Last week, the local imprint released a compilation called Code Red (listen below) that they say will benefit the American Civil Liberties Union. And it isn’t just a statement against Trump, says label co-founder Douglas Kallmeyer. The compilation hits back against corruption in U.S. politics and the financial system.

“Financial greed has enslaved generations to unjust mortgages and student loans. People are struggling and susceptible,” says Kallmeyer. “How can we help those that will suffer the most?” Kallmeyer says the ACLU seemed like an ideal beneficiary, calling the 96-year-old organization “a nonpartisan means to try to fight corruption.”

The nonpartisan part is key. Kallmeyer blames the current political mood on both Republicans and Democrats.

“It seems that any shred of moral value on either side of the aisle is finally gone. It’s insane to me,” says the Annandale resident. “The Democratic party cut their own throats, obviously railroading Bernie Sanders and installing Hillary Clinton.”

At 40 tracks, Code Red contains a vast diversity of expressive styles. Some artists, such as violinist James Wolf, create abstract soundscapes of dissonant tones. Others, like Peoria, Illinois, singer/songwriter Sarah Schonert, take a more intimate and melodic route. But the music overwhelmingly captures a negative view of current events, dwelling on feelings of tension, instability or urgency.

Kallmeyer worked with labelmate Dave Harris to put the call for submissions across social media. They were floored by the resulting enthusiasm.

“We were willing to settle with what we could get in 10 days,” says Kallmeyer. “We had 40 committed artists from six different countries… We probably had responses doubling that.”

Kallmeyer sees a global movement in the works, and he says Verses is ready to rise to the task.

“D.C. and the surrounding area of artistic community [are] mobilizing at a steady pace to respond to the absolute corruption we face,” Kallmeyer says, “and to be heard.”

“‘Mars and Me’ is about the tension we feel between Venus and Mars within ourselves,” says the Mount Pleasant resident. “When one’s self is truly illuminated, we see beauty and horror.”

The track certainly explores two vastly different musical ideas. “Mars and Me” opens on a lovely but anxious note, with minor-key arpeggios buttressing Anway’s soft vocals. The band doesn’t settle into a mood, though. Before long, drums and strings propel the song into another atmosphere.

“Mars and Me” continues Anway’s partnership with producers Tommy Sherrod and Mike Okusami. The three worked together on Brushes’ debut release, Whatever, Again. Since then, they have recorded over 20 songs together and grown into a live quintet that includes guitarist/keyboardists Matt Henderson and Nick DePrey.

“Mars and Me” appears on Grizzly Beach, a split EP with Boston band Today Junior. Unlike Brushes’ more nuanced approach, Today Junior is all about the fist-pumpers. Grizzly Beach features their song, “Lee’s Anthem,” a shout-along ode to believing in yourself.

Once again, the contrast in styles is deliberate.

“One of the things I love most about Today Junior is that they write songs to make you feel good,” says Anway. “Their music connects me to Boston, where I grew up, and to many of the surf themes that have become fundamental to how I write songs.”

Anway and Brushes met Today Junior over the summer and the two bands immediately struck up a friendship. Aside from working on Grizzly Beach together, the two bands co-wrote a song that will appear on a full-length Brushes album out next year.

In the meantime, Brushes and Today Junior plan to embark on a mini-tour of the Northeast U.S. and drop a vinyl release of Grizzly Beach in early 2017.

Brushes, Today Junior and Homeshake Monday play Nov. 28 at Songbyrd Music House & Record Cafe.

The experience was rife with racial tensions, however. “It wasn’t anything like I got spat on,” he explains. “At the same time, I think the coaches and the environments I would be in didn’t set right with me.”

So he was particularly moved when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem earlier this year. The NFL player said he wanted to call attention to the systemic mistreatment of minority groups in the U.S.

“I always wondered what was up with racist sports fans who may cheer for a player of color, but will not respect their rights as human beings once the game is over.”

“I think what he did definitely made people reflect and it exposed so many differing viewpoints for people to have this conversation,” says Ardamus (real name: Artemis Thompson). “We don’t give people with fame credit when they stand for something positive and meaningful.”

Thompson’s new song, “The Athlete,” pays tribute to sports heroes past and present who were unafraid to speak up about racial disparities in America. A confident, sauntering beat produced by Ardamus himself buttresses two segments of storytelling: In the first verse, the MC recalls the patient determination of baseball player Jackie Robinson, who first broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. In the second, he praises Kaepernick for using his status to call attention to social issues.

“The Athlete” appears on Thompson’s After I Replace You EP, which came out last week on the Delegation Music label. Thompson had written the bulk of the song a year ago, but Kaepernick’s protest inspired him to return and finish it.

“I always wondered what was up with racist sports fans who may cheer for a player of color, but will not respect their rights as human beings once the game is over,” he says. “Someone like Kaepernick takes a stand then all hell breaks loose. All these critics come out and show their true colors.”

It’s no surprise that Thompson is also a voracious sports fan, rooting for baseball’s San Francisco Giants, hockey’s Nashville Predators, both sides of basketball’s rivalry between the Brooklyn Nets and the Toronto Raptors, and of course, D.C. United soccer. He sees a deep connection between hip-hop culture and professional sports.

“So many rappers want to say they’re a version of this player and that player in the hip-hop industry. Then you have so many players getting involved in hip-hop music” he says. “I think they will continue to influence each other as time goes on.”

Ardamus performs Oct. 28 with Of Tomorrow at Solly’s in D.C., and Oct. 29 with Red Moon Preachers at Tree House Lounge in D.C.

The Mount Pleasant resident stops himself before getting lost in the weeds, however.

“Oh man, nobody wants to hear me talk about this,” he concedes. He loves modular synthesizers — think Moogs, with their knobs, switches and wires — and leaves it at that.

“They’re very niche-oriented and cult-y and, as result, sort of inherently anti-capitalist and DIY,” he says.

He prefers to discuss the non-musical inspirations behind Wasatch Mecha, which
will be available digitally Friday through Atlantic Rhythms, the new locally based label run by his friend, Sean Peoples. (The label also will be releasing a limited run of cassettes.)

Leitko says the EP comes from his desire to create instrumental music with a sense of place.

“If you’re representing a city or a group vibe, it feels better than just being a lonely dude with some synths and a Soundcloud account,” he explains.

On some tracks, this connotes specific people and locations. For example, closer “Harmony Gold” samples Tizita ballads, a nod to D.C.’s Ethiopian community, as well as the 1432R label, which released an EP by Leitko’s Ocobaya project with Protect-U partner Mike Petillo in July.

Wasatch Mecha, the title itself, refers to Leitko’s childhood in Utah. The first word is taken from the name of the Wasatch Range east of his home in Salt Lake City. “Mecha” is a shoutout to the 1980s anime series, Robotech.

“Robotech is very tied up with my memories of Salt Lake City, where I grew up. My whole family was into it,” he says. “It had a lot of robots. And aliens. And singing.”

Leitko and Peoples, the owner of Atlantic Rhythms, have a long history of working together.

“He used to run a D.C.-based label called Sockets, which released a CD-R for me, now mercifully out of print,” says Leitko. “We also owned a van together. R.I.P. van.”

Aaron Leitko and Sean Peoples perform Friday, Oct. 7, at Red Onion Records in D.C.

Take the Silver Spring resident’s musical approach, for instance: It’s based on the teachings of Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus.

“He expressed himself obliquely, often through paradoxes or riddles,” explains Barbiero. “As with music, expression hinges on connotation and suggestion rather than denotation or declaration.”

His new album, An Eclipse of Images, draws from a similarly lofty place: philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s French language analysis of the symbolist poet, Stéphane Mallarmé, titled La lucidité et sa face d’ombre.

“The subtitle … would translate out to something like ‘lucidity and its shadow side,'” he says. “That fascinated me — lucidity being a transparency of thought, and its opposite, a shadow or kind of opacity. … An odd dialectic where clarity and obscurity chase each other in endless circles.”

This idea informs the structure of the album’s seven tracks. Made with Italian drummer/producer Massimo Discepoli, An Eclipse of Images is often dream-like, with Barbiero’s articulate bass lines fading in and out of Discepoli’s ethereal backdrop of electronics and percussion.

But the relationship between obscurity and clarity was also used as a specific writing tool. With literally an ocean between them, Barbiero and Discepoli made the album entirely over the internet. Barbiero recalls that during the creation of one of the songs, Discepoli intentionally kept him in the dark about some of the structural elements.

“Massimo sent me a basic track that had a distinct cyclicality to it, but one I couldn’t quite work out precisely,” says Barbiero. “After I sent him my part I asked him what time signature it was, and he told me it was 17/8.”

The name of the song? “The Occulted Measure,” because “at the time I was playing it, the length of the measure was hidden from me,” Barbiero says. (Songs in 17/8 are rare.)

They spent months exchanging ideas and piecing the tracks together, aiming to capture an improvised feel. The results are remarkably comfortable, and the tracks often have a naturalistic ambience.

Barbiero, however, remains modest about the effort. “It was very easy, thanks to modern technology,” he says.

An Eclipse of Images is currently available through Discepoli’s label, Acustronica. But Barbiero is already moving forward on another project exploring abstract concepts through music. Reuniting with previous collaborator Cristiano Rocci, Barbiero is focusing on “atopias, or places that are no-places.”

“We’ll combine field recordings of public, more-or-less anonymous places like train stations and airports with composed and improvised music. I’ll play double bass and Cris will add electronics and six-string electric bass. I’m very excited about it.”

“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

Wolf, however, sees it in a more cathartic way.

“I thought of it as a long exhalation,” he says. “I do yoga and I got the sense that this is a Lion’s Breath: this is the sound, ‘ha,’ stretched out over a long period of time.”

“Haa” is taken from a 2015 live recording, capturing a cathartic section towards the end of a longer work. Wolf aims his attention at the essence of the transition itself. It’s a philosophy espoused by his hero, legendary German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

“His compositional method was understanding a piece as a group of forces, allowing those forces to have particular moments where they dominate, and then have them come back under and play a more supportive role,” says the resident of Arlington, Virginia, who is a regular collaborator with other local experimental acts and a member of post-rock band The Orchid.

“Haa” and On se lève were released in May through D.C. experimental label Verses Records. He paired the track with a video of surreal images like ghostly faces, growing frost and close-ups of blood vessels, appearing and reappearing along to the music.

The video was put together by fellow artist and Verses label head, Dennis Kane, who used the minimalist tautness of the music as visual inspiration.

“There’s this suspension of time and movement and yet, in the layering, there is this ebb and flow,” Kane writes in an email. “I used the women as shades of movement and the various microscopic images as a push and pull element — like the microtonal movements in the piece.”

That dream feels real to quirky D.C. pop duo The Galaxy Electric. The pair’s recent debut album, Everything Is Light And Sound, boasts a sweeping variety of mid-20th century synthesizers and recording techniques. Bassist/producer Augustus Green masterminds the robotic orchestra, playing sophisticated melodies punctuated by the bleeps and whooshes of various gadgets. Singer/keyboardist Jacqueline Caruso ties it all together with a mechanical sentimentality, like an android contemplating love.

The two describe their origins as if they were assembled in a factory.

“Our separate parts, combined together, made a greater whole,” the duo writes in an email, communicating as a single unit. “We fit. And we felt it. And it spurred us on to create together indefinitely.”

They explain their creative process in similar programming terms.

“It’s truly difficult to say whether an aspect of the songs are one person’s idea over the other,” the band writes. “It’s as though we are deciphering each song’s code from an invisible source and reverse-engineering them.”

The recording of Everything Is Light And Sound was mostly a painstaking DIY affair, the band says, but they also describe it as magical, and occasionally too exciting for their own good. For instance, the group tracked one of the songs after sneaking into a university multipurpose space.

“We didn’t know how long it would be before we got kicked out, so the pressure was on,” the band writes.

The Galaxy Electric complemented the album release with a video for closing track “Please Come Home Soon” (watch it above). Once again, they looked to old technology to make an artistic statement, shooting with 8mm film. The video features time-lapse footage of Maryland’s Wicomico River, where Green’s parents live. The camera distorts the images impressionistically in a tribute to French painter Claude Monet.

The video was Green’s personal project. Unlike his duo’s music, however, the process was far from exact.

“The thing is there is no viewfinder that shows you what you’re filming,” Green says. “I had to just guess — and to my surprise, it worked out.”

The Galaxy Electric plays July 11 at Galaxy Hut and July 22 at U Street Music Hall. 

D.C. musician Bill Crandall does not share that excitement.

“Are we really so irredeemable,” asks the Petworth resident, “that we are reduced to putting our hopes in a planet that offers literally nothing of what we need?”

The former guitarist in rock band Dot Dash addresses this question with his project Místochord (pronounced MEES-toe-chord). He recently released New World Voyage, a concept album about a fictional trip to Mars and the mental burden that comes with extreme uncertainty.

“I imagined what that would actually be like for the first people to leave Earth,” Crandall says. “Even those who took ships across oceans to past new worlds could assume they’d find air, water, food and a chance for basic Earth comforts where they were headed.”

New World Voyage begins its story with a crew’s departure into space. The group includes children and adults, and the songs explore their individual states of mind as their journey stretches on. Crandall, an award-winning photographer by day, pairs the album with a booklet of abstract images further illustrating the mix of anxiety and hope characterizing the trip.

The music consists of fleeting melodic phrases over a bed of minimal electronics. Crandall says the tracks represent what the crew would sing to themselves for entertainment, calling them “melancholic future folk songs set against the backdrop of the sounds of the ship and space.”

Crandall spent four years obsessively working on New World Voyage. “I had to learn Ableton, learn MIDI, relearn how to get the most out of my voice,” the musician says. “I really didn’t know what I was doing. It was terrifying, but I wouldn’t stop.”

It was upon meeting collaborator Sean Winters and producer Mike Fanuele that Crandall’s ideas took clearer shape. He hails Winters in particular as the album’s secret weapon.

“Sean’s work was so critical to the power and depth of the final result,” says Crandall. “I said, ‘I’m the crew with their hopes and fears, and you’re space, gamma rays, cosmic s**t-storms, mechanized environments, signal distorting and fading across vast distance. All I ask is that you let the crew live.'”

The music and art for New World Voyage are available for download through Místochord’s Bandcamp page. (Extremely limited physical copies, which include a print of his original cover art, go for $250 a pop.)

Crandall says the journey hasn’t reached its conclusion yet — he has already created enough music for a follow-up to his interplanetary migration tale.

The original version of this post inaccurately described the role played by Sean Winters in the making of New World Voyage. He was a collaborator, not a producer. 

The two D.C. artists, who have played together since 2014, recently debuted their first collaborative album, Gut+Voltage: Viola da Gamba and Electronics in Synthesis. The hybrid acoustic/electronic effort brings the viola da gamba out of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, thanks to Domingues, an established cellist who received a Master’s in viola da gamba performance from Baltimore’s Peabody Institute.

Via email, Domingues writes that the viola da gamba, which boasts frets and more strings than a cello, “has a similar range but an incredible resonance.”

Resonance is the driving force behind Gut+Voltage, which Domingues recorded with Kane, a multi-instrumentalist and audio engineer who also plays in Soccer Team and Red Spells Red. Kane imbues Domingues’ elegant viola da gamba lines with layers of loops and echoes. The resulting sound is vast, but melodious and welcoming.

Domingues traces her fascination with the viola da gamba to the 1991 French historical drama, Tous les Matins du Monde.

“It was a film starring Gérard Depardieu as the 17th century French composer/viol player Marin Marais and his volatile relationship with his teacher and the idea of music as either worldly or for oneself,” Domingues writes. “The film featured some of the most beautiful music written for the viola da gamba, performed by Jordi Savall. It made a huge impression on me.”

Domingues and Kane set out to make an improvised record, which meant they had to become closely attuned to each other’s musical instincts. “I like to record everything and fish for the best bits and the happy accidents,” Kane emails.

“The writing was very organic — face to face, in the same room.”

The two musicians met through Kane’s former gig as a sound tech at D.C. venue Black Cat. Domingues, who is classically trained, has served as a go-to cellist in the local indie-rock scene since the ‘90s. She’s played with Fugazi, Dead Meadow and Mary Timony — among others — and led her own band, Garland of Hours.

But Gut+Voltage offered Domingues a chance to expand her repertoire.

“After spending about 20 years playing cello in bands,” Domingues writes, “I wanted to try something different.”

Domingues and Kane perform May 13 at noon at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown D.C.