Baltimore’s New Wave

Our indie music scene is far from one note. The success of Dan Deacon and the Wham City arts collective has given rise to a new crop of experimental musicians.

By Erik Maza (The Baltimore Sun, 1/22/2011)

Neal Reinalda, 24, artist, musician and curator, is part of a co-op that operates the gallery Open Space. (photo by Kenneth K. Lam, Baltimore Sun)

“…Two years after Beach House and Wye Oak were signed to major indie labels and the goofballs at the artists’ collective Wham City brought national attention to the Baltimore area’s ramshackle music scene, Lower Dens and several other bands, none of them more than five years old, are poised to be the city’s next breakouts.

In the past year, the art-pop trio Future Islands, rock ‘n’ rollers J. Roddy Walston and the Business and Lower Dens all released their first label albums, sold thousands of copies and toured internationally. And upstarts Weekends and Lands & Peoples have moved from playing shoebox venues to opening for bands like Wye Oak, and are on the verge of releasing their first full-length albums.

None of them is originally from this area, but it was the city itself that expedited their rises to success, they say.

“Literally everything changed for us when we moved here,” said William Cashion, bassist with Future Islands.”

Continue reading at The Baltimore Sun.

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2 Responses to Baltimore’s New Wave

  1. Too bad a move to Baltimore will *not* be signaling a meteoric rise to the stratosphere for the likes of Maza.

  2. Tom Warner says:

    The attention is nice, but I notice that all the bands making noise here aren’t originally from here. Where’s the homegrown? Who will be Charm City’s next Adolf Kowalski, Mark Harp, or…Frank Zappa?

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