The album is the first full-length release from 23-year-old Maryland native Caroline White, whose stage name is a fitting for a musician whose most powerful instrument may be her crushingly sad-sweet voice.

The album’s first half starts on a mellow but inviting note with “Drowning here with all my friends,” which moves into — literally — “Everything being still,” a chant-ish, ethereal track that insists, “I am light, I am light, I am light, I am light” and “you were mine, you were mine, you were mine, you were mine,” before pulling back and simply snuffing out. “Lilacs” enters with some dissonance and feedback, and evokes the feeling of coming out of a blackout (“when I see you I’m so dizzy”) — then all of a sudden everything is much clearer — the feedback breaks and again we’re left only with White’s voice.

“In terms of writing process — this collection of songs, if they have anything in common it’s the way that they were written, it was kind of urgent.”

That trance seems meant to prepare us for the record’s midpoint, “Wipe Down,” which is gutting — and understandably so. White says the song, more than any of the others, directly addresses the loss of her father, who died three years ago and to whom the album is dedicated.

“Hurt, hurt, hurt until it starts to feel right,” she sings. “Sleep, sleep, sleep until this dream is over and we’ll go back to normal … I still think you’re coming home/so you can see how much I’ve grown.”

“I think there’s a lot of pressure when you’re trying to write about a heavy subject or loss because you’re like, ‘OK, I have to do this justice and by trying to do this justice am I trying to do this person justice?’ and it’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself to achieve,” she says.

White says it wasn’t until recording the track for the seventh time that she felt like it could rest.

When she writes, though, the process is more immediate and in-the-moment.

“I have to do it [all at once] or I’ll never finish the song. And I think that there’s some kind of truth in that, you know, like, emotional truth at least. Like, ‘This is exactly what I can make right now, what I can capture of what I’m feeling.’ I think there’s some kind of honesty in that, something kind of pure about it.”

The overall result is something unrefined, but highly articulate; a threading of lo-fi lullabies. Classical sensibilities — White is trained in French horn and viola — exist in the turns and sonic references from song to song, while poetic line breaks sneak into the lyric delivery.

“Tracks were kind of all over the place in a lot of different ways, both stylistically and also where they were recorded, how they were recorded, and physically in different places,” says White. “In terms of [the] writing process — this collection of songs, if they have anything in common it’s the way that they were written. It was kind of urgent.”

The second half of the album is a decided shift from the first. The stillness ends and the songs pick up a little punch, with light percussion filling in some of the spaces. Lyrically, too, there’s a bit more attitude, with lines like “I’m so over you/not being over me.”

On the final track, “Heaven” — which has taken other forms before the version on the album — Infinity Crush pulls inside again, to that slow whirl of a prismatic world that may or may not exist.

Infinity Crush will be touring this November in D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

“Let’z” single, Sugg Savage — Half of the freaky-cool duo Akoko, Sugg Savage no longer calls Maryland home. The emcee from Fort Washington recently swapped coasts to soak up sunbeams in Los Angeles. So maybe it’s the spike in Vitamin D that’s fueling her artistic growth spurt. As a solo artist, Savage has embraced a hip-hop/club hybrid that would sound right at home on Azealia Banks’ Broke With Expensive Taste. Her skittering new single “Let’z” finds her vaulting — with Bilesian finesse — from speedy rhymes to fluid vocals. “You know everybody don’t move like this,” goes the bridge, sounding both slyly boastful and 100 percent factual. (Listen to “Let’z” in our playlist, below.) — Ally Schweitzer

Spirit Plots, Spirit Plots — The D.C. trio has been building to this self-titled LP for a couple of years, and anyone who embraced the 2014 EP or the 2015 single will find a plethora of similar guitar-bass-drum vibes within. Don’t be intimidated by the 15-track inventory — most songs come in below 2:00, focusing on hooks where other D.C. bands with similarly precise sonics might choose to dwell too long in a postpunk groove. Obligatory comparison to a ’90s hero: Every corner of Spirit Plots abounds with hints of the wound-up intelligence found in Ted Leo’s peak work. — Joe Warminsky

Romantic Comedies, Foozle — The D.C. trio’s 11-song second LP captures part of the Gen-Y zeitgeist with its self-aware, post-teen angst and a conspicuous use of emoticons — “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” is the title of the closing track. The retro, lo-fi production never feels gimmicky, and the simple lyrics stay just clear of twee. The album cover depicts a half-unpacked apartment; the songs inside reflect this half-opened, half-boxed-up feeling. It’s ultimately an album about the need for — and fear of — emotional intimacy. (Listen to a song in our playlist, below.) — MacKenzie Reagan

“Wait Up” single, Prinze George — What would a montage of the most significant moments of your life feel like? The Maryland group goes there on “Wait Up.” It’s not just the lyrics, though they certainly help (“now we’ve allowed time and space to build a wall and break us”). It’s more so the ephemeral synths, overlayed with vocals that fall somewhere between Phantogram, Adele and Monsters of Men. A subtle beat and reverbed snapping carries you through a tortuous auditory expression of the “what could have been” — all coalescing in the single frozen moment right after you witness a car wreck and realize you’re still alive. Did I mention the song is good? (Listen to “Wait Up” in our playlist, below.) — Courtney Sexton

Young Jefe 2, Shy Glizzy — The Southeast D.C. rapper with close to 800,000 Instagram followers continues to earn praise for his melodic MC style, with Pitchfork calling him “simply a joy to listen to, one of the most distinctive and technically adventurous rappers working today.” Young Jefe 2 smartly plays up his verbal stylings, couching his sing-songy, introspective street tales within spacious beats. He’s due for a pop breakout at some point, but even if one never comes, he’s permanently solidified his position as one of D.C.’s distinct musical voices. (Listen to a song in our playlist, below.) — Joe Warminsky

Citadel, Dagger Moon — Dagger Moon effortlessly blends the pummeling, heavily distorted riffs of a sludge band with the gritty production and intense atmosphere of early black-metal bands. With the shortest track on Citadel coming in at just over six minutes, it’s an album that relies on a gradually increasing sense of anxiety, pushing and pulling the listener through its apocalyptic soundscapes. It’s gloomy, frightening and absolutely fantastic. — Keith Mathias

“Paused Parade” single, Young Summer — “Paused Parade” reminds listeners that the sunniest season brings a lot of rain, too. Gentle, sparse piano and whispers of percussion are paired with Young Summer’s hypnotic vocals to create a cocoon of serenity. The song ultimately builds a cool hideaway for self-reflection. When she sings, “Are you with me? Or are you with me?” … we’re definitely with her. “Paused Parade” will be part of an upcoming EP. (Listen to “Paused Parade” in our playlist, below.) — Teta Alim

“Blood In the Water” single, Prowess The Testament — Tia Abner, a.k.a. Prowess the Testament, grabbed attention earlier this year with the Air.Human|Breath.Divine EP, which instantly established the short-statured MC as a fierce, intelligent voice. She continues to rain down lyrical lightning bolts on her new single “Blood In the Water” (which also appears on the Right Where I Left It EP). Prowess wields Thor’s hammer and anvil, grinds gods into granules and annihilates the false authenticity of D.C. transplants and other pretend veterans, none of whom could walk a mile in her gladiator sandals. Producer P-Tech Santiago’s boom-bap beat frames it all with the excitement of a classic superhero comic. (Listen to “Blood In the Water” in our playlist, below.)— Justyn Withay

Any Day Now, Lee Mitty — What do you get when you take a slight savior complex and mix it with the realism of Baltimore’s woes? You get Any Day Now. The album, which focuses on the duality of vices — in Mitty’s case, the desire to break free of a tough system that also inspires her — is a complex listen. That’s because it also captures the duality and strife within the city itself. On tracks such as “Bang,” “Leave Me Alone” and “Muses,” Mitty puts her realistic, relatable lyricism over beats that are introspective without being heavy-handed. (Listen to a song in our playlist, below.) — Johnthan Speed

Wanted Man, Wanted Man — Forget vaporous subgenre designations and convoluted classifications — the full-length debut by Wanted Man is a rock album, the kind that showcases stellar musicianship and oozes with cool. Bassist John Scoops and drummer Rick Irby anchor each track with airtight rhythms, backing up Kenny Pirog’s guitar and vocals across 11 tunes that touch on everything from punk to surf. — Keith Mathias

Messix EP, Ocobaya — From Mike Petillo and Aaron Leitko, the two D.C. beat-heads behind Protect-U, comes a side project that’s less heavy on the math and more heavy on the psych. Numbers do still matter to them, of course — namely 4/4, as in the root time signature of classic techno and house. Overall, the Messix EP confidently expands the dance-music conversation happening at 1432 R, the D.C. label known so far for its Ethiopian connections. (Listen to a song in our playlist, below.) — Joe Warminsky

“Mrs. Jones” single, Neffy — The wrenching song from Arlington native Mecca Russell, a.k.a. Neffy, was featured on the “New School Free Press Live” series. Give the song a minute. Literally. The first 60 seconds are a slow, sleepy build to a moment of deep, pointed heartache that comes when Neffy hits the first note in the chorus — and it’s pure soul, killing you softly till the end. The video is great exposure, but doesn’t do the song, or the voice, justice. Neffy’s new EP is scheduled to drop in late 2016 or early 2017. — Courtney Sexton

Mirror Image/Mirage, Big Hoax — Hey, really, why shouldn’t a group from Baltimore take a shot at making an Epic American Rock Album? Vocalist and bandleader Luke Alexander likes to take his voice from a whisper to a yelp, and almost all the tunes build from nearly nothing to totally something (with help from banjo, cello and so on). That dynamic befits a band that calls itself Big Hoax and an album title that refers to a mirror and a mirage. The point here is actually realness, and it’s hard to argue that Alexander doesn’t find some at whatever folk-rock crossroads he’s picturing in his mind. — Joe Warminsky

“Summer” single, Innanet James The Maryland rapper’s most recent track belongs in crowded basements and open rooftops, as long as the heat wave rolls on and there’s enough humidity to make skin shine with constant sweat. Repping MoCo, Innanet James brings just enough charm with his flow so that his lyrical foreplay doesn’t cross over the line from teasing to sleazy. “Summer” is meant to be fleeting — a burst of bright, body-rolling fun that shouldn’t last too long. About his upcoming debut EP, James told Pitchfork in an interview: “I want you want to be like, ‘Oh, that’s witty as s–t.’ I want you to see the words.” (Listen to “Summer” in our playlist, below.)— Teta Alim

“Appalachian Motel” video, Greenland — A moody track from the D.C. rock band’s otherwise lively S***ty Fiction album gets an animated treatment that initially seems like a cryptic but largely two-dimensional commentary on notions of romantic and familial relationships. But then it gets really weird. What’s up with all of those long, pointy noses? No face is safe. — Joe Warminsky

The veteran radio producer and longtime Takoma Park, Maryland, resident wanted to create a space — both on-air and physical — that would be a neighborhood social, cultural and educational hub. So she jumped at the chance to submit an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to create one of the small, noncommercial FM stations.

The result is Takoma “T-Rex” Radio, otherwise known as WOWD-LP, a low-power station that comes on the air July 16 with a listening radius of 2 to 5 miles. The station, broadcasting at 94.3 FM from studio space rented from Airshow Mastering on Westmoreland Avenue, will reach neighborhoods in upper Northwest and Northeast D.C. and parts of Prince George’s and Montgomery counties in Maryland.

Many voices: The microphones were open, but the station wasn’t broadcasting yet at the open house event.

Takoma Radio won’t be the first or only community radio station in the region — Arlington, Virginia, has the low-power (LPFM) station WERA, and a handful of other small projects such as Anacostia’s We Act Radio maintain livestreams and periodic FM broadcasts. But it’s perhaps surprising that a hotbed of DIY culture like Takoma Park — with its reputation as “the Berkeley of the East” — didn’t already have one. More than 2,800 applications were filed with the FCC, and Takoma Radio received the only new license in the D.C. listening area.

“I’m talking about a mission to serve the community and pockets in the community,” Partridge says. “If you look at the radio dial in D.C. it’s a wasteland. I think also our ideas about ‘internet has killed radio’ is a very privileged perspective and that still a lot of people listen to the radio in their native languages, read newspapers in their native languages and in their communities.”

T-Rex programming will be determined by the people who tune in and want to participate, so Partridge expects shows will be as colorful as the community. Volunteer programming coordinators have been fielding applications for shows for several months, and the diversity of those ideas — combined with ideas from Partridge and her team — encompasses children’s shows; Spanish-language and talk programs; music including blues, local hip hop, punk, acoustic Congolese and a show called Bayou Boogie; live and recorded poetry; gardening tips; local news; and interviews on everything from pinball to astronomy in a program called The Thought Bowl.

“We just have to consider who’s not going to NPR programming and offer some really strong programming for niche audiences right up against those shows,” says Partridge. “Who listens to All things Considered? Well, not people who only speak Amharic.”

A grant will fund an audio production based on a yearlong education program with young people of color from diverse backgrounds and foreign countries. The youths will reflect on their culture, languages, community, music and sense of belonging.

Outreach initiatives like the youth program and live readings and concerts — along with technology training in everything from DJing to Google Drive — are intended to serve as a “come-togetherness” component complementing the on-air content.

There’s a lot of thought behind the station’s process. The overall consolidation of American media in recent decades is triggering a desire and need for local, community-driven LPFM stations like the one WOWD plans to be, says Michael Richards, a communications attorney and former broadcast journalist who helped Takoma Radio win the FCC license. Even the NPR system has been part of the trend toward centralization of news and public affairs content, Richards says.

“There was a tendency to have less that was locally produced because there was so much wonderful national programming,” Richards says. “But what you sometimes lost by having all of these wonderful voices like Ira Glass and all of the programs that were spurred by that, even before the podcast revolution, is that there was less and less space on many public radio stations for something local that wasn’t necessarily news.”

In response to the radio industry’s consolidation and evolution, the Local Community Radio Act was enacted 2010, limiting new LPFM licenses to commercial-free nonprofits only. Corporate broadcasters, worried about signal interference and losing airspace, pushed back and lobbied for restrictions. But nonprofit groups — most notably Prometheus Radio — fought back, and in 2013 a new licensing window finally opened, this time including availability in major urban areas.

Historic Takoma steps up

The realization of Takoma Radio has been more than five years in the making. Partridge says she had been planning even before the FCC announced the new round of licensing.

“From the very beginning of me saying to people, ‘I’m going to start a radio station,’ depending on their age group, the young people were going, ‘What, why, huh?’ and the older people would say, ‘Uh, really, there’s so much. For what?'” Partridge says.

Skepticism wasn’t the biggest hurdle, however. Getting the FCC license required sponsorship by a nonprofit organization, one with a board that had to be vetted by the government (sample questions: Have you ever done pirate radio? Are you a convicted felon?) and could fill out the application for the station. At the eleventh hour, Art for the People, the organization originally sponsoring Partridge’s project, bowed out.

“There was this really scary moment. Then, with hours to spare for filing with the FCC … Historic Takoma voted yes,” Partridge says. Although she calls the vote an “upset” for the board “one person quit that very night, right then and there” — she says most saw a unique opportunity in the unanticipated partnership.
Historic Takoma, Inc. was founded in 1979 with a mission of “preserving the heritage” of Takoma Park and the nearby Takoma neighborhood in D.C. Diana Kohn, the organization’s president, is one of the biggest advocates for taking on Takoma Radio.

“To our knowledge, no other historical society in the country has a radio station, but [novelty] never stopped anybody in Takoma Park from doing anything.” —Diana Kohn, president of Historic Takoma Inc.

“We are trying to collect the history of this community, and radio struck me as being a very unique way to capture not just the current history, but a flavor for the diversity of the people who make up the community now — a portrait of who we are,” Kohn says. “It’s not just that we get something out of the radio, but the radio can foster that more unified sense of identity.”

The group’s involvement with the radio station certainly upends the traditional expectations for a historical society’s role in its community.

“To our knowledge, no other historical society in the country has a radio station, but [novelty] never stopped anybody in Takoma Park from doing anything,” Kohn says.

Kohn points to some of Takoma’s defining moments as proof: The city began in 1883 as the first commuter suburb; residents built their own schools instead of waiting on jurisdictional arguments between D.C. and Maryland; and in 1963 residents stopped a freeway from being built through the center of the town by protesting and establishing historic districts that could not be razed. To her, the creation of Takoma Radio just makes sense.

“One of the things that makes Takoma unique is the insistence of the people who live here to do things,” Kohn says.

That attitude has helped the station build resources, too. The team behind Takoma Radio collectively has decades’ worth of broadcast, technical and outreach experience. Partridge’s connections in and around Takoma Park — and within the often insular radio community — clearly count for a lot, too. The team’s relationships have been vital for significant contributions like cheap rent for the studio, website-building help, spaces to hold fundraisers and donated auction items and equipment.

“We really try to give full projects to people and just say step up and do that,” Partridge says.

Nothing is certain

Volunteers have been hard at work. Program applications have been vetted and the broadcast schedule is being refined. The studio is furnished with a sparkling soundboard, and an antenna is on the roof. On the surface, WOWD-LP looks like it’s already inked into Takoma Park’s history books. But this isn’t necessarily an “if you build it they will come” situation.

Station Manager Tatyana Safronova — who also works part-time at the D.C. Public Library on their audio podcasting and oral histories projects — recognizes that outreach is essential for long-term success. The station has offered workshops for students at the Silver Spring library, partnered with the Takoma Park recreation center to engage youth groups, sponsored a go-go show at the town gazebo and featured a visiting Ethiopian poet. Safronova says the station leadership “can’t expect people to just come into the studio.”

But, she adds, once they do, “they need to bring their own programming, their own ideas about what radio should sound like. Because we can’t dictate what the radio sounds like; it would become obsolete in five minutes.”

As with most nonprofits, raising money will continue to be a challenge, likely a make-or-break one. And even in a community like Takoma Park, which seems like a natural fit for an LPFM station, true staying power will have to be earned — especially in an era when people often have multiple screens vying for their attention at any given moment. And so Partridge is suitably blunt when talking about the future of the station.

“We want it to be really vital in this community,” she says. “In five years it’s either going to be vital or dead.”

The grand opening of Takoma Radio takes place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, July 16 at 7014 Westmoreland Ave., Takoma Park, Md.

The new work from Bernstein, who plays saxophone in the adventurous Baltimore quartet Horse Lords, attempts to redefine how digital real estate is used. But exploring it may mean subjecting yourself to an uncomfortable experience.

Visit Bernstein’s website for The Great Outdoors, and you’re introduced to four sets of mind-numbing video and audio. The sound portion combines sax squawks and piano notes with helicopter drones, and they’re paired with repetitive animations that are the visual equivalent of locked grooves.

If it seems like intellectual porn, that’s because it kind of is. Bernstein says The Great Outdoors is essentially the final project for his MFA at Goucher College.

“[I was] pushing myself technically and artistically to try to figure out what an album could be in the Internet age,” Bernstein says.

The composition seems like something you’d encounter in a modern art museum, but Bernstein wants to bring unconventional art to an accessible platform, making the Internet a type of everyman’s gallery. But the work is immersive and beyond the audience’s control. In The Great Outdoors’ web space, there is no play, pause or fast forward.

Bernstein says he wants his work to challenge people to see and hear things in new ways, “or pay attention to their own vision and hearing in a new dimension.” He thinks the Internet medium can help achieve that.

Andrew Bernstein

“I’ve thought a lot about what a website is, and what websites try to do — be useful or get you to buy something,” he says. “[I] wanted to make something that … sort of didn’t have a purpose. A website that created a space that was just meant to be experienced, and not necessarily meant to do anything.”

Bernstein credits modern saxophonists and early drone music for influencing The Great Outdoors, along with Object Oriented Ontology, a domain of metaphysics that seeks to understand existence beyond a human lens. (According to scholar and game designer Ian Bogost, OOO contends that “nothing has special status” and “everything exists equally.” Bernstein says he’s still trying to wrap his head around the concept.)

However complex the theory behind it, though, The Great Outdoors synthesizes a common pre-Internet experience: It’s like staring at television static, waiting for something to emerge from the fuzz — because every now and then, something does.

Andrew Bernstein’s The Great Outdoors is out now on Ehse Records and its video accompaniment is viewable on the project’s website.

With 30 years in the music business, Brennan has seen the best and worst of what commercialization and digital distribution have done to music and its makers.

In his new book, How Music Dies (Or Lives): Field Recording and the Battle for Democracy in the Arts, Brennan explores inequity in the way music is disseminated and recognized, and how it’s directly related to inequality throughout society.

As Brennan points out, most music listeners encounter today is a pitifully small fraction of what’s being produced around the world, and that’s a problem. By systematically eliminating listening options from the mainstream, he argues, we are doing ourselves a great cultural disservice — not to mention neglecting what could be an effective peacemaking tool.

Brennan has written two books on anger and a third that he describes as a “literary fiction novella” partially about the aftermath of sexual assault. How Music Dies is his first full-length work about music.

While the book can be antagonistic, Brennan supports his theories with a combination of personal experience and fact. He doesn’t always succeed. But ultimately, he aims to bring attention to the act of cultural homogenization, which he considers an overlooked issue.

Ahead of his discussion with musician and ex-Fugazi bassist Joe Lally at Busboys & Poets in Brookland Saturday evening, Brennan talked to Bandwidth about the cultural blindness of the Grammys, how music promotes understanding and why he thinks it’s troubling when Vietnamese children begin rapping in English.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bandwidth: You focus on countries in Africa and Asia in some of your stories. Why did you choose those regions, as opposed to say, South America, the rural U.S. or elsewhere?

We’d been trying to focus on countries that are pretty noticeably underrepresented or under-heard on an international scale. South America’s pretty well covered. Spanish and English are the No. 2 and No. 3 most-spoken languages in the world, so they’re very dominant. The difference with English is that it’s so pervasive. It’s not just the English-speaking world that listens to English-speaking music. It’s now almost the whole world that does, because the distribution is like Coca-Cola, you know? It’s everywhere.

The countries in Africa and even mainland Europe — more than South America, and parts of Asia, particularly Southeast Asia — are radically underrepresented. Some of them are just virtually invisible. I mean there’s only been one pop Grammy nomination ever for far-east Asia.

What country?

Tibet. So it doesn’t count… I mean, it counts, but it’s probably the most commercial, mainstream, predictable of those nominations that there could be. And it was a good record and everything, not to take anything away from that. The Grammys just wanted Asia.

I mean, [the Grammys are] not the measure of everything because there are a lot of great records that never get recognized in that way. But there are many, many African countries still that have never received a Grammy nomination, the majority. And this year Ghana received its first Grammy nomination for reggae, and the Zomba Prison Project received the first ever for Malawi. So two African countries this year received their first nominations.

Why is that important? If we’re talking about this artificial machine of taste and being a part of this commercial tradition that’s dictating what does and doesn’t get heard, if the music is actually valuable in and of itself and from the place that it comes, why does it matter if it’s heard elsewhere?

I mean, I think it’s something to consider and it’s debatable whether it does, but [the Grammys] certainly give a big platform and promotion and make people aware of music that they otherwise would not be. I’m more using it as just a literal measurement of inequity.

But really, the bigger measurement is, how many pop records can you find from most countries around the world in the language or the mother tongue of that region? It’s almost always zero — you know, that are easily findable, that have been released in a way that they have been given a fair chance and consideration… it just rarely, rarely happens.

“People talk about foreign languages like it’s a barrier. But then the lie in that is that most people have no idea what their favorite pop songs are about.”

What do you mean by fair chance? Like a fair chance to make it big?

No, just to be treated like they aren’t some kind of oddity or trinket. That it’s valid, that it’s art, and that it should be given consideration. I mean, you can open up Rolling Stone, or most music platforms, sites, whatever, to this day and see these incredibly glowing reviews for what a lot of times are pretty rudimentary and ho-hum recapitulations of Western music. And then “world music” — whatever the heck that means — just gets slotted away into this little corner when there’s so much music out there and so many great artists.

I think that one of the big issues is that people talk about foreign languages like it’s a barrier, but then the lie in that is that most people have no idea what their favorite pop songs are about. They can’t sing the lyrics to their favorite pop song.

So you think it’s that listeners are missing out more than artists? Obviously artists are, too, because they’re not making money off the music in ways that others are. But in terms of talking about the art, you say this loss affects people who aren’t necessarily having access to a plethora of music.

Yes. Exactly. I think it’s really, really more the listeners that are losing out. I think the whole idea that music is commercialized and that people should make a living from it is absurd. Just a few generations back, the exceptional family member was the one who didn’t play music in most cultures. Now the exceptional family member is the one who does play music.

And neurologically, it’s bad for people to be listening to the same stuff over and over and over again. It’s unnatural. We’re talking not just about the same songs that are being handed down as folk songs or being transformed over time through a tradition. We’re talking about the exact repetition of a performance, usually that never happened — ‘cause it was multi-tracked so it wasn’t really a performance. It was staggered and constructed and people are hearing that hundreds, maybe thousands of times in their lives.

How do you rectify that as a producer?

I think recorded music is like everything — it’s a double-edged sword. It has a lot of beautiful things about it. The beautiful things are its portability and the fact that people can have private spiritual experiences by themselves, anytime anywhere that they have electricity or batteries, and the promise of it is that they can juxtapose these radically different things. Unfortunately, because of distribution and promotion, that isn’t what usually happens, and people are listening to this narrow sliver and prescribed corner of what music is.

So this idea that we’re living in a meritocracy — not just with music, but with other things — is a bit of myth, and the belief that the cream will rise to the crop, you know, it won’t.

And partially it won’t because there’s this construction of genius. On a planet of 7 billion people, how can there be somebody that’s so good that everything they do should be listened to for decades? Maybe a few people, but not many.

OK, switching gears a bit. I know that you’ve done and are doing a lot of work with violence prevention. How do you see music as a form of that?

I think that ultimately the only chance we have for peace is to listen to each other, whether that’s two individuals or in terms of cultures. And music is something that bypasses people’s psychological defense mechanisms, potentially. Music and humor are very powerful devices because they can basically be Trojan horses — before the person knows it, they’re deriving pleasure from it and it becomes something that is part of them in a positive way.

[For example] someone like James Brown or Michael Jackson or certain figures — Bob Marley, obviously — can dissolve so many barriers with just a single dance move, or just a single vocal note, or a song. And they have. No, [music] doesn’t stop the underlying structural problems in society that pit people against each other, and the history that’s unprocessed that causes certain horrific things to be repeated over and over again, but it does have impact.

“On a planet of 7 billion people, how can there be somebody that’s so good that everything they do should be listened to for decades? Maybe a few people, but not many.”

You seem to believe in the power of music. So tell me about your choice for the title, How Music Dies (Or Lives)… it seems pretty negative.

I think that the book — especially the original version — was pretty negative, and in fact I took out a lot of harsher stuff. There’s probably still some stuff in there that might rub people wrong, but I think some of the more extreme stuff, not a lot, but some of the stuff that kind of seemed to cross a line, I cut. I wanted to make the book not an attack on any one band or person — and also keep it evergreen — so I really tried to minimize references to people.

I guess it’s just that — I don’t know you, but I don’t really believe that you think [music] is dying. Are you more saying that it can and does [die], not necessarily that it is irrevocably in the process of dying?

Sure. I mean, I think music as a human impulse will never die. But certainly recorded music — because of its repetition, because it does create this cultural inertia… it is this newer form that fixes things in place… it does do harm.

I mean there’s good in it, and it does harm. I see it. I see it when I travel around and see the reggae influence eroding local forms, or the pop inflections, like American pop idol glissando vocal stuff permeating different places, or standard-tune guitars being used everywhere. We just did a record in Rwanda and Burundi, and the first three people recorded all played G-C-B chords on a standard-tuned guitar. It’s very disheartening. Fortunately it got a lot better with other people and it became quite incredible. But there was that initial moment of just feeling like, “My God, this is not gonna work.” I mean some of my favorite songs are G-C-B, but it’s very overdone and there’s not much left to express with it and when someone from a culture that’s unfamiliar to it is doing that, you know, that’s music dying. That’s options being reduced rather than multiplied.

But do you think, is that a way that people are trying to participate in a dialogue that seems somewhat universal, trying to respond to it by being a part of it in a way that maybe isn’t familiar to them — and is there some good to come of that, too?

Sure, I mean, potentially. I mean, I’m not concerned about ethnomusicology. I don’t think you need to preserve every musical form. My concern is just the best voices and the best songs and on a lot of the records we’ve had the good fortune of being able to record voices that don’t sound like anything else. Like the Malawi Mouse Boys. Those guys had never listened to recorded voices. It’s just not what they do. And yet one is classic soul belter… but he’s never listened to Otis Redding, he’s never listened to James Carr. He’s not dissimilar from them, but he is dissimilar from them, meaning, he doesn’t sound like them, he just sounds like he’s in their league. It comes from inside him.

[On the other hand], there’s a woman who runs an orphanage in Vietnam and we were talking about music and [she said] the kids there don’t play instruments anymore. If they do music at all, they rap. And when they rap, they rap in bad English. And yet they don’t really speak English, so I think that probably is an attempt to participate, but at the same time it’s a reduction of options rather than an increase in options. And really, I think, people are empowered by options. That’s one of the main antidotes to violence — to give people choices.

What are the key ideas readers should come away with after reading this book?

Nothing beyond the hope that, more than anything else, that people literally will open their ears. Make even a 5 percent investment in what they listen to, in what they consume — books and films and movies — that’s better for their health, and the health of culture. I think what it comes down to is listening to one song a day in a foreign language, and try to watch one movie a year that’s subtitled but not dubbed. If people would do that, it would have impact. You know, it’s not gonna change the world, but it would certainly make things better.

Ian Brennan reads and discusses his book Saturday, Feb. 20 at Busboys and Poets in Brookland. 6:30 p.m.

Undisturbed by the forces of gentrification reshaping other stretches of Georgia Avenue, the building houses Listen Vision, a full-service recording studio. It’s only been in this location since 2006, but Listen Vision has already played a key role in D.C. music history.

Hip-hop and R&B have boomed in D.C. over the last decade, and Listen Vision deserves part of the credit for that.

Wale, Tabi Bonney, Trey Songz, Fat Trel, Raheem Devaughn, Maino — autographed CDs and memorabilia from those artists and many others hang on the walls in the studio’s main lobby. They all benefited from the company’s services — recording, mixing, mastering, photography, graphic design and digital distribution — in one way or another.

But it’s obvious what the company is banking on. Entering the studio you are greeted by the neon “on-air” and “hot beats” signs of the broadcast room, the focal point for the online station WLVS Radio.

A ‘beautiful mistake’

While aspiring young MCs and hopeful musicians still put their dreams in the hands of Listen Vision’s recording booths, the business is now split 50-50 by WLVS. The station hosts 74 live shows every week. But unlike podcasting and traditional radio, WLVS has a visual component. A camera rolls the whole time, and video streams of the station’s shows go up online.

Starting WLVS was “a beautiful mistake,” says Listen Vision’s founder and director of operations, Jeremy Beaver.

“Right around when the economy couldn’t have been worse, this group was paying good money to set up their own equipment in the studio space and stream live. It got me thinking,” says Beaver, aka DJ Boom. “So I got on the horn and called my old radio friends, and the next thing you know, I looked up and we had 13 shows, then 27. Then at 50 I thought, ‘Oh God, we might have something here.’”

This happy accident has turned into what Beaver — perhaps dubiously, given the rise of podcasts — considers the future of broadcasting.

Eddie Kayne, the self-professed “voice of independent musicians” and a host of one of WLVS’ 74 programs, seems to agree with Beaver.

“You no longer need the machine. [The] Internet has made it even more possible for people to become stars overnight,” Kayne says.

A 30-year veteran of the music industry, Kayne says that his show on WLVS allowed him to compete with local radio stations that weren’t playing local artists.

There was “no platform for [independent] artists,” Kayne says, “and I thought that there were so many that weren’t getting the opportunity to be discovered.” He claims partial responsibility for breaking the careers of locals, including rapper Fat Trel, who’s signed to Rick Ross’ Maybach Music these days.

“Now, it’s funny that those stations recommend me to out-of-state promoters and businesses when they want to deal with independent artists,” Kayne says, “because I have such a voice here.”

In essence, WLVS is radio you can watch. And apparently, people do. According to Beaver, more than 250,000 listeners and viewers from 135 countries tune in each month to shows that run a gamut of topics including talk radio, dating advice, a dude reminiscing about ’90s music videos and even a comedy hour.

Beaver says the key to WLVS’ success is high-definition, direct-to-consumer streaming that can be accessed anywhere.

“I say to people, ‘Would you rather be local in radio, or global in video?’ It’s a no-brainer.”

Doing the most

While WLVS sets the table for Listen Vision’s future, there are still plenty of people looking for something simpler: A place to test out a concept. A professional’s advice. Support for an idea. For them, Listen Vision exists as much for the community as for the services.

Renee Allen is a retired military veteran, singer, public speaker and promoter who lives in Maryland and hosts a weekly show on WLVS. She says that Listen Vision has been instrumental in helping her find herself, as well as new clients.

“You walk in on that stage, into that studio and it’s 1-2-3-4,” Allen says. “Everyone knows their parts, your timeline, and everyone is just rocking and rolling.”

The studio recently told Allen that they want to help her pitch her show to the Oprah Winfrey Network, Eccentric and other mainstream networks. “They’re really about creating platforms, multiple platforms where people really do grow and develop,” she says.

Along with women like Allen, independent rappers, singers, DJs, producers, musicians, businesses and students all take advantage of the space. Beaver rattles off the various services: “tours, field trips, seminars, classes,” including a training curriculum called LV Academy, which teaches DJing, production, engineering, beatmaking and video directing.

Sometimes all the people want, though, is an old-school setup. Beaver points out the smallest studio, a closet-sized soundbooth with foam walls and nothing but a fuzzy microphone and tall stool in the center.

“The kids always love this one,” he says.

An evolving enterprise

Listen Vision dabbles in live performance, too. If there’s a prominent event in the neighborhood or a big parade passing through, the studio will host a showcase or a mini-concert on its front steps.

The now-defunct Caribbean Carnival parade was a prime opportunity for Listen Vision. So is Howard University’s homecoming weekend, particularly the day of the campus Yardfest concert.

But while those showcases are conspicuous calling cards for the business, Listen Vision is ultimately focused on recording and streaming content. Beaver started the business as a record label in an era — the late 1990s — when the Internet was just beginning to have an effect on the music business. Applying what he learned then, and in jobs with XM Satellite Radio and Virgin Records, he shifted his focus to remaining a trusted name and face in the community, while meeting the demands of increasingly tech-savvy musicians.

His model appears dependent on drawing in new clients via WLVS, and retaining them by showing what Listen Vision is made of once they get there.

Beaver points to what he calls his “magnum opus,” “10 Rhymes or 10 Dimes,” in which longtime client Cisco Kid chronicles the history of hip-hop from 1978 to 2008 by impersonating 10 legendary rappers.

“I produced it myself, it took a year, and it contains over 550 samples,” Beaver says. It appears on the company’s recent compilation, Best of Listen Vision 5.

It is yet to be seen whether Beaver’s claims about Listen Vision’s evolution and the future of broadcasting will hold true — he admits there are challenges to stay ahead of the technological curve, to find investors and perhaps partners that can help the business expand, and to decide if remaining in the Howard University neighborhood as that expansion happens is realistic. But at 1 p.m. as The Olivia Fox Show‘s namesake host holds court in the front studio, the speakers outside are bumping for anyone nearby to hear — and a new listener has just tuned in.

“Maybe it’s the person who checked in a couple of weeks ago from Mayotte,” laughs Beaver. “Have you ever hear of Mayotte? We didn’t even know [it existed] until they started listening.”

All photos courtesy of Listen Vision

Under an epidermis of skinny-boy post-hardcore, Frodus’ last record is built on hauntingly sweet guitar riffs and rhythmic nuance, a potent distillation of youth, sex and sadness. It arrived in 2001, two years after the Northern Virginia band had already split up. But Weapons deepened Frodus’ distinguishable mark on the pages of D.C. music history. Now considered the band’s best album, it reappeared Nov. 23, reissued by Virginia’s Lovitt Records (stream the album below).

Frodus was formed in 1993 by guitarist and vocalist Shelby Cinca and drummer Jason Hamacher, teenagers fueled by art and angst in equal measure. They released their first LP in 1994, a blast of frustrated post-hardcore called Molotov Cocktail Party. The band followed up with three more screaming albums before it disbanded and discharged Weapons, its most polished work by far.

Yet Hamacher describes Weapons as the score to the worst year of Frodus’ lives. At the time, Hamacher’s then-girlfriend had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Bassist Nathan Burke’s relationship was falling apart. Cinca’s father had recently suffered a stroke.

Now with families and lives outside of music, Frodus’ members still consider the album a profound emotional milestone.

“There are markers in one’s life, especially one well-lived. I’ve been fortunate to have many,” says Burke, who now lives in Seattle. “This record is one of those markers. It helps give me perspective. I’m generally not a very nostalgic person, but I admit that Weapons has that effect on me.”

Hamacher, a loquacious musician currently working on a project to preserve lost Syrian chants, says Weapons frames a chapter in his life he can’t necessarily summarize in words.

“Emotionally, it represents the worst time,” says Hamacher, who still lives in D.C. “But how do I explain to my kids who I was? How do I tell them the story of my life before mom? This album is the soundtrack to that story.”

In particular, album cut “6/99” (meaning June 1999) bears witness to a month of catastrophic change for the band. “We could disappear!” Cinca shouts — a possibility that must have felt real at the time. But while personal tragedy played a role in Frodus’ undoing, another factor can’t be ignored: the D.C. music community, which Burke describes as limiting.

“For all of its benefits, the legacy of the punk-rock scene [in D.C.] became a constraint on creativity and drive, in my opinion,” Burke says. “If we wanted to really push it to that next level we would have had to have done it somewhere else.”

Frodus’ final year also coincided with the advent of digital music, with file-sharing service Napster starting up in 1999. Three years later, social-media site MySpace would help upend the way fans listened to music. But Frodus’ most devoted followers didn’t forget the group — in fact, the band says people inquired about a vinyl version for several years, as all of Frodus’ earlier albums saw reissues.

“With this record and all of the stories and memories that have come along with it, it’s been really cool to see what and how people remember,” says Hamacher.

Yet there’s a sense that when Frodus disbanded, it left things unsaid — or perhaps withheld conversations that should stay between bandmates.

Some of those secret transmissions see the light of day on the Weapons reissue. While Cinca rooted through old Frodus photos and tour schedules, arranging graphics and artwork for the reissue, he stumbled upon an early cassette tape and a post-breakup letter Burke had mailed to him.

The cassette includes a recording of Burke covering a Frodus song before he joined the band. Frodus decided to release it on a bonus 7-inch that accompanies the album’s vinyl reissue. Cinca — still a prolific musician, now living between Sweden and L.A. — calls it “a chance for people to see what happened behind the scenes, to give a bit of closure.”

As for the letter? That’s included, too. It’s tender and young, honest and difficult — the stuff of Frodus’ best music. But it’s all history, Cinca says, like the Frodus he cofounded as a teenager.

“You’re just young and [your band is] really important to you. It’s your world and you put so much into it. It’s still important, but it feels like a past life or something,” Cinca says. “I’m still that person, but I’m not that person.”

Frodus’ And We Washed Our Weapons In the Sea is available through Dischord Records and Bandcamp. Middle photo by Ove Wiksten, 1998. The original version of this post inaccurately said that Shelby Cinca’s father had died around the time Frodus recorded And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea. His father had suffered a stroke.

The two captains of Soccer Team have been making music together for more than a decade, and their forthcoming album, Real Lessons in Cynicism, is a testament to the value of working as, well, a team.

Nelson and Quinley finish each other’s sentences, both in conversation and music. Nelson — who handles vocals, guitar and drums — brings an analog grit to Soccer Team’s sound. Quinley’s airy vocals lighten things up, while her bass keeps the band on strong rhythmic footing.

Nelson and Quinley met in the ‘90s, when they were both working at famed D.C. punk label Dischord Records.

“Melissa and I were sort of joined at the hip almost right away,” Nelson says.

Quinley, who moved to D.C. in ‘95 to work at the label, found a musical peer in Nelson.

“I very quickly realized that I trusted his recommendations,” Quinley says. “He was one of the few people I was comfortable around. I remember singing the first time and I was mortified — and he left the room and just let me do my thing.”

So Quinley kept exploring music with him. The duo took a break while Nelson attended school in Michigan for five years, but when he returned, they found their creative chemistry still intact.

“Right when Ryan came back, we put our 7-inch out, applied to South by Southwest, and started playing again,” Quinley says.

After Soccer Team released its debut, the 2006 LP “Volunteered” Civility and Professionalism, they had a few songs left over, Nelson says. They began recording Real Lessons in Cynicism in 2013. It’s expected out Oct. 27 on — what else? — Dischord Records.

For this album, Quinley and Nelson are joined by longtime collaborator and friend Jason Hutto (of The Aquarium) and Quinley’s husband, drummer Dennis Kane.

Nelson says he’s proud that on this album, “you can really hear a lot of each individual person’s contribution.” That’s especially true of “Friends Who Know.” Its lyrics are difficult to parse — Nelson calls it “one of the weirder songs on the record” — but the musical mojo is unmistakeable.

“So much of the stuff that Ryan writes, I immediately hear melodies,” Quinley says. “That doesn’t happen a lot.”

For years, “Friends Who Know” existed as fragments in Nelson’s mind, without lyrics.

“I feel awful but I’m just going to say it. If you ask me about any song on the record, I could tell you volumes about what the lyrics are about — with the exception of ‘Friends Who Know,’” Nelson says. “It’s crazy, but this song, it was pieces and fragments of other melodies that I had started and didn’t finish. Pieces just kept falling into place.”

Quinley agrees. The song sounds disjointed, but it possesses a strange magic.

“Everything to me aligns and works perfectly like it should,” the bassist says. “It is really beautiful… and the bass chords at end sound so badass.”

Soccer Team plays an album-release show Oct. 18 at Comet Ping Pong.

Stream “Too Many Lens Flares,” another single from Soccer Team’s second LP:

As a new royal in D.C.’s Latin dance scene, Zavala — who goes by La SalvadoReina, a portmanteau of “Salvadoreña,” meaning Salvadoran, and “reina,” the Spanish word for “queen” — is facing both a thrill and a challenge as she settles into her reign.

Zavala’s first acts as monarch? Release her debut EP or album, hopefully this year, and continue the long-term project she’s already begun: energizing D.C.’s cumbia community. That’s where the “salvado” part, meaning “savior,” comes in.

“The idea is I’m like a little superhero, saving the party, one cumbia at a time,” says Zavala, 23.

It could be the role she was destined to play. A native of Alexandria, Virginia, Zavala grew up in a Salvadoran household steeped in music. Her carpenter father, Wilson Zavala, came to the U.S. in 1989 with the goal of sending money back to his family and community at home. He did that by starting ACOSAL-USA, a nonprofit that organizes cumbia concerts in the D.C. region. The shows’ proceeds have helped buy school supplies for kids in El Salvador and open a soccer academy and a rehab center there, Zavala says.

Her dad’s concerts left a deep impression on her.

“Every now and then I would wake up and there would be a cumbia band having breakfast with my parents,” Zavala says. “I grew up backstage and I just loved cumbia because I was around it.”

But while cumbia was always a part of Zavala’s life, it wasn’t until recently that her life became cumbia.

Finding La SalvadoReina

Zavala graduated from American University in 2014. When she started college, she thought she’d study to become an ambassador or diplomat. In many ways, she has done that. She just took a different path than she expected.

Well into her college career, Zavala started meeting musicians around campus. She joined Son Cosita Seria (“a serious little thing”): a collective of Mexican artists who were playing son jarocho — protest music — and teaching jarana, a stringed instrument akin to a Mexican ukulele.

“I started going because a friend was involved, and I fell in love with it,” Zavala says. “Then I realized, ‘OK, well, I’m glad that I’m tapped into this through the Mexican music, but I’m Salvadoran. I really want to do cumbia.’”

“I started thinking about it, and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to start a project where I’m so Salvadoran and in your face that you’ll have to know that I’m Salvadoran.’”

Cumbia is a genre that began in Colombia, a musical amalgam of indigenous Colombian, African and Spanish influences. It’s immediately identifiable by its jumping bass line, built for a loose two-step, but it’s taken dozens of forms as the music has fanned out across Latin America. The latest cumbia wave is digital cumbia, or cumbiatronica, which vocalists and producers often marry with hip-hop.

Zavala had been around more traditional cumbia her whole life, but during college she started exploring its hip-hop side. She began classes at Words Beats & Life Inc., a D.C. nonprofit founded by rappers and hip-hop artists, many of whom grew up with go-go. Her mentors encouraged her to mix cumbia and rap music. The result became Zavala’s trademark sound. In 2014, she broke out with a song that started as a Words Beats & Life assignment: “Cumbia Capital.”

But Zavala thought her culture was underrepresented in the D.C. arts scene, despite Salvadorans being the largest Latino community in the region.

“You go to Mt. Pleasant, you go to Columbia Heights, you go to Georgia Avenue — it’s predominantly Salvadoran,” Zavala says. “They’re playing their music and they’re sharing their culture, but nobody has someone to look up to when it comes to culture in our area.”

There is no Salvadoran Marc Anthony or J-Lo, Zavala says.

“I started thinking about it, and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to start a project where I’m so Salvadoran and in your face that you’ll have to know that I’m Salvadoran.”

She does that by proudly waving the Salvadoran flag and borrowing from classic cumbia, like on her song “De Mi Tierra,” which samples Salvadoran ensemble Sangre Morena. Combined with hip-hop — with help from D.C. rapper FenomeDon — Zavala’s music appeals across generations, too.

“Grandparents recognize the cumbia, and kids hear the hip-hop, and that was the idea behind it,” Zavala says.

But for Zavala, who still lives in Alexandria, crafting her own spin on cumbia isn’t only about the beat.

“It is about party and fun,” she says, but “the one thing that I could possibly give as an artist and with the music that I’m doing is cultural empowerment and a voice.”

“I literally just started”

Over the past year and a half, La SalvadoReina has taken her sound across the country. She has gained a lot of exposure — and in some ways, it’s happened too quickly, she admits.

“All of a sudden I was hanging out with Grammy Award-winning people and opening for Calle 13,” Zavala says. (She warmed up D.C.’s Echostage before the Puerto Rican duo played there last September.) “I started doing a lot all at once and didn’t really know how to handle it, so right now I’m kind of in pause mode.”

Zavala may be an open and gifted communicator with a passion for her work — but she’s also green, and not yet clear on the “it” she’s doing.

“I have a vision for what I want to happen, but I’m nowhere near it. I literally just started,” the artist says. She says she still wants to sound more Salvadoran, both by collaborating with Salvadoran artists and working more music from her family’s country into what she does.

“I’m figuring it out on the way, and I have a lot of good support with the amazing network that I have made,” she says.

One thing Zavala does know for certain: She’s staying in D.C. for the foreseeable future.

“What I’m doing is about D.C. It’s about the voice here. I want it to be for here and to come to here,” she says. “That’s what makes it special.”

WAMU 88.5 is licensed to American University.

“Drag + Blur,” the B-side on the Baltimore band’s forthcoming 7-inch, is a wry and catchy slice of indie rock laced generously with Pavement.

With opening chords that immediately conjure Weezer, the track floats into vocals that could have come straight from a Coconut Records demo. The band’s 24-year-old principle, Jack Stansbury, cites Silkworm and Stephen Malkmus and Co. as strong influences on the “Your Divorce” 7-inch (and adds that some circa-2000 hip-hop, including Missy Elliott and Juvenile, may have helped him form his musical identity, too).

After finishing college at the University of Maryland, College Park, Stansbury — a native of the Baltimore region — moved to Los Angeles. While on the West Coast he dabbled with some solo recordings under the Princess Reason name.

“L.A. was… kind of my misadventure,” says Stansbury. “I didn’t think I’d have one, but I did.”

That misadventure may have been what Stansbury needed. It brought him back to the D.C. area where, while working as a paralegal by day, he reconnected with an old friend who’s now his bandmate, Morgan Spaner. They met on MySpace in high school.

On the “Your Divorce” 7-inch — recorded and mixed by Chester Gwadza — Mike Allison joins Stansbury and Spaner to round out this iteration of Princess Reason. All three band members played equal roles in writing the music, a process that was as cathartic as it was productive. After working a day job, Stansbury says, “We get to go home, escape… we get together infrequently, but [we] all just kind of gel.”

Princess Reason’s unengineered approach suits the mood on “Drag + Blur.” Heavy-lidded and unenthused, the song shoots side-eye at a segment of Stansbury’s generation.

“This lifestyle’s totally worth it,” Stansbury croaks. “Drag through the week to blur through the end/Date a self-obsessed guy in an awful band.”

Who’s the target of that withering critique?

“The lyrics are just observations, I guess, on a particular set of youngish people,” Stansbury says, “who sort of grind through every week and waste every weekend.”

Listen to “Drag + Blur,” below: