The new Twin Court EP Ithakarta was released on May 15, 2026 and for this outing the group melds its pastoral folk post-rock style with Javanese gamelan sounds and sensibilities. For the track “Wildfires” we hear the Suling (Javanese flute) flowing through and helping in establishing a unique flavor of musical melancholy with visceral, textural elements that ground what might be perceived as ethereal and drifting into direct sensory experience. The various percussive bell tones work as a chorus of sounds through Suling twirls and winds joining the rhythm in its urgency as the song concludes suggesting a need for action and to be in the moment focused on events at hand as interconnected with the forces that shape them. Listen to “Wildfires” on Spotify and follow Twin Court on Instagram.
Wheelchair Sports Camp began as a solo project for rapper/producer Kalyn Heffernan who started releasing music under that moniker around 2009. The project has always benefited from Heffernan’s creative and energetic wordplay honed from growing up as a vocalist and imitating her favorite artists of that time. Since 2009 Wheelchair Sports Camp has become a fixture in Denver underground music but a project that has a footprint well beyond Denver due to fortunate tour and opening slot opportunities and some national press support. After all Heffernan isn’t just a rapper and producer, she’s an activist for disabled communities and really anyone experiencing persecution and prejudice. Her participating in the occupation of then Colorado Cory Gardener in 2017 garnered her pieces in various publications including a feature on Democracy Now! including an interview with legendary investigative journalist Amy Goodman. Which is part of the point of the art, to draw attention to everyday people’s struggles as a means of addressing injustice.
Listen to any Wheelchair Sports Camp track and you will hear a richness and variety of sonics that set the band apart from many other hip-hop projects. Longtime collaborator Jerod Sarlo aka Qknox brings a deep underground electronic dance sensibility informed by classic hip-hop production to various recordings. Other members of the live and recording band include or have included Gregg Ziemba on drums, Joshua Trinidad on trumpet, Wesley Watkins on synth, Tom Hagerman and Jeanie Schroder of DeVotchKa on accordion/strings and tuba respectively, experimental hip-hop luminaries RAREBYRD$, Abi McGaha Miller on sax and vocals and more recently Jello Biafra, Mark Bliesner aka Radio Pete, Michelle Rocquet and Kimya Dawson. A debut album was released in 2016 called No Big Deal and that era of the band was very avant-garde jazz forward in the sounds but it also showcased Heffernan’s development as a lyrics offering deep personal lyrics and incisive social commentary. Between then and now the COVID-19 pandemic happened and Wheelchair Sports Camp did a soundtrack to a theatre production of Alice in Wonderland in 2021 as well as music for an installation at Meow Wolf (Wheelchair Space Kitchen, 2025) and various singles.
In 2026 the second full length oh imperfecta was released via Alternative Tentacles. The imprint is more known for punk but anyone familiar with the label’s roster knows it’s the home of weird punks in general and other artists outside the mainstream. The new Wheelchair Sports Camp album feels somehow both stripped down and maximal in impact. The songwriting feels incredibly focused and not just for this band. The songs address the instability and peril of the world we’re living through at the moment and understandable emotional reactions to all of that when your own life could use with some maintenance to put in motion to where you want it to be but still having to find the daily strength to get through to those better moments. The song “Dead” is a delightfully pointed song about how aspects of our warped culture deems certain people disposable as a drag on society and how that designation can be applied to anyone when the powerful want it to. It’s a hip-hop album with that sensibility and production guiding its style and sound but its spirit is rebellious and very punk in attitude.
Listen to our interview with Kalyn Heffernan and Gregg Ziemba on Bandcamp and follow Wheelchair Sports Camp at the links below.
NYC-based saxophonist Alden Hellmuth is set to release her new album Tether on June 26, 2026 via Nils Frahm’s LEITER imprint. The song “Face the Wall” includes percussion from Justin Brown who some may know from playing with Thundercat. The song has a syncopated rhythm that sometimes also feels like it could go off the edge in any moment. Hellmuth accents the percussion line at first and then plays over while the bass maintains a tonal presence before it seems to come apart in time for Hellmuth to come back in with more insistent saxophone tracing a scale with extended technique. All the instruments indulge in passages that in another piece of music might be a solo but here they all contribute to a sense of heading into musical entropy yet reeling it in for something coherent if building toward a conclusion that maximizes the intensity of pace. The net effect is punk energy channeled into what often sounds like hard bob free jazz expert technical chops allowed to roam freer than musicians with such skillsets often do. Listen to “Face the Wall” on YouTube and follow Alden Hellmuth at the links below.
Jennie Gillespie Mason weaves together an entrancing tapestry of sounds on her single “Rungs of Love.” The track from her forthcoming new album Safety of the Light (out 6/12/26 via Native Cat Recordings) has as its root a kind of folk vocals and guitars sound in the classic mode but more inspired by more experimental leaning practitioners of the art like Bert Jansch and Vashti Bunyan. Mason also puts electronic sounds into the song and orchestral strings so that it feels like you’re listening in on entire other world. Blips shimmer and spark off like a lightning bug into the night or a shooting star suddenly bursting overhead and fading out. The song is about love as a path to higher consciousness and one to be savored in the moment. As gentle and romantic a spirit as one hears in the song it also dares to veer off into psychedelic sounds without losing sight of its core emotional resonance and that itself serves well the song’s message of being grounded in human experience while in pursuit of personal transformation. Listen to “Rungs of Love” on Spotify at follow Jenny Gillespie Mason on Instagram.
Maybe titling he song “Rainbows” The Wheel Workers are giving away that the tender sentiments of the love song is one also about LGBTQ+ identity and self-acceptance. It is also a completely apt name for the song. Its gentle melodies in a sort of psychedelic pop mode are also reminiscent of the exquisite melodies of early 80s Ultravox and the earnestness of The Alarm’s more anthemic songs. The lead guitar melody paired with the vocal harmonies feels like a collective collective uplift like the band has written a song that goes beyond expressing deep affection and a sense of liberation and resistance to oppression for one person but a statement for everyone that has felt the boot of a conservative cultural orientation that denies many people their basic humanity and the ability to be who they are without judgment. Watch the live performance video for “Rainbow” on YouTube and follow The Wheel Workers at the links provided.
Mock Media’s title track to its new album Rat Bastard (out now via Mac’s Record Label) sounds like the band is tapping into a combination of early 80s power pop and a bit of The Clash with the anthemic choruses. The clear melodies and crisp rhythms help the song’s story of low self esteem and issues of class getting in the way of love and genuine connection and how one’s life narratives can blind you to possibilities and chances to get out of a situation you resent and so you act out those frustrations on the people who might be good for you and work against your own potential joy. It’s a complicated dynamic in real life and it’s been the subject of rock and roll songs going back decades but here Mock Media brings clarity to a messy reality that many people know with a simple song that honors the conflicted feelings. Listen to “Rat Bastard” on YouTube and follow Mock Media at the links below.
The Picture Tour, April 10, 2026, photo by Tom Murphy
The Picture Tour is a shoegaze/post-punk trio from Denver that started as a songwriting vehicle for guitarist/singer Billy Armijo around 2018. The project really got off the ground as a live band in 2023 after the debut album Before the Sound, Before the Light was released in February 2022. Armijo was born in New Mexico but spent core years of his youth in Colorado as he developed as a songwriter in the mid-90s as someone who embraced moody post-punk like The Cure and Joy Division at a time when even mainstream alternative rock popular on radio was more or less the opposite of those sounds. What darkness was present in commercial music was presented in a different way than brooding and more emotionally nuanced post-punk. Armijo was in high school bands but nothing that really recorded until after he went to college and he started recording solo material under the moniker The Bedsit Infamy starting around 2003. The outlets for sharing music at that time was limited but Armijo’s songs caught the attention of the now defunct Banazan Records in Orange, California which released lungs, my heart. blood, my stomach in 2008 (at least according to Discogs) on CD. Armijo’s songcraft and homegrown production was a clear standout at a time when what would now be called bedroom pop was enjoying a bit of a renaissance. As a live act The Bedsit Infamy played shows from 2008-2011 with live members included Brad Turner, who Armijo had met in college, and who himself was a gifted home recorder of experimental pop music as Nuts + Berries and Ian Schofield.
The Bedsit Infamy released a final album in 2014 called Ashes reflecting the the arc of music post-live act. Although Armijo wrote superb pop songs with that band it didn’t represent his ongoing interest in post-punk and shoegaze and he had by 2013 joined Emerald Siam, a rock band that combined gritty garage rock sound, atmospheric melodies and emotional catharsis. The group, fronted by Denver music luminary Kurt Ottaway (Twice Wilted, Tarmints, The Overcasters) was a prominent act in the Denver scene for around a decade before it dissolved in late 2022/early 2023. When The Picture Tour debut live in 2023 it was a trio comprised of Armijo, Mike Genova on bass and Drew Dyer on drums. And the songs from the first record (which had percussion contributions from John McIntire of Tortoise) came to vivid life and the melancholic but emotionally rich vocals alongside strong rhythms and optimal guitar tone immediately established The Picture Tour as one of Denver’s best post-punk bands with some shoegaze soundscaping and garage rock edge. That trio recorded a sophomore album Blood. Machine. Gasoline. released in 2025. The album was like a deep dive into the culture and mythology of night time urban life and recreational driving in the darkness like music for a David Lynch or Nicholas Winding Refn movie never made. I captured the romance of a time in the Mile High City that is long in the past but which can be relived in the mind through art when not everything seemed to be figured out or repurposed into a technbro fauxhemian playground and bland “development” of dubious purpose and longevity. In early 2025 it was announced the Dyer was moving out of Colorado and in his place there was John Zucco from Gothic noise rock band Reposer. His first show with the band distinguished him as a great fit.
Listen to our interview with Billy Armijo on Bandcamp and follow The Picture Tour at the links below.
NESYA’s “PUT THE FRIES IN THE BAG” dissolves any lines between pop R&B, darkwave, post-punk and electronic dance music. The video shows the artist looking like a subversive figure broadcasting with equipment that intentionally distorts and partly vertically pixellates her image. It’s the perfect aesthetic for a song that turns attempts at oppression and narrow othering on their head while point out truths about how attempting to erase the inconvenient doesn’t eliminate them or really push them into the background except as a presence that erodes the illusion of power. Musically at times it’s reminiscent of Boy Harsher, Alice Glass and the newer era of Sextile. But NESYA’s vocals are uniquely her own, soulful and even a little spooky in a way that boosts the emotional resonance of the music. It’s a song that should appear on the playlist of every Goth night this summer and beyond. Watch the video for “PUT THE FRIES IN THE BAG” on YouTube and follow NESYA at the links below.
Fan Girl released the 8HRS EP (out April 24, 2026) marking its more extended offering since reconvening several years back in the wake of the tragic 2018 death of founding member Jack Wood. The lead single “Worth It?” begins somber with quiet but emotional vocals, a simple piano figure and harmonic drones in the background like distant city lights to accompany the existential sentiments expressed in the song. The song sounds like someone going over a moment of disconnect with a loved one where it feels like it might be through or is in serious danger and our narrator is not ready to just let go and looking for some kind of confirmation. Musically the song begins in a melancholic, slowcore mode but ramps up to a noisier piece in the final quarter to reflect some of the anguish that lead up to the soul weary part in the beginning but perhaps most interesting the last ten seconds or so of the song we hear a sound like static sputtering out from a radio station that is going off broadcasting status for good. It speaks volumes in a way that makes the rest of the song sound hopeful, a quiet bit of devastation that not many bands would attempt. Listen to “Worth It?” on Spotify and follow the Australian band Fan Girl at the links below.
Jeki’s lush and sultry single “Hold On” taps into the sonic realms of neo-soul with a touch of downtempo. Her vocals are vibrant and establish a leisurely pace as she sings with affectionate compassion for a loved one who is struggling with how treacherous life can seem when everything feels frustrating and there is no clear path to doing what you want with your life and not enough experiences confirming which path is best. But Jeki’s lyrics gently point out that sometimes it just takes time and we can’t always know what is for us and where we fit in with the world right away and sometimes it just takes patience and not trying to force what we think we know. The bass line is understated in a jazz style and the keyboard melodies swirl and drift off and echo ever so slightly while Jeki’s voice anchors the song in a direct human experience with a warm confidence that really does hit like everything is going to be okay if we don’t succumb to the accelerated pace of living forced on us by our society and often our culture. Jeki seems to suggest that living is more important than striving. Listen to “Hold On” on Spotify and follow Jeki at the links provided.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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