12 Rods
12 Rods
Each month, we're rounding up the latest local music that's been on repeat. Follow our Spotify playlist to keep up with new music releases from Minnesota.
12 Rods, "My Year (This Is Going to Be)"
Minneapolis indie-rock band 12 Rods is coming back with their first new album in more than two decades. The lead single of If We Stayed Alive, "My Year (This Is Going to Be)," sounds ripped from the sound of its era—scruffy guitars and melodic hooks fit for pop radio—and perfectly intact from the 12 Rods vault, where frontman Ryan Olcott exhumed the band's old demos during lockdown and polished them up. It's a song about the passing of time and hope for the future, and is prescient for today, even if parts of it were written near the turn of the millennium.
Christy Merry, “It’s Like Rock”
Christy Merry’s soulful voice carries with it years of experience in life and lays it bare for the listener. Her work is reminiscent of generations past and transports you to an underground speakeasy where the whiskey flows freely. “It’s Like Rock” is a blast from an ill-defined past, but don’t let it fool you, this song is all charm.
Hawthorne Oachs, “A Single Flower”
Don’t let her age fool you. Hawthorne Oachs will break your heart with the one play of her song. Her newest track is rife with fragile emotion, turning a nice folk-pop song into a tremulous lament. She crafts an earthy, dense and ethereal track that will have you re-aligning how you listen to music. It hits you in waves, rather than as a whole.
Elizabeth Ghandour is back with new music and a new musical moniker. Going by Elour, the artist’s new work is danceable tracks that contain a disorientating mix of whopping pop/rock sounds, deeply layered electro-weaving, and in-your-face intimate/off-the-cuff lyrics.
Aby Wolf’s music has always had an ethereal feel to it, and on her latest EP Dream Fruit her single “At Bat” lives in that place between consciousness and sleep. The track is in turn, craving something that you can’t quite put your finger on, dark, loving, and dangerous.
Quiet and insidious, Kid Villain has written a shoegaze-y track that will have you turning out the lights and lighting a candle to meditate. “Paralyzed” adds pieces of elongated notes and slurring keyboard sounds, little audio niblets tempting us to take a bite.
