Emma Roszkowski
roszkows@grinnell.edu
Tonight Gardner Lounge will celebrate the ability to craft stories that are at once personal and universal. These three groundbreaking indie artists are not to be missed.
Indie darling Porches and lo-fi cult master Alex G will showcase their musical storytelling abilities. Opening for these two artists will be experimental folk artist Your Friend. The night promises quirk, charm and killer lyricism.
For artists Porches and Alex G, the most memorable part of a song is its plot. Porches is the solo project of Aaron Maine, a New York-based artist who gained name recognition through his frequent collaborations with his romantic partner, Greta Kline of Frankie Cosmos. Maine is known for creating complex and interwoven narratives as exhibited in his 2013 garage rock album “Slow Dance in the Cosmos,” comprised of songs featuring different characters all united by living in New York.
Maine released a second album, “Pool,” this February. “Pool” differs from Maine’s previous work in that he wrote and recorded the album entirely independently. Stylistically, “Pool” marks a significant shift toward more electronic influences. Maine experiments with layers of synthesizers that would be at home on any 1980s New Wave record as well as Auto-Tune, while still retaining the melancholic urban existentialism that has come to define his work.
Alex G, or Alex Giannascoli, recorded his first album when he was in high school. Then, in 2015, Giannascoli unleashed a triple threat of albums: “Rules,” “Trick” and “Beach Music,” all loaded with the introspective, stripped down indie sound that describes the tribulations of isolation.
Your Friend, also known as Taryn Miller, specializes in atmospheric and electronic folk. She released her most recent LP, “Gumption,” this January. With its layers and texture, “Gumption” explores sonic as well as lyrical storytelling.
