WE ARE COASTAL REVERB: Sound and Fury 2025 pt. 2
The Coastal Reverb crew tackled one of the behemoths of hardcore music festivals: Sound and Fury in Los Angeles. Scroll through for all the spin-kicks and stage-dives.
Coastal Reverb Crew on Film @ Sound and Fury 2025
Photos by Michael Christy
NO FEAR OF THE NEW: 23wa, Lancer, Rustie & Lunice
New releases from 23wa, Lancer, and Rustie & Lunice are pushing, stretching, obliterating sonic boundaries and pushing music into exciting new futuristic directions.
By John Warlick
In today's globally connected, genreless music world, it's a rare pleasure to discover music that feels like a genuinely new spin on things. In this column, I write about 3 new albums or songs I got into last month that I think push music in interesting directions.
My favorite discovery of the month gets a GET IN BEFORE YOU'RE LATE! emblem.
23wa - AZ
You gotta admire an artist that throws everything at the wall when pretty much everything sticks. Hearing an artist as capable as 23wa for the first time, my immediate reaction was: where the hell did this guy come from? (France). This is an artist with the talent, ambition and production chops of someone like Quadeca or Ralphie Choo but with more pointedly outré influences and, thankfully, the gall to show them.
I sometimes feel weird about recommending music in a language I don't even understand, but you don't need to spend a long time with AZ to pick up on just how much of what's being communicated is not in words. 23wa fills AZ with what I'll call an astoundingly wide range of genres and nuanced production styles. They're often shuffled in breakneck pace, and if you miss a minute, you can miss whole movements. It's completely overwhelming, but the technique displayed is dazzling; it's like watching a Gaspar Noe film, but it isn't so transgressive that it swears off beauty. There's a new, omnivorous sound taking shape here, almost like a French, Soundcloud Rap MPB.
In just the first song on AZ (put a hyphen between those letters and you have a good description of the album) 23wa blasts you with post-Incapacitants harsh noise, cools you off with airy PBR&B, and floats off into lush Cosmogramma-ian cyberfantasias, only to shrug and unwind the entire spectacle, ending on a tossed-off spurt of 8-bit hip-hop. Imagine what Frank Ocean might do after spending 3 years as a touring member of Boredoms and you're halfway there.
The whole album is more than worth a listen, and every song is like this. It's a gold mine of surprises, like when the drums anchoring "CORPS" fold over the surroundings and form a groove that sounds like being squished between factory machinery, or when 23wa decides to end "CHEVI" by granulizing its polished synths into pummelling Blanck Mass sci-fi blastbeats, that is, before a dramatic sunset guitar solo. There are enough ideas on AZ for 100 albums, and maybe 100 artists. It's a ton of fun.
GET IN BEFORE YOU’RE LATE!
Lancer - “Fine”
From the "no idea where I found this" files: a footwork flip of a, well, just fine late-00's Mary J Blige hit that recasts the source material's diva strut from the perspective of the guy she's just fine without. I couldn't tell you the first thing about Lancer besides that he's a capable producer - he won't even really show his face in the video - but that rings true with the understated charm of this R&B track.
I'm not 100% sure what keeps me coming back to this one, but there's something perfect about how the hectic drums play up the detachment in Lancer's vocals and the hesitation in the keyboard chords; it's the sound of someone being crushed and holding it together impressively. You have to respect it. This is also one of the first times I've seen someone use a footwork beat to back a smooth, vulnerable R&B song expressly because of the tension with the style's propulsive, jagged shapes rather than in spite of it. Sometimes you can have it both ways.
Rustie & Lunice - “Patterns”
Rustie's return to music has been huge news for me. I can still vividly remember sitting upright in bed listening to Glass Swords the night it leaked and being shocked at what I heard - an insanely immediate take on the "purple sound" that had been coming up in the UK - all expertly tight songs bursting from the seams with ecstasy and sounding like they were beamed in from a UFO. Today, Glass Swords' influence is so endemic that the listening experience isn't quite so jarring, but it remains one of the best electronic albums released this millennium. And ever since, Rustie's spectre has since loomed large over genres like rage and hyperpop - look no further than A.G. Cook performing a song from Rustie's Green Language in his own Coachella set this year.
Anyway, "Patterns" is interesting not only because it sees the foundational producer working with Lunice (one-half of TNGHT and a UK dance innovator in his own right), but also because it's evidence of the influence train running in the other direction. We haven't heard a full beat in a Rustie song since 2015's EVENIFUDONTBELIEVE, but if his 2024 teaser-like comeback singles were any indication, the Glaswegian producer has a revived penchant for distorted sub bass, and hearing compression-obliterated trap hi-hats under the gargantuan bass in "Patterns" all but confirms Rustie's no stranger to the Opium roster. It's a beam of ultraviolet euphoria cracking the impenetrable slab of rage music, and I wouldn't mind at all if Rustie and Lunice's upcoming EP explores similar cross-pollinations.
WE ARE COASTAL REVERB: Sound and Fury 2025 pt.1
The Coastal Reverb crew tackled one of the behemoths of hardcore music festivals: Sound and Fury in Los Angeles. Scroll through for all the spin-kicks and stage-dives.
Coastal Reverb Crew on Film @ Sound and Fury 2025
Photos by Michael Christy
THE OUTSIDERS: Tres & Kitsy, aka The Children of Sunshine
In 1970, a pair of 10-year-old best friends released a DIY album of raw and loose sunshine folk. Decades later, it captured the curiosity and imagination of the internet’s musical underground.
By Jeff Cubbison
RateYourMusic defines “outsider music” as “songs and compositions by musicians who are not part of the commercial music industry who write songs that ignore standard musical or lyrical conventions, either because they have no formal training or because they disagree with formal rules.”
99% of the time, this music is bizarre, unwieldy, and extremely niche. And yet, there’s something about it that feels more pure than anything else out there. Outsider music is not beholden to the mainstream industry machine, and more often than not, is a stark emotional reflection of the artist who conjured it. On one hand, there isn’t much artistic compromise in outsider music because typically the artist is independent and retains total individual control over the product. On the other hand, the vast majority of it is borderline unlistenable - often lacking in production quality, songwriting structure, or any actual musical theory. But if you’re morbidly curious about a type of artistic expression that is strange and challenging and ultimately enthralling - in spite of its amateurish quality - then this new column The Outsiders might be just for you.
In this column, you’ll mainly read about artists who operate on the outskirts of the music industry and, more often than not, society as well. As RateYourMusic puts it, outsider musicians tend to demonstrate an “inability or unwillingness to cooperate” with traditional record label or producer standards. In a lot of cases, mental instability is a huge factor. Here, you will learn about many outsider musicians who struggled with their mental health, who lived on society’s fringes, and who often died young and tragically. And yet, for the first edition of The Outsiders, I’m gonna go in a different direction and highlight a more cheery group who ticks off NONE of those boxes. Ladies and gentlemen, Tres & Kitsy, aka The Children of Sunshine.
In the fall of 1970, a pair of St. Louis-area 10-year-olds - Thérèse Williams (aka Tres) and Kitsy Christner - formed a band together, calling themselves The Children of Sunshine. Tres, the daughter of a lifelong professional musician, met Kitsy in a sixth grade guitar class at school and the pair quickly became best friends. They bonded over a growing love of guitar and singing and within months, they wrote and recorded an album called Dandelions (with Tres’ dad Jim supervising) in a church in Webster Groves, Missouri. Ultimately, 300 vinyl copies were sold and distributed amongst family and friends. In any normal universe, that would seem to be the end of their story. As childhoods go, Tres and Kitsy grew apart as friends in the following months and years, and neither girl pursued any musical endeavors after that. But nearly 40 years later, something funny and serendipitous happened, and we very much have the internet vinyl heads to thank for it.
Sometime in the mid-to-late ‘00s, a small stash of Dandelions copies from that limited 1971 release were discovered and spread amongst a handful of obsessive vinyl collectors. Soon, the record was ripped and uploaded to the interwebs, and eventually consumed by what continues to be a growing cult fanbase of outsider music fans. Since then, Tres and Kitsy - at this point in their late 40s - were approached by several record labels looking to reissue the album. Famous musicians such as Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus publicly praised the duo. It’s exactly the sort of crate-digging success story that fans of niche and obscure music (and music journalists with a narrative to spin) foam at the mouths for. Obviously, it’s a cute story. But what about the music itself?
Despite their very young ages and limited musical training up to that point, Tres & Kitsy’s Dandelions is a surprisingly beautiful album of off-kilter folk and sunshine pop that doesn’t feel out of place in the post-Summer Of Love era. As the album’s WEBSITE states, “our music was a reflection of our world in 1970; the Vietnam War, the things that made us happy and our belief in Love.” Opening title track “Dandelions” is a pure thesis statement. Their chirpy adolescent voices float over jangly acoustic notes and softly pulsating drums: “Comin around, comin around / All the dandelions are coming around” is the sort of chorus you can sing and hum to yourself over and over and over again while gardening. “The College School” is a wholesome and simple recounting of the duo’s friendship and musical journey, utilizing the same sonic palette: jangly folk guitars, minimal percussion, dueling twee vocals. “Tuffy” is a song about Kitsy’s dog, full of actual “ARF ARF BARK BARK” sounds. The way they harmonize on “It’s A Long Way To Heaven” really does feel like two childhood best friends testing the musical waters and figuring things out as they go - but it’s that raw in-the-moment quality that makes everything feel so catchy and relatable. Across 12 tracks, Dandelions is delightful, unabashed childhood innocence through and through.
It might not be the most polished or sophisticated album - at least not from a sound quality standpoint. As is the formula with outsider music, this stuff is crackly, loose, and rough-around-the-edges, although songwriting-wise, it is at times very structurally on-point and lyrically surprising. At its core, there’s a youthful purity and playfulness to it that only a small fraction of music out there manages to capture. It’s amateurish in its technique and execution, but so undeniably honest and direct in the way it conjures its themes of childhood love and friendship. There’s a real carpe diem quality to it. From start-to-finish, you can really FEEL Tres & Kitsy’s close bond as best friends. As a listener, it’s impossible not to be transported to a simpler time in your life when the world felt like a giant playground, and everything felt new and like it needed to be explored with a friend by your side. I believe that’s why The Children Of Sunshine managed to have their random cult-internet moment, even though the album toiled away in people’s storage in the decades prior.
It’s a wonderful story, of course - but so is the music. Dandelions stands on its own merits, regardless of its “outsider music” label. While Tres & Kitsy fit some of the genre’s markers — they were inexperienced, lacked formal training, recorded entirely DIY, and operated far outside the music industry — they defy many of its clichés. They retired from music at age 10, grew into healthy, grounded adults, and are still alive and thriving today. That’s a rare outcome in a field often marked by tragedy or obscurity, and a reminder that outsider music has no single mold. It comes in countless shapes, colors, and sizes; its sound varies wildly from artist to artist. What unites these musicians is an unfiltered, independent, uncompromising vision (and sometimes, one or two screws loose). That’s what makes exploring them so endlessly fascinating: each has a unique story, a singular approach, and a sound only they could make. Welcome to The Outsiders. Stay tuned for more. I hope you’re as excited to dive in as I am.
XTRMNTR_123: Frankie & The Witch Fingers @ Belly Up - 8.1.25
Welcome to XTRMNTR_123, a live music channel dedicated to capturing all your favorite up-and-coming, left-of-center musical acts in vintage camcorder form. This month’s featured performance: Frankie and the Witch Fingers at Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, a séance in overdrive.
By Chris Cubbison
Hypnotic whiplash in unwieldy time signatures, fuzz-drenched mindstorms bending the air like heat off asphalt…sweat drips, eyes widen, the floor becomes an engine room, pistons firing in technicolor. On stage, basslines pulse like feral heartbeats, guitar strings flicker and ignite like sparks off a power line, drums chase themselves into a feedback dream. Time bends, breath shortens, a thousand tiny explosions behind the eyelids. Cosmic garage, acid-dipped boogie, warp-speed freak-out, liquid light melting the edges. On the venue floor, you don’t just watch it — you tumble into it, a kaleidoscopic freefall where the sound catches you on the way down and hurls you further into a mangled mass of bodies moshing and crowd-surfing around, above, and beyond you.
Welcome to XTRMNTR_123, a live music channel dedicated to capturing all your favorite up-and-coming, left-of-center musical acts in vintage camcorder form. This month’s featured performance: Frankie and the Witch Fingers at Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, a séance in overdrive. Click play above and ride the lightning yourself. See you on the other side!
WE ARE COASTAL REVERB : Coachella 2025
The Coastal Reverb crew visited an old favorite: Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, CA. Scroll through for all the highlights, including performances, scenics, and lots of photos of balloons.
Coastal Reverb Crew on Film @ Coachella 2025
Photos by Michael Christy
NO FEAR OF THE NEW: Kmoe, Cocojoey, Jake Muir
In today's globally connected, genreless music world, it's a rare pleasure to discover music that feels like a genuinely new spin on things. In this column, I write about 3 new albums or songs I got into last month that I think push music in interesting directions.
This month: Kmoe, Cocojoey, Jake Muir
By John Warlick
In today's globally connected, genreless music world, it's a rare pleasure to discover music that feels like a genuinely new spin on things. In this column, I write about 3 new albums or songs I got into last month that I think push music in interesting directions.
My favorite discovery of the month gets a GET IN BEFORE YOU'RE LATE! emblem.
Kmoe - “Bloodbath (Dance)”
In the great lineage of "alternative" music being an excuse for gifted songwriters to write pop songs that make interesting decisions, here we have a perfectly tight alternative rock song, which is actually disguised as an east coast club song, which is actually written and produced by a dude from Vancouver. Kmoe's music has historically been lumped in with digicore, and his music leading up to his debut K1 has shown a clear lineage with scene contemporaries like Jane Remover and Brakence, other early-20s producers adept at writing diaristic rock-ish songs over loud, melodic, genre-colliding beats.
"Bloodbath (Dance)", my favorite cut from K1, feels cut from a similar cloth but isn't quite the same thing. It's more sleek; the noisiness is dialed into beveled edges, and clever decisions come across without beating you over the head about them. Like pretty much all music released on deadAir Records these days, the devil's in the details: take the effortless key change woven into the main theme, or how the bubblegum PC Music synths seem to starkly contrast kmoe's earnest vocal delivery by design. Honestly, kmoe's sound has become so refined, catchy and song-focused that it almost makes me want to argue that K1 is cresting the wave of sixth-wave emo; it's raw, introspective, hooky, and dangerously compact.
Cocojoey - Stars
It's been a pleasure to watch my WNUR college buds at Hausu Mountain unleash an effervescent tableau of outré genius into the larger experimental music world over the last decade, and their newest signing Cocojoey is absolutely emblematic of their optimistic, post-post-modern sensibility.
"TIME TO GO!", the first track on their newly-released LP STARS, is a model introduction to Cocojoey's sound; a dawning exposition leaps into a cheery, hyperactive J-Pop revue, and after a seamless segue into zap-fried black metal and back, Cocojoey's pastel-tinted otherworld locks perfectly into place. It's completely idiosyncratic but brimming with positive energy - a quick testament to how the most personal, honest music can be the most vivid and easy to connect to.
Another track to not miss is "TRUST IN EVENTS", which starts as a sorta-digital hardcore, sorta-new wave-by-way-of-PS1-soundtrack romp before sweeping into gleaming midi-prog fantasy with one of the best choruses of the year. It's also the catchiest song I've heard in recent memory that I couldn't readily tell you the time signature of.
Given the range of integrated styles and sensibilities here with border lines on the new age, singer-songwriter and extreme metal spectra, there are few contemporaries you can name for what Cocojoey does aside from Hausu labelmate Fire-Toolz (who serendipitously guests on another STARS highlight). Did I mention they rip on the keys? This is someone who can do it all, and I can't wait to hear what they do next.
GET IN BEFORE YOU’RE LATE!
Jake Muir - Campana Sonans
You might remember Jake Muir for making a great ambient album out of bathhouse noises last year. He takes a similar approach on Campana Sonans using much more family-friendly ambient whereabouts - English and German cathedrals - but it still feels like an unfamiliar head trip. Meaning you get not only panoramic swathes of bells, but also the tenuous hallways through the church; the energy of cars whizzing by through the rain; the din of tourists amid tourist-trap street vendors; all bent through a shifty, paranoid intensity.
More than anything, Sonans is a triumph of mixing. Muir's slyly heady electroacoustic atmospheres have spooky, psychedelic overtones not unlike the sparser moments of Manchester's Demdike Stare, but with a more distinctly German palette; the melodic swells that show up about halfway into "Erzklang" feel like textures Wolfgang Voigt would pull out of this subject matter if he were 20 years younger. It's not easy to stay engaging nor carve your own identity with this variety of ambient music these days, but Muir seems to be able to pretty reliably.