Hi everyone, welcome to week 3 of the underground music club all stars. For those who missed the last post, every Friday, I spotlight artists with approximately fewer than 10,000 Spotify listeners (or minimal Reddit love if they do not stream on Spotify) who deserve your ears. Think genre-bending, soulful, strange, or just beautifully overlooked.
For the next 3 weeks I will highlight 6 of my favourite artists from the last year of underground music club. This week will focus on art pop and art rock.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me their suggestions. If I didn't include what you sent in the first year, it doesn't mean I won't in a future week. I really listen to everything you all send and I always love to hear what you are all listening to. Got a favorite artist you want to see here? Put them in the comments or message me.
Dabada – Bright and Restless Indie Art Rock
Dabada write guitar-driven songs that are playful on the surface but full of nervous motion underneath. Their music is sharp, melodic, and lightly off-balance in the best way creating a catchy indie rock sound with enough rhythmic and tonal curiosity to keep it from ever settling into cliché.
If you like: The Beths for hooky guitar precision, Japanese Breakfast for polished indie-pop invention, or Alvvays for bright melodies with emotional undertow.
Start here: https://dabada.bandcamp.com/album/burnout
Tanywey – Soulful Theatrical Rock
Tanywey songs are emotionally exposed but expansive. Bluesy guitars, open-throated vocals, and a sense of dramatic movement combined with rock songwriting that carries both intimacy and fire.
If you like: Alabama Shakes for raw, soulful force, Amy Winehouse for bruised vocal immediacy, or Nneka for socially conscious intensity with groove.
Start here: https://tanywey.bandcamp.com/album/empath
Professor Girlfriend – Modernist Indie Songcraft
Professor Girlfriend blends indie songwriting with compositional ideas borrowed from the modern classical world. The melodies twist unexpectedly, the structures feel unusually shaped, and yet the songs remain emotionally legible.
If you like: Dirty Projectors for compositionally adventurous indie, Sufjan Stevens for chamber-pop intelligence, or the classical-leaning side of Elvis Costello for literate songwriting with orchestral flair.
Start here: https://annaweesner.bandcamp.com/album/my-mother-in-love-the-summer-sessions
Larry Wish – Surreal Pop with a Theatrical Brain
Larry Wish creates songs that feel like pop music filtered through a dream journal, an absurdist play, and a broken arcade cabinet. The melodies are playful, the arrangements are strange, and the whole thing moves with a delighted unpredictability.
If you like: Sparks for theatrical wit, Of Montreal for maximalist art-pop color, or Ween for genre-warping melodic weirdness.
Start here: https://larrywish.bandcamp.com/album/born-outside-my-window-10th-anniversary-edition
Paul Morricone – Dramatic Crooner Noir Rock
Paul Morricone writes with the sweep and theatricality of old-school showmen but filters it through a darker, stranger rock sensibility. His songs are cinematic battered and bruised to form lush but shadowed sounds.
If you like: Nick Cave for baritone drama, Scott Walker for orchestral darkness, or David Bowie for shape-shifting theatrical rock.
Start here: https://paulmorricone.bandcamp.com/album/the-last-drops-of-my-blood
Pseudo Desundo – Warped Bedroom Pop Oddities
Pseudo Desundo makes lo-fi pop that sounds homemade in an alluring, charming, and destabilizing way. Dry vocals, bent melodies, and a slightly unreal sense of timing make the songs feel intimate, funny, and at times intense.
If you like: Ariel Pink for warped bedroom-pop logic, Alex G for intimate surrealism, or The Magnetic Fields for dry, literate weird-pop songwriting.
Start here: https://cudighirecords.bandcamp.com/album/first-man-from-the-second-millennium