.” The album takes the established world and places characters in it, embedded in tales of war and honor, as they are “haunted by memories” in the light of the moon. The imagery is just badass. You feel like you’re watching an epic adventure film where anything could happen. Plus, the riffs are so sick.

Noëlle’s Other Favorites from 2025:

  • Lucy Dacus - Forever is a Feeling

  • Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH

  • Silverstein - Antibloom

  • Petey USA - The Yips

  • Sierra Hull - A Tip Toe High Wire


Nick Webber | Adrianne Lenker – Live at Revolution Hall

4AD

I’ve never been big on live albums, so I was surprised to come to the realization that Live at Revolution Hall is not just my favorite record of the year, but probably my favorite project in the Adrianne Lenker/Big Thief canon. Recorded over three nights on reel-to-reel and cassette tape by longtime friend of Lenker’s (and one of my favorite working producers) Andrew Sarlo, the experience is far from your standard glorified soundboard rip and might best be described as a cinematic sonic documentary. Selected performances across Lenker’s oeuvre were stitched together in editing via snippets of backstage takes, soundchecks, and field recordings in a sort of mad-scientist fashion, an approach perfectly suited for the songwriter’s singular balance of timelessness and ingenuity. Fans leave messages for Adrianne on a tape recorder, poetry is recited in the parking lot, a guy who can’t stop sneezing is blessed mid-song, one reel of tape runs out and the fidelity changes dramatically right as the next verse hits. The result has the captivating effect of an augmented reality personal concert, a masterfully curated interflow of play and reverence that could only come from deep trust and understanding.

My wife and I caught Lenker on tour when she came through Denver, for a seated show, and the most spellbound, pin-drop-quiet crowd I’ve been part of since seeing Julien Baker in 2017. Lenker was firing on all cylinders, equal parts commanding and meek, her fingerstyle guitar prowess and emotional directness undeniable, somehow making a sold-out room of nearly 4,000 feel intimate. Captured from various perspectives in Live at Revolution Hall, the audience functioned like an instrument of its own, participating at appropriate moments in ways that were hearteningly human and bracingly normal (a 2025 live music miracle). I think this album is as close as anyone’s come to bottling that rare collective effervescence, the feeling of existing in time and space at a once-in-a-lifetime show and realizing that you’re a part of something special: a true feat, and one that might cement this album as the definitive portrait of a generational talent’s career just over a decade in.

Also loved:

  • Florist - Jellywish 

  • Great Grandpa - Patience Moonbeam

  • Seer Believer - Make a Wish

  • Kitchen - Blue heeler in ugly snowlight, grey on gray on grey on white.

  • Ólafur Arnalds and Talos - A Dawning


Caleb Doyle | Samia – Bloodless

Grand Jury Music

Samia Finnerty cannot make a bad song.

From moments of minimalism that grow into genuine sonic excess, to melodic and impressionistic lyrics, Bloodless is cohesive and surprising, and begs multiple immediate relistens.

The lead single “Bovine Excision” and the title of the album refer to a creepy, decades-old conspiracy theory about livestock being mysteriously drained of their blood and relieved of their organs. Here, Samia’s reference is in yearning—a wish to be weightless, bloodless, and unattainable. Unflappable and unshakeable, although maybe also lifeless. The kinds of lyrics that leave a pit in one’s stomach, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg on Bloodless. 

The entire album is an exercise in dynamics, and the music mirrors the themes with growing and shrinking, waxing and waning. A song about something as mundane as a pair of pants spins up into a profound introspective moment—laying bare womanhood and society’s expectations, carried by a repeated refrain, “Wanna see what’s under these Levi’s? I got nothin’ under these Levi’s.” Just like the lyrics, the music swells and dissipates, over and over, throughout the whole record. It’s like the whole thing is breathing, sometimes slowly and measured, other times laboring under duress.

With Jake Luppen of Hippo Campus at the helm on production, the sounds of this record are both tight and exploratory. From more traditional Saddest Factory-coded indie ballads like “Fair Game,” to the big distorted Snail Mail-esque guitars on “North Poles” and “Carousel,” Bloodless feels right at home with today’s indie pop landscape, but what sets it apart is Samia’s genius songwriting and her breathy soprano voice that is more powerful than expected.

The songs are just beautiful. The music is a tapestry, and Samia’s melodies feel completely timeless. There’s a certain eeriness that runs throughout the album—from the interstitial radio static to Samia’s sometimes-haunting voice, and that eeriness sets Bloodless apart from Samia’s peers. You might get away with playing this over the speakers of your bespoke dress shop, but someone is going to get caught staring out of a window for too long.

Bloodless solidifies Samia as an artist who can pull away from the pack and create an album that walks the tightrope of haunting and gorgeous, as unsettling as it is reassuring.

The rest of my Top 5:
2. Tobacco City - Horses
3. Racing Mount Pleasant - S/T
4. Hannah Cohen - Earthstar Mountain
5. Annie DiRusso - Super Pedestrian


Jason Sloan | Real Lies – We Will Annihilate Our Enemies

TONAL Recordings

Let’s set the scene. You’re six drinks deep at the club, hands in the air, lover by your side, drugs about to kick in, when suddenly your phone receives a push notification heralding the imminent end of the world. Do you fall into a deep despair, or do you simply have to laugh at the absurdity? Real Lies’ scintillating We Will Annihilate Our Enemies is the sound of the decision to leave it all on the dance floor while the world crumbles around you.

As our devices moderate increasing swaths of modern life, art must contend with the uncanny valley. How does one expound upon an existence ever more fenced in by the digital boxes in our pockets? Real Lies wring surprising pathos out of their Extremely Online tales of E-Girls and Twitter fascists, of billboard ads and Strava stats. The world would be less lonely if we could just agree to boogie through the horrors together. 

The other album I considered here: Elm - Elm EP


Logan Archer Mounts | The Mountain Goats – Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan

Cadmean Dawn

No surprises, no teases, no left-field underground international death metal, this is just me talking about my favorite band (other than KISS and a few others, depending on the day) who put out the best hour of music that 2025 had to offer. 

The Mountain Goats changed my life after I saw them for the first time in 2009, and ever since then, a new album of theirs usually finds itself in my top ten at the end of the year — but never number one, until now. With Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, their first album on their own label and first since the departure of longtime bassist Peter Hughes, bandleader John Darnielle’s storytelling and composition reach a creative peak that echoes the Goats’ more grandiose albums like Goths or In League With Dragons, but delivered with even more advanced theatrics. That’s literal theatrics too, with vocal contributions from, no kidding, Lin-Manuel Miranda. It feels like the project Darnielle has been working towards his entire career, the closest to his fabled Riversend musical that has appeared in portions on previous albums. …Peter Balkan is a defining moment for The Mountain Goats, genuine and gorgeous, and a perfect start to the band’s next chapter.

Further recommended audio from God’s strongest survivors of the hellscape:
•Craig Finn, Always Been – my other favorite songwriter
•Guided By Voices, Thick Rich And Delicious – my other, other favorite songwriter
•Bodybox, 3 – my new favorite pro-meth slam metal band


Ciara Rhiannon | Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow

Southeastern Records

My album of the year might seem like a no-brainer to those who know how many of my favorite bands had stellar releases across 2025, yet one record managed to sneak past the front-runners and stick with me throughout the entire year. Jason Isbell’s Foxes in the Snow is a heartwrenching and intimate first-person account of his recent divorce, his journey of introspection, and, ultimately, of finding love again without even looking for it. 

Foxes in the Snow was recorded over five days at Electric Lady Studios in New York, just one man and an almost-century-old acoustic guitar. I suppose therein lies the magic that drew me to this album – there’s no hiding in any of it. The lyrical context of the record is so raw, so gutting, so honest, I can’t imagine any other way of delivering such an experience. When you listen to this record with headphones (which I highly recommend, especially on the first listen), you can even more intensely absorb Isbell’s guitar pick scraping along the strings of the old Martin guitar, every subtle movement, every little blemish of the recording process amplifying the cold, harsh nature of heartache and the unwritten forever mapped out track-by-track. 

Something I’ve touched on from time to time in my writing is my intimate familiarity with the demise of a long-term relationship I believed to last forever, as well as its resulting existential aftermath. Trying to wade through every difficult emotion while also attempting to salvage yourself and move on is no easy task. Structurally, Foxes in the Snow takes the listener through the events and effects of Isbell’s divorce in almost chronological order. Tracks like “Gravelweed” move through his reconciliation with himself, while the title track celebrates his current relationship. I feel intrinsically linked to this record, not only because of my own complicated emotions and experiences, but also through this intimate illusion of sitting in the room with Isbell as he performs it, with every pained, aching emotion he sends through the sound waves echoing my own. 

I can only hope that one day I will reach his level of self-understanding and feel the warmth of newfound love again, but in the meantime, I have this eloquently written, perfectly executed, and exquisitely paced 40-minute recording to come back to and cherish forever. 

And I’m sure time will change me some.

Honorable Mentions:

  • Coheed and Cambria - The Father of Make Believe 

  • Cheem - Power Move

  • Momma - Welcome to My Blue Sky

  • Motion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World

  • This Is Lorelai - Box for Buddy, Box for Star (Deluxe)


Katie Hayes | Hayley Williams – Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party

Post Atlantic

You wake up from a dream. 

In this dream, you were fourteen, and you were in a band playing a birthday party with your best friends. Then your parents were standing over you in an Atlantic Records meeting room. Determined and frazzled, you were trying to explain to your parents and the men in suits that you’re in a band, that it shouldn’t just be your name on that line to sign. Then you were on a stage, a huge stage in New York City, then London, then Jakarta, then an exclusive cruise just for fans of your band. A million voices across the world and years, echoing yours. Then it was 2017 in the dream. Two of your friends are gone, one is back, and one has been there the whole time. That one always seems like he’s on the verge of telling you something whenever your old bald boyfriend leaves the room. Then you’re in that Nashville studio with your friend again, but this time he’s hugging your waist. Five years pass in the dream, and you’re standing next to him and your other friend, the one from the fourteen-year-old birthday party, except this time it’s not a birthday party, it’s Taylor Swift’s tour, the biggest stage on earth. Then the song is over. You hold hands with your band, and you take a bow.

And then you wake up from the dream. And you write an album about it.

Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Greg Freeman - Burnover

  • Jay Som - Belong

  • Jensen McRae - I Don’t Know How But They Found Me!

  • Samia - Bloodless

  • Wednesday - Bleeds


Josh Ejnes | Greg Freeman – Burnover

Transgressive Records

For me, 2025 has been a year filled with more old music than new, which is a roundabout way of saying that I spent an inadvisable amount of time listening to NRBQ and Faces. What makes both of these bands so compelling is the way that they pair expert songwriting with the feeling that the wheels are about to come off, something NRBQ executes by being coy and off-kilter, and Faces execute by being drunk. The end result of this is studio recordings that feel live and live recordings that feel insane. Greg Freeman's Burnover is cut from this same cloth, pairing expert songcraft with a band going into hyperdrive and coming out as my album of the year with a bullet. The second the harmonica hit on “Point and Shoot,” I knew that this was the record for me. I'd been jumping from new release to new release, finding things I liked but didn't love, unable to put my finger on what exactly I was looking for, then I put on Burnover and bam, total bliss. The whole thing just rocks, from the masterclass in escalation “Gulch” to the tender and contemplative “Sawmill,” it’s hit after hit after hit. If you haven't heard this, you need to listen to it. If you have listened to it, listen to it again. It gets better every time. 

Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Saba and No I.D. - From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D.

  • Marble Teeth - there was a huge crowd of people gathered in the streets

  • Jay Som - Belong

  • lots of hands - into a pretty room

  • MyVeronica/Friend’s House - Farewell Skylines


Parker White | Water From Your Eyes – It’s a Beautiful Place

Matador Records

Since black midi’s disbandment last year, I’ve been chasing the dragon. I never knew what exactly to expect when I hit play on a new black midi track, but I knew I’d hear something brilliant, daring, and spine-tingling. After It’s a Beautiful Place, Water From Your Eyes might have taken the experimental indie rock mantle. From the moment I heard lead single “Life Signs,” WFYE’s new album immediately topped my most anticipated albums of the year, and it did not disappoint. In what has become typical fashion, this record never stays in the same place for more than a few measures. Song-to-song, verse-to-verse, things are constantly shifting while remaining miraculously consistent. You’ll hear a lot of things that sound like songs you’ve heard before until those familiar ideas are sliced in half with buzzsaw guitar or drowned out by a breakbeat. No one is quite as willing to color outside the lines as Water From Your Eyes, and I’m waiting with bated breath to see what they do next.

Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Ribbon Skirt - Bite Down

  • Greg Freeman - Burnover

  • Mac Demarco - Guitar

  • Black Country, New Road - Forever, Howlong

  • Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band - New Threats From The Soul



Connor Fitzpatrick | Cory Hanson – I Love People

Drag City Inc.

Dear reader, 

I’ve been listening to Cory Hanson’s I Love People fairly religiously since it came out this summer. Sadly, I tend to treat a lot of albums like single-use plastics, checking them out to see what’s up, then tossing them aside without the fair chance of a second or third listen. This is a me problem, and maybe I’ll make it a resolution to focus on the reuse element of the three main tenets of recycling next year. So why do I keep returning to I Love People with such regularity? Well, because it has the songs, man. The album is a shining collection of eleven nuggets each with their own unique embellishments. Opener “Bird On a Swing” is a breathtaking country-rock ode to the highs and lows of personal freedom. One of the things I really love about this album is how Hanson leans into his sardonic side. “Joker” and the title track “I Love People” are both swaggering horn-laden jams that create a sense of intrigue where you can’t tell if Hanson is being sincere or if he’s fucking with you. The saccharine Christmas carol “Santa Claus Is Coming Back to Town” reads like a lost Denis Johnson short story that details the lonely existence of an Afghanistan war veteran. In the past, I’ve loved Hanson’s work, both solo and with his band Wand, for his approach to psychedelic, guitar-driven rock, but I Love People is a stark departure as he flaunts his skills as a concise singer-songwriter. I hope you give this album a listen.

Much love,
Connor

P.S. Here are a few other albums I loved this year.

  • Brian Dunne, Clams Casino

  • Greet Death, Die In Love

  • Maria Somerville, Luster

  • Die Spitz, Something to Consume

  • Addison Rae, Addison

Greg Freeman – Burnover | Album Review

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Transgressive Records

To pay respect to a record that wastes no time getting right to it, I’ll do the same. Greg Freeman’s Burnover is one of the best projects of the year, and it makes its case in the first five seconds. The initial moments of the first track and lead single “Point and Shoot,” a straight shooting guitar-forward heater that tragicomically evokes the Alec Baldwin disaster, lay out the blueprint that defines the entire record. Freeman’s delivery of the opening lines “Shot down in the shade of cardboard canyons / They cut the scene and saw blood on the Cameraman” lets the listener know exactly what they’re in for. The vocals are idiosyncratic yet immediately iconic. The lyrics are somewhat elusive but evoke vivid imagery rooted in a physical place. Emotionally, there’s a touch of familiar wryness, but his heart is refreshingly on his sleeve. Where many insert a throat-clearing preamble or instrumental intro, Freeman starts with a confident crack and a bang.

Freeman kicks off his sophomore album with an appropriate level of urgency as he tries, and succeeds, to capitalize on the organic ascension he’s experienced since the release of his 2022 self-released debut, I Looked Out. Unlike Burnover, which seems to have built up a bit of a hype train, his first record was released with no label and basically zero marketing. Freeman earned his traction with a once common, now radical formula of involvement in a strong local scene, playing a bunch of kickass live shows, and good old-fashioned word-of-mouth. Now he’s got a record deal, a calendar full of shows opening up for Hamilton Leithauser and Grandaddy, and a Rolling Stone profile. In his words, he’s “not trying to cater to anyone” on this album, but I think it’s safe to say Greg knows he’ll be addressing a larger audience. 

In conjunction with his individual rise to relative stardom, there seems to be a growing appetite for this flavor of indie rock. I imagine anyone reviewing Freeman’s sophomore effort will be playing a version of the “Don’t Mention MJ Lenderman Challenge,” and it’s hard not to see these two as part of the same overarching trend. Though I’m not sure alt-country is the perfect label for Freeman’s music, some of the elements are there, as are the en vogue ‘90s guitar music references spanning the modern music landscape. These influences are connected. The current alt-country boom mirrors a similar explosion in the ‘90s, both of which coincided with a rise in commercialized country music. In a sense, Greg, MJ, and others in this lane are photo negatives of the larger pop country industry, and their respective local scenes are rough and rowdy antidotes to its monolithic polish and sheen. 

In contrast to Lenderman and others who carry this “alt-country” label, Freeman’s style is more freewheeling cowboy than Southern gothic. Greg was nice enough to respond to a few questions I sent over to him, and he was clear that he didn’t have a strict master plan for what his second album was going to sound like. “I let the songs kind of write themselves, and wasn’t too concerned with having them fall into any cohesive sound or style.” That starts to become apparent when the second track, “Salesman,” comes in with its walloping horns and buzzing guitar, then gives way to the plucky piano ballad “Rome, New York.” These two songs flaunt Freeman’s ability to turn his sound on a dime and his trust that the songs “would have some kind of cohesive identity, without putting any rules on [them] sound-wise.” They’re in totally different energetic registers but feel cut from the same cloth.

When I asked him the somewhat cliché “musical influences” question, he indulged my suggestion that Modest Mouse may have imprinted on his sound, and I hear in both artists that lack of concern over sonic cohesion. On some of Modest Mouse’s best projects, like 2000’s landmark The Moon and Antarctica, the band didn’t confine themselves to a particular genre and instead seemed more focused on evoking salient imagery (as exemplified by the album title). Greg seems to take that approach as well. On the brilliant title track, a reference to a region of upstate New York known as a hotbed for 19th-century religious fervor, he sings of a blue frozen morning, smoke on the horizon, a fire station barroom, psychic highways, and glacial lakes. It loosely tells the story of a firefighter’s strike, but the narrative is incomplete and secondary to the pictures the song projects onto my brain. It’s all set to a backdrop of acoustic guitar, piano, and harmonica that would sound right at home on a ‘70s Dylan record.

These folk rock arrangements are one of the most obvious ways in which Freeman’s second album progresses from his debut. His band of talented musicians from the local Burlington scene flesh out the album’s “live in the studio” sound, making every track feel as if it’s being brought to life just as it enters your ears. On an Instagram post earlier this summer accompanying the release of the single “Curtain,” Freeman recalled joyful laughter in the studio as his piano player laid down the track’s “honky tonk” riff that was simply “so perfect that it’s kind of funny.” That magic certainly translates to the studio recording. The band’s chemistry is audible as they jam along so effortlessly for seven minutes that I wished it would go on for seventy.

I’ve spent months with Burnover at this point, and it’s still slowly revealing itself to me. Greg and I agreed that the album wasn’t necessarily “accessible,” but it does offer several handholds and entry points in the form of highly memorable melodies, riffs, and lines. The guitar riff on the pop-punkish “Gulch” and the “rusty metal throne” line from “Curtain” are just a couple of tidbits that have stuck with me for weeks now, and I suspect I’ll continue digging up new golden nuggets as I keep listening along with the rest of the world. The album just dropped on streaming as I’m writing this, and it feels like the celebration around Burnover has only just begun. I asked Greg about the future of the industry, specifically in the context of the recent Spotify reckoning and his complicated feelings towards the platform as a sort of necessary, but possibly transient, evil. He left me with his hope that “the freakier the future gets, the stronger our communities and independent movements will become.” He’s certainly doing his part.

Parker White lives and works in Atlanta where he moonlights as a music writer. When not attending local shows or digging for new tunes, he’s hosting movie nights, hiking/running, or hanging out with his beloved cat, Reba McEntire. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram @parkerdoubleyoo, and you can read other stuff he’s written over on his Substack.

Community, Solidarity, and Good Fucking Music: Liberation Weekend Recap

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All photos by Taylor Grimes

Any music festival that starts with a wall of death and a band smashing a guitar is cool as fuck in my book. Any festival where the lineup is comprised of mostly trans and queer musicians is powerful and inspiring. Any festival where the proceeds are going to a good cause and the event revolves around more than just getting shit-faced with your friends while loud music plays… well, that’s about as radical an act you can take part in as a music fan. 

Liberation Weekend is a brand new music festival in Washington, D.C., billed as “two days of music and arts for trans liberty.” The festival was organized by punk band Ekko Astral and trans rights advocacy collective Gender Liberation Movement. The festival began as a kernel of an idea that frontwoman Jael Holzman had in the wake of last year’s election and materialized as a sort of Pitchfork Fest for trans rights, with all proceeds going to the Gender Liberation Movement. Featuring a knockout lineup of Certified Swim Favorites™ like Home Is Where, Greg Freeman, Bartees Strange, and Pop Music Fever Dream, the fest took place across two days on Friday, May 30th and Saturday, May 31st at famed D.C. venue Black Cat with afters at the tri-level DC9 Nightclub. 

Long story short, Liberation Weekend was two days of incredible music, infectious energy, and communal support. I was on-site (alongside esteemed member of the Swim Team, Caro Alt) from start to finish, taking in a collective 20 hours of music, 22 different sets, and an infinite number of fits, smiling faces, and jumbo slices. We captured at least a little bit of every set on Instagram, preserved forever as a Highlight for your viewing pleasure, but also nabbed some pics on our trusty digi cam. Read on to see what the inaugural version of the festival was like.

Day 0: Solid State Books presents Niko Stratis' "The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman"

On Thursday, May 29th, before a single note of music was played, Black Cat hosted a reading and Q&A with Niko Stratis that served something of an unofficial kickoff to Liberation Weekend. Stratis’ recently released book, The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman, is one of my favorites that I’ve read in a long while and felt so immediately revelatory that a handful of the Swim Team writers decided to start a book club just so we could all talk about it. 

An absolute masterwork in music writing, the book is a memoir-in-essays on transness, labor, music, and self-realization. Each chapter of the book is centered around a specific “dad rock” song, with Niko using songs by Wilco, The Replacements, Sheryl Crow, and more as jumping-off points to discuss transitioning and her eventual journey to sobriety. Throughout the book, I found myself awestruck by how well Stratis jumps back and forth between more traditional music writing and vivid personal stories, often dovetailing the two with an energy that enraptured and inspired me.

After Niko read a bit from her essay about The Wallflowers’ “One Headlight,” she and emcee Rax King (a D.C. local) played a round of “Dad Rock or Not,” which is precisely what it sounds like, as the pair ran through a series of bands for Stratis to determine whether they classify as dad rock or not. This laddered up to a key point within the book outlining the difference between a “father” and a “dad,” with Niko ultimately surmising that “A dad is somebody you remember.”

The night’s discussions also included a tangent on chips and bagels, thoughts on identity through labor, a condemnation of “coolness,” and advice from Niko that “if you’re going to get tattoos, some of them have to be stupid.” Stratis also had some trenchant analogies about how coming out as trans doesn’t fix everything, explaining it as being more like a circuit breaker where nothing’s labeled. On some level, it’s nice to have a fresh start, but you still have to put in the work to figure out what everything does and who you are trying to be. My favorite quote of the night came when Niko was discussing how to discover new music and said, “If you’re ever at a record store and there’s a guy working there who looks too stoned to be alive, ask him what he’s listening to, ‘cause it’s gonna be good.”

Day 1: Emo Music, Smashed Guitars, and a Flood Warning

It’s a muggy Friday in DC, and I arrive at Black Cat an hour before doors to bask in the pre-show calm. The lights are low, and the black and white tile floor is already cast in swirling green laser lights. To the left is a bar hawking a combo of whiskey and Narragansett Lager; to the right is a bank of pinball machines ranging from licensed tables like The Big Lebowski and Johnny Mnemonic to classics like Centaur and The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot. Also to the right were tables for the Gender Liberation Movement, Transa, and the Trans Music Archive.

Before the day began in earnest, Ekko Astral frontwoman Jael Holzman took the stage to introduce the festival and explain its inception. “Months ago, we had a dream to raise money for trans people instead of against them,” she explained to applause from the already half-full room. Holzman went on to introduce the first band of the first-ever Liberation Weekend…

Pop Music Fever Dream

A brilliantly chaotic no-wave band from Brooklyn, Pop Music Fever Dream kicked off Liberation Weekend with lamentations and bad vibes in the best possible way. Guitarist and lead singer Tim Seeberger wailed into the mic as bassist Carmen Castillo glared into the crowd, the attendees already throwing themselves into each other, an instant reminder that, after all, D.C.’s hardcore scene helped invent slam dancing. The fact that there was moshing for their first song signaled a strong start to the proceedings. At one point, Seeberger unfurled the mic cable and wandered to the back of the room, parting the crowd for a wall of death. “The fight doesn’t stop tonight, but i  in t’s fun to celebrate,” they explained in between songs. After 30 minutes of primal howls crawling around the stage, PMFD ended the set by smashing a guitar, with shards of the sunburst Jaguar flying into the rapt audience. Helluva way to start things off.  Read Lillian Webber’s interview with Pop Music Fever Dream here. 

Greg Freeman 

Next up was Greg Freeman, a Vermont-based alt-country indie rocker whose 2022 debut, I Looked Out, has been a staple of my musical diet over the last few years. Freeman was playing a solo set, just him, a guitar, and a harmonica, giving effortless folk hero energy as he played through hits from his first LP as well as his upcoming sophomore effort, Burnover. Earlier that same day, he released “Curtain,” a piano-packed barroom brawler that the audience was lucky enough to see in a raw, stripped-down form. Singing through clenched teeth, songs like “Come and Change My Body” took on a feeling of renewed meaning in a room full of people expressing their gender in a genuine and free way. Read Taylor’s write-up of “Curtains” here. 

Pretty Bitter

After the no-wave freakout of PMFD and the earnest folk stylings of Greg Freeman, D.C.’s own Pretty Bitter swept to the stage, bringing big dance party energy. Running through older material as well as songs from their upcoming Tiny Engines debut, Pleaser, the five-piece strutted their stuff with confidence and momentum that got the crowd grooving in turn. Frontperson Mel Bleker commandeered the mic while Kira Campbell shredded guitar solos and Ekko Astral’s Miri Tyler and Liam Hughes held down the bass and synth, respectively. Behind them, drummer Jason Haze battered his kit, twirled his sticks, and stood up to hammer his loudest solos. To quote my friend Jacqueline Codiga, “The drummer doesn’t have one song where he needs to be doing all that, but I’m glad he is.” The whole set felt like dancing around your room on a random weeknight after finding out your crush likes you back. Luckily, we only have to wait till July to hear the band’s sophomore album. 

The Ophelias 

Not to say the bands before this weren’t getting fits off, but when The Ophelias took the stage in floor-length floral dresses, white platform heels, and long, flowing hair, it was clear a new bar had been set. Reveling in the beauty of their recently released Spring Grove, the Cincy five-piece enraptured the crowd with a set of lush, violin-framed indie rock. Addressing the world at large, then the thrust of the festival, lead vocalist Spencer Peppet laid out, “This shit sucks… but this is cool,” which was met with applause from the ravenous audience. 

Pinkshift

I’ve been lucky enough to catch Pinkshift a couple of times over the last few years, and each time, I swear they get faster, tighter, and even more ferocious than the last. The Baltimore punk band brought immediate anger and urgency to their almost-hometown set, condemning white supremacy before ripping into “ONE NATION,” a song that got the entire front of the room jumping. Leader singer Ashrita Kumar is a force of nature, thrashing across the stage while their voice vaults from heavy growls to soaring high notes. The band and crowd fed off each other’s energy as vicious circle pits seemed to fuel the band’s bone-snapping nu-metal-esque breakdowns. Read Taylor’s write-up on Pinkshift’s breakthrough “i’m gonna tell my therapist on you” here.

Vinyl Raffle + Raquel Willis of Gender Liberation Movement

Before Night One headliners Home Is Where took the stage, Jael and Miri handed out the first batch of raffled vinyl courtesy of Topshelf Records, including the likes of Weatherday, Really From, plus some exclusive test presses. One by one, winners were called up to the stage to collect their wax, then the pair handed the stage over to Raquel Willis of Gender Liberation Movement, who had some choice words to say on the whole affair. “Even if you had a hard day, a hard week, a hard life… bitch you are here.” She went on to explain how apt this pairing is, stating, “It makes perfect sense that this festival centers around punk rock. Music and creation and punk [have] always been ours.” Willis continued with inspiring vamping about how we have to show up for everybody, shouting out the queer freaks and the gender fuckers. She ended on a simple note, stating to the packed crowd, “We deserve liberation forever.”

Home Is Where

In the months leading up to Liberation Weekend, there was one band everyone in D.C. was talking about. Conversations about tickets and lineups circled around one thing — “I mean, Home is Where is headlining.” When the Floridian emo group dropped I Became Birds in 2021, the album was an immediate shock to the system–rickety, electrifying, and invigorating for its entire 19-minute runtime. Two years later, the group followed it up with the even more full-throated the whaler, a tense, loving, and grotesque record about getting used to things getting worse. This year, the group pushed out even further with Hunting Season, a country-fried take on their sound that doubles as a love letter to their home state after members were forced to relocate in the wake of increasingly aggressive anti-trans legislation. Read Wes Cochran’s review of Hunting Season here.

Donning Dylan-like sunglasses and rocking the second harmonica of the night, lead singer Bea MacDonald explained these stakes outright to the packed audience, “Tilley and I had to leave Florida, and we’re homesick.” The group played through high points of their recent LP, including “migration patterns,” “milk & diesel,” and “shenandoah,” all of which were met with a thrashing crowd that emphatically screamed along to every word. I felt second-hand euphoria hearing “Oh, what a strange salvation / bong water transubstantiation” live. In one of the funnier bits of stage patter, Bea introed, “This might be the closest to the Capitol Building that you’re allowed to sing these words” before throwing to “the scientific classification of stingrays.”

Upon completing their set, the crowd was still ravenous for more, spurring a genuine encore from the group that saw Bea and Tilley take the stage, just the two of them, for a stripped-down rendition of “roll tide” off Hunting Season. It was a joyous way to end the first leg of the day, but not the whole day, because there were still afters, so off to DC9 we went.

Interstitial Migration

Situationally, Black Cat sits in the middle of 14th Street, a relic of a different time in D.C.’s music geography that’s now locked in by a couple of fratty bars, a beer garden that doesn’t sell hard ciders, and a Brooklinen. However, up five blocks and through a couple of neighborhoods, DC9 stands in a long line of bars and clubs, catty corner to the historic 9:30 Club and its subsidiary, The Atlantis. Groups of festival-goers walked on the red brick sidewalks from one venue to the next as the sky threatened to open again. Everyone was replaying what happened during Home is Where’s whirlwind set while keeping up a brisk pace to make it to Perennial.
– Caro Alt

Perennial

Because Home Is Where went a little over and it took a while to say goodbye to all our friends at Black Cat, we showed up a few songs into Perennial’s set, but the Connecticut modernist punk trio had already whipped the room into a frenzy. We walked in during the raucous “Up-tight,” which the group blows out into a call-and-response jam, walking into the crowd as vocalists Chelsey and Chad alternate lyrics “in the middle of the night / oh yeah, alright, up-tight.” The trio worked the refrain down to a whisper, and the crowd was more than happy to oblige, chanting along to every word until the group brought the guitars back out and turned things into an all-out punk party. Dressed in matching horizontal striped shirts, Perennial’s set was contagious and pure rock and fuckin’ roll.

ZORA

Introduced as “the transsexual menace,” ZORA took the stage as an indietronica duo with live drums and braggadocious hip-hop bars. After shouting out her hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota, ZORA led a chant of “Fuck Target” after the company rolled back its DEI initiatives earlier this year and pulled their support for local pride events. Playing plenty of songs off her recent Get Better Records releases Z D A Y and BELLAdonna, ZORA offered a fun palate cleanser to the otherwise rock-heavy aftershow. 

Um, Jennifer?

I was lucky enough to catch Um, Jennifer? a week prior, playing The Mercury Lounge with Eph See and Deadbeat Girl, so I was fortunate in that I knew what to expect. That is to say, a triumphant set of rock music helmed by Eli Scarpati and Fig Regan, who playfully trade deliveries between vibrant shades of indie rock. While Eli brings a buoyant, classic rock approach to his songs, Fig impresses with slightly headier songwriting that at times feels like a mix between Black Country, New Road and under-appreciated defunct Detroit prog-punk band Mover Shaker. Together, the pair is backed by Grayson Ellis (of Twinflame) on drums and Carmen Castillo (of Pop Music Fever Dream) on bass. Together, the four churned out effortlessly charismatic pop-rock bangers to a ravenous 1 am crowd.

With a recently released self-titled full-length behind them, the group rocked through a set of songs that spoke directly to transition and gender dysphoria/euphoria. Highlights included the Blondie-coded “Went On T” and “Old Grimes,” a surfy number with a soaring chorus about listening to Grimes before she did all that other stuff. There were times when Eli was flying across the stage, jumping from the bass drum, shirtless, performing with such zeal that I was reminded of a young Bruce Springsteen. Even the on-album interlude “Jennifer’s Dungeon” took on a cathartic new life when performed live, with the entire crowd finding release in the repeated wail of “I shaved my face for you, baby!” The night ended with “Cut Me Open,” a jumpy rocker that has been one of my favorite songs of the year for two years running. Read Brad Walker’s review of The Girl Class EP here.

Interlude: Merch Booths, Organizing, and Wishlists

By the time we emerged from DC9 a little after 2 in the morning, we were met with an absolute deluge of rain. We checked the weather app to learn that D.C. was experiencing both a flood and a tornado warning, almost as if Mother Nature was just as fired up from the eight hours of music we had just taken in. We ran through the streets and piled into a Lyft back to our digs in Adams Morgan, then proceeded to saty up until 4 am, wired from the day’s events.

This midpoint seems like a good spot to show off some of the beautiful merch and organizations that were tabling the fest. There was a little something for everyone: cool shirts and CDs, smut and stickers, zines, narcan, test strips, and DIY hormone guides, the sense of community stemming from the fest was reflected even in these booths.

While I’m breaking timeline chronology, I’d also like to use this space to discuss my personal wishlist for a potential second iteration of Liberation Weekend. First off, my mind goes to Jeff Rosenstock and PUP, two bands that Ekko is about to tour with this fall that seem like prime headliner suspects for an event like this. I also think Mannequin Pussy and Lambrini Girls would bring a hard-nosed punk edge that the festival seems to bend toward. Because I’m a Portland Boy, I also have to rep Alien Boy, whose loud-ass guitar rock tackles something universal in the queer experience. Just to round things out with some emo music, I think Snowing, Ogbert The Nerd, Swiss Army Wife, or See Through Person could all provide prime mid-day sets that would keep the energy high. Okay, enough daydreaming, back to reality. 

Day 2: Local Legends, TRANSA Showcase, and Ekko Fucking Astral

Miri Tyler

Day two of Liberation Weekend started with Miri Tyler kicking off the Locals set at DC9. You can’t talk about DIY music in D.C. without bringing up Miri Tyler. Not only did she play in three sets across the 22-set weekend (all different instruments, I may add: bass for Pretty Bitter, drums for Ekko Astral, and guitar/vocals for her own set), but outside of the festival, you can find her at practically every gig and show. The first time I saw Tyler wasn’t actually onstage, but opening the mosh pit at a Bacchae show several years back – her love of music and D.C. is infectious, and the crowd she was playing to at 2:30 pm was giving her that love right back.

Sonically, Tyler’s project is jangly and a bit groovy – the song “Land of the Loaded Gun” boasts a phenomenal bassline, held down by Kira Campbell, which acts as the song’s center of gravity, much like a Yo La Tengo song. During the set, the trio played a new song with a fucked-up groove, then transitioned into an older track with more of an emo beat. Tyler wears her heart on her sleeve, and that earnestness is what this festival thrives on.
– Caro Alt

Fun aside. Just a short beat after Miri’s set ended, one of the vendors from the back of DC9 shouted, “If anyone wants gay porn, I have some!” Then amending their proclamation with “Trans porn!” What a beautiful festival. 

Berra

I always find it kind of embarrassing when there’s a local act I haven’t seen three times yet, let alone haven’t seen once, but I had never seen Berra live until this weekend. Under the blue lights of DC9’s corner-set stage, Berra’s Roba Djalleta stood in the spotlight and began her dreamy set. The weekend happened to line up with the release of the band’s latest EP, Lover’s Virginia, which came out the previous Friday, meaning there was a plethora to celebrate. The crowd bounced along to poppier songs like “Guys” and swayed to misty tracks like “For Not You.” Djalleta’s velvety voice and the shiny band oscillated between the emo stylings of the Midwest and bedroom pop contemporaries like Beach Bunny. All together, it was a starry set, and I hope to catch Berra again soon. If any D.C. bookers are reading this, book Berra.
– Caro Alt

Massie

Right as Massie kicked their set off with an Interpol-ass riff, Kira Campbell came over my shoulder and whispered, “This band is about to melt faces,” and damn was she right. You know in cartoons when a band plays so loud that the amps start smoking and the volume dial pops off? That’s Massie. The group is a thrashy power-pop project shared between guitarist Emily Yaremchuk and drummer Sam Collings. Collings’ drums sit at the heartbeat of the band, thumping through Yaremchuk’s feedback and fuzz. Sonically, they lean into a bit of gaze and get a little Gladie. No matter what or where I see them – a library, a basketball game, or at DC9 – they always feel like someone lit a firework and threw it into the air.
– Caro Alt

Pinky Lemon

You can’t help but feel electric when Pinky Lemon performs. About as synonymous with The D.C. DIY Sound as anyone can get, Pinky Lemon normally sprawls across the stage with five members; however, for this set, they opted for a stripped-down version of their synthgaze. The last time I saw Pinky Lemon live, they were participating in a tournament called Mosh Madness, in which local bands soundtracked a series of 3-on-3 basketball games made up of local musicians. Their ominous yet dancy sound reverberated around the auditorium then as it did at DC9. While the setting was incredibly different for Liberation Weekend, the performance was just as in-your-face; they even covered “Love Buzz” with Miri Tyler. This set was definitely Pinky Heaven, not Hell.
– Caro Alt

Faith/Void

Back at Black Cat, I walked into Faith/Void’s set right as the NY rock trio were ripping into a cover of Mclusky’s “Day Of The Deadringers,” which brought me back to life. Their whole set was proper shouty down-and-dirty punk goodness with an undercurrent of jilted Gen X energy. The band’s bio on Instagram reads, “suckin dongs and smokin bongs,” and I’m happy to report that’s the exact kind of energy you can expect from a Faith/Void set. 

Big Girl

After reading Katie’s write-up on Big Girl earlier this year, I thought I knew what to expect from the red-hued indie rockers, but turns out taking in this band’s show firsthand is something else entirely. The set began with all four members putting their hands together, then bandleader Kaitlin Pelkey proceeded to lie on the ground and writhe, slowly coming to life as the rest of the band gradually cranked up a swell of noise. Dressed in red tights and a sheer red top wrapped in a protective suit jacket, Pelkey is the ideal frontperson, equal parts iconic, theatrical, intimidating, and captivating. After shredding for one song as a four-piece, Pelkey shed their guitar and began to strut the stage, vamping, tambourine in hand while promising that select members of the audience were going to get that “biiiiiiig promotion,” lulling us in with the promise of “healthcare” and “everything we ever wanted.” The group proceeded to play through a selection of songs off their recently released DYE EP, and within minutes of their set ending, I was already looking forward to the next time I would be blessed enough to catch Big Girl again. Read Katie Hayes’ profile on Big Girl here.

Ted Leo 

Ted Leo is a staple in D.C. music in the same way that St. Stephens is a staple of D.C. DIY venues, in the way that Smash! Records is a staple in D.C. record shops and the way that Fugazi is a staple in knowing what D.C. post-hardcore is in the first place (come on, it was gonna get mentioned at some point). Last year, Ted Leo (and his Pharmacists) took Ekko Astral on tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his anti-war power pop album, Shake the Sheets; now he’s returning to support the Gender Liberation Movement. While he was Pharmacist-less, he still brought the house down with his stripped-down punk songs and blood-hungry bite. If everything went according to plan, this weekend was already set to be historic for D.C. punk music, and Ted Leo’s presence tied the whole thing to the city’s storied lineage.
– Caro Alt

Editor’s Note: At this point, the battery on my camera died, so the rest of these photos are just from my iPhone, sorry.

Downtown Boys

One of the weekend’s most forceful sets, Downtown Boys brought raging punky vocals with a message to Black Cat’s stage. Led by Victoria Ruiz’s compelling, compassionate wail, the group ripped and raged through crowd favorites off Full Communism and Cost of Living, interspersing their set by reading letters from Palestinians and reminding the audience that we need to “do this collectively.” There were crowd-churning two-step drum beats, skank-worthy sax solos, and, in a telling move of solidarity, the mic was pointed into the crowd for the first time all weekend as fans screamed the band’s words right back to them. 

Speedy Ortiz

Kicking their set off with immediate distortion and a heavy-as-shit guitar riff, Massachusetts indie rockers Speedy Ortiz brought their indelible pop-rock tunes to Liberation Weekend in style. If The Ophelias got the superlative for Best Dressed of Day One, Speedy Ortiz had it on lock for the second day. Bandleader Sadie Dupuis was rocking a sparkly rainbow dress with a hem like confetti, singing into a bright pink and blue Fisher-Price-looking mic while playing a green guitar with a tiger-stripe pickguard. Talk about fuckin’ style. At one point, in celebration of Gemini season, Sadie invited Ted Leo and members of Downtown Boys back on stage for a round of tequila shots. To close out their set, the group played “Brace Thee” off their most recent LP, Rabbit Rabbit, and brought the house down as bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides screamed the repeating final line “I’m fine!” sounding anything but. 

After Speedy Ortiz’s set, it was time for the Transa Showcase featuring artists from last year’s staggering TRANS​A compilation. Organized by the music production non-profit Red Hot, the compilation is an eight-part spiritual journey across 46 songs that brings together over 100 artists with a focus on some of the most daring, imaginative, and exciting trans and non-binary musicians working today. 

Bartees Strange

While he’s mostly known for sturdy and eclectic indie rock, Bartees Strange’s solo set found the artist with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a setlist written on his hand. It was a more solemn affair than the day had been up to this point; it only took a couple of songs for Bartees to transfix the entire room with his killer voice. He played through heaters like “Sober” and “Baltimore” off his recent LP but also dipped back into fan favorites like “Heavy Heart,” “Mustang,” and “Boomer.” With a tasteful amount of reverb on his guitar, the set was an absolute showcase for the breathtaking quality of his voice, even when his songs are stripped of all ornamentation and flashiness. At one point, after discussing how important it is to show up for friends, Strange remarked on the festival, “Jael hit me up about this festival, and I was like ‘yeah if you can do it,’ and look what happens when people come together and try something new.”

Asher White

Asher White was easily one of my biggest surprises of the weekend, a classic case of going in totally blind and coming out an instant fan. Part emo noodling, part indie rock dance party, Asher White is a band that truly contains multitudes. At one point, the group wound from a gentle, finger-plucked slow number to a sludgy stoner rock passage, then into a jumpy pop-punk blast, and finally slowed things down again. There were tight instrumental passages, fun vocals, and some of the best stage banter I’d heard all fest. At one point, White lobbed a softball over home plate, asking the crowd, “Anyone here transgender?” which was met with unanimous applause and cheers. At another point, she explained, “This is my first time in DC, and I think it’s skewed me because I’ve only talked to trans people.” Any band that can have this much fun on stage while rocking this hard is ace in my book. 

L'Rain

After the hometown heroics of Bartees Strange and the rambunctiously high-energy Asher White, L’Rain opted to close the weekend out on a beautiful reflection. For half an hour, L’Rain sat alone onstage, equipped with just a mic and soundboard, and mixed a drone sound using archival samples from the NYC Trans Oral History Project. The set slowed the room down and magnetically pulled people towards the stage to hear the stories over the speakers. The crowd that had been frantically moshing just minutes ago was now sitting quietly, surrounding L’Rain as she crafted a spiral of sounds, dialogue, and looped noises. Some audiences treated the set as a meditation, closing their eyes and opening themselves up to the music on a deeper level. Looking around, some groups were deep in conversation, while others were engrossed in listening or wrapped up in each other's embrace. It was a beautiful scene. 

Occasionally, L’Rain would lift the mic to her mouth just to breathe or hum lightly, adding her own element of live humanity to the soundscape. Even though I was watching most of the set from the side of the stage, it was unclear whether L’Rain was even vocalizing every time she brought the mic to her mouth. At one point, she seemed to raise the mic up and just smiled into it. Again, I couldn’t make out whether she was actively adding something new to the ambient swirl, but maybe capturing that smile in the moment was enough. 

Pure Adult

The floor of the second story of DC9 shakes. While it’s not noticeable for every set, if the crowd starts moving fast enough, the whole room will start to move too. Over the years, I’ve typically felt the shake towards the end of the night in the final thrashes of the crowd as artists play their biggest hits. Pure Adult’s unruly set got the floor swaying in seconds. The room’s pink and blue lights have shifted to a sinister red as the night rapidly turned into a sweaty, jumpy moshfest. Frontman Jeremy Snyder seemed to take infinite glee in this reception, conducting the crowd like a demonic Paul Giamatti – complete with a grey mop of hair, beautiful stache, and a sport jacket – as he gesticulated, fist-pumped, and shouted repetitions into the crowd. Occasionally, he’d pass vocal duty off to keyboardist Bianca Abarca, who would throw the crowd into an even further rage with pit-spurring hardcore vocals. Behind them, the rhythm section was held together with a tribal thrumming, always providing a reliable groove for the group to fall back on. The entire set was hedonistic and hammy, with many beautiful moments where the entire crowd was moving as one, yelping in joy. The stage was set for Ekko Astral. 

Ekko Astral & Friends

On the ground, the topic of Ekko Astral’s set was hotly discussed throughout the weekend. There were rumors about special guests, predictions for the set list, and anecdotes about the last time people had seen the band. The countdown had been on since the moment the festival was announced. 

The final seconds ticked down, and Ekko Astral emerged from the crowd–frontwoman Jael Holzman on bass, Liam Hughes plugging in his guitar, and Miri Tyler settling behind the drums. There was a deep breath, and then the band launched their set into orbit with a cover of SOPHIE’s “JUST LIKE WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE.”

The pandemic is often cited by D.C. locals as a changing point in the city’s rock scene. Bands broke up, venues closed, and people left. When shows started again, there was a kind of rebirth and a longing for closeness. This is where Ekko Astral comes in. For years, Ekko was kind of D.C.’s best-kept secret: a band with a cult following and wild live shows that people always wanted to see again. Following the release of pink balloons last year, D.C.’s music community was finally blown open, with Ekko at the helm. Read Lillian Weber’s review of pink balloons here.

No moment in their set showcases this momentum more than their second song of the night, “TRANSDEMIC, BABY,” off their EP Quartz, which they performed with Sophie Fisher, a local activist. At this point, the crowd was well into hours of slamming into each other, but Jael, aware of the band’s rowdy live shows and even rowdier fanbase (dubbed the Mascara Moshpit), took a moment to remind everyone in the packed room to protect each other and pick people up if they fall. Once the crowd agreed, the band tore into “baethoven” and “uwu type beat,” with the audience singing the entire first verse of baethoven.

While the rock music is cool, support for others was the true theme of the set — a celebration of the profound love for their community that Ekko Astral feels. This is where the fun really begins: the special guest-packed “Oops! All Covers” set. With each song, Jael announced a new guest, shared a story about how they contributed to the festival, and dove into perfect covers of beloved songs, both new and old. Maggie from Tetchy and Em Rainey joined the stage for a room-leveling rendition of Mannequin Pussy’s “Loud Bark.” Tilley Kormony from Home is Where jumped on the guitar for Hanny Ramadan from Latchkey Kids’ roaring covers of “Dancing In The Dark” and “Constant Headache.” After a long “Jo, Jo, Jo, Jo” chant from the crowd, fest organizer Jo Morgan hopped on stage for a version of “Helter Skelter,” complete with Miri yelling, “I GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS!” And finally, Ted Leo and Roba Djalleta reappeared for a hypnotic cover of “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.

From there, Ekko debuted a couple of goosebump-inducing new songs, along with a rousing version of “On Brand” featuring Kait from Big Girl and a fittingly vitriolic chant of “FUCK ELON MUSK. They brought the temperature back down with a cover of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps,” then Mel from Pretty Bitter tagged in for a joyous version of Metric’s “Combat Baby.”

As if all this wasn’t enough, the set also included a surprise appearance from Bad Moves, who were introduced as “The Beatles of D.C.” Members David Combs and Katie Park joined Ekko onstage for “Hallelujah,” which the band introduced as a song about “how the state has no place policing gender identity.” They followed up with “Cool Generator,” and man, if you haven’t heard a crowd sing along to “Cool Generator,” you’re missing out. And I mean missing out. Bad Moves is ending this summer.

The night and festival ended in a fittingly cataclysmic way, with “i90,” the seismic slow-burn closer from pink balloons. The group leaned into the riff, cranking the distortion and playing it sludgy as fuck, all climaxing with a molten guitar solo from Liam. The set ended with Liam, Mel, Jo, and Miri arm-in-arm as Jael sang the song’s final lines, surrounded by friends and smiling. Joy. 

Liberation Forever

When all was said and done, the first-ever Liberation Weekend left me astonished, inspired, hopeful, and energized. On a practical level, I was amazed by how efficiently everything ran, both at Black Cat and with two venues at play. On a more existential level, it felt affirming to be in such a supportive space where people were free to be their authentic selves and make it crystal-fucking-clear what they stand for. This support manifested in everything from pit etiquette and resources at the merch tables to explicit calls for trans liberation in the face of a government that is actively working against the existence of the people filling this venue and standing on its stage. To that end, the band has since announced that Liberation Weekend raised over $30,000 (and counting), proving that all of this energy and effort and organization was more than worth it.

Even as I walked around Black Cat, taking notes and snapping pictures, the energy in the room was palpable. Everyone was happy to be there, surrounded by community and taking in art made by people that reflected something about their own humanity. As an outsider to the D.C. scene, I felt welcomed, as if some of the transitive power of this event had rubbed off on me, and I know I’m not alone. I spoke with at least a few crowd members who remarked that they were excited to go home and make music, work on film or art projects, and troll Facebook Marketplace for a used pedal steel guitar. Part of that is just what it feels like to attend a good music festival, but also a testament to the type of space that Liberation Weekend cultivated. 

At one point, I found myself talking to Nikolai Mather, a DJ, reporter, and man-about-town who had driven up from North Carolina with another friend just for the festival. One of the first things he remarked to me was, “I’d never seen an all-trans pit before.” I remembered observing a similar thing early on in Day One as I sat perched off to the side, sipping my beer, jotting notes, and taking in the crowd as everyone wrapped themselves up in Pop Music Fever Dream’s performance. The crowd of mostly trans and queer people was unlike any music festival I’ve ever been a part of, and that’s what makes Liberation Weekend so fucking cool. This was a fest by trans and queer people for trans and queer people in support of trans and queer people. It’s a reminder that there are more of us than them and that community is salvation.

In that same conversation with Nikolai, he casually dropped this gem when talking about trans people creating art, “It’s always been the heart of who we are. Art is the thing that allows us to create ourselves. You have to create something to prove them wrong.” I’ll be damned if I couldn’t say it better than that.