Kino Musica – Yèkèrmo Sèw
David King – Exmemory
Ace Cosgrove – Reality (Prod. by Dirty Chocolate)
Daniel Bachman – Levee
Jacob Gemmell – The Battle
Higher Hands – U-Turn
The Soul Searchers – If It Ain’t Funky
Projekt Eins – Sentient Sedition
Rumpole – Cool Day
Demetrius Zozul – Island
Jason Ward – sorry i cant come home
John W. Warren – Nana da Lua
Abu Jibran – My Triangle
Stephen Robey – Charlotte’s Song
Hailu Mergia – Shilela
Joey and the Waitress – Mother May I
Seth Kibel – Your Mileage May Vary
Aquarium – Credits
Martyn – Fashion Skater
The Torches – Wish You Well

Between Sept. 26 and 27, 42 bands played across five stages in the relatively secluded West Potomac Park along the banks of the Potomac River. Ten percent of the event’s proceeds benefited the Trust for the National Mall, the nonprofit set up to preserve and restore the federal land called America’s front lawn. With more than $750 million in backlogged repair work needed — and 39 years since the park’s last major renovation — the National Mall could use the help.

But the festival didn’t escape criticism in the lead-up to last weekend: a Washington Post article raised questions about whether public land should be given over to a private commercial event, particularly one with VIP tickets in the thousands of dollars. Not that the controversy appeared to dampen the spirits of 20-somethings who forked over their wages to see headliner Drake and the fireworks he brought with him Saturday night. (The Canadian emcee was one act Bandwidth didn’t get a chance to photograph; he only approved a handful of media outlets. See images at the Post or Fuse.)

Those with plebeian-level tickets (from $105 to $175) experienced a smoothly running festival — notable for any major concert’s inaugural year — with bands running largely on schedule both days. Attendees wandered freely between the stages to catch their favorite acts, with conflicts seemingly kept to a minimum, with only two or three bands playing at any given time.

But the vending operation was another matter. If Landmark returns for another year, it will need to get its food and beverage service in line. Food stands from local restaurants offered tasty variety, and there was plenty of beer to go around — but lines became unbearable Saturday as the day went on. Other reviews mention difficult parking, scarce toilet paper and sound bleed between stages.

Below, what Bandwidth spotted at Landmark Music Festival — in alphabetical order, and without the long lines.

All photos by Matt Condon

Ace Cosgrove

Albert Hammond Jr.

alt-J

Avers

Ben Howard

Chromeo

Chvrches

Empresarios

Ex Hex

Hiss Golden Messenger

Manchester Orchestra

Miguel

Rhiannon Giddens

The Joy Formidable

The London Souls

The Strokes

The War On Drugs

Twin Shadow

U.S. Royalty

Vandaveer

Wale

It’s a sentiment echoed throughout the album’s nine tracks as Cosgrove interrogates both himself and his environment. On “Freddies Dead,” he refers to the death of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray and the protests that followed; on final track “Need Somebody,” he’s talking about the death of his love life.

Baby Need Food is produced by Robbie Anthem, who is based in upstate New York; the two never met face-to-face as they worked on the album. While working with a single producer can add up to a more cohesive sound, on this project it saps some of the range and intangible extra magic Cosgrove achieved on 2014’s UsVsRobots, which was produced, in part, by fellow DMVers Black Diamond, Royal and i.V.

Warning: Explicit lyrics.

Still, Anthem’s classic style meshes well with Cosgrove and lends a space to new sounds: Drums and basslines are right up front and, on “Black/Flawless,” a saxophone stands out. That richer sound bodes well for Cosgrove’s performance Sunday at the Landmark Music Festival — where the emcee plans to perform with a live band.

Ace Cosgrove performs Sept. 27 at the Landmark Music Festival in D.C.

That’s what I asked Bandwidth’s contributors to help me do last month. Our writers sent me their picks for their favorite D.C. music of 2015 thus far, and the result was this extremely awesome playlist (stream it below).

One limitation, though: I had to pick songs that have been uploaded to Soundcloud. As it turns out, not everybody puts their music on the service. A lot of rock and punk bands, in particular, use Bandcamp, and some artists — for reasons my under-30 brain is still struggling to understand — don’t even put their songs on the Internet for free.

So this playlist still isn’t as exhaustive as I wanted it to be, but it’s still pretty freaking great. Give it a listen on your computer or chosen mobile device, and be sure to chide us in the comments, on Twitter or via email for missing your favorite D.C. music of the year. (Seriously! Send me your nominations — we want to hear it all.)

For more coverage of D.C. music, follow Bandwidth’s Track Work series.

Warning: Explicit lyrics.

Image, clockwise from top left: April + VISTA, Kali Uchis, Young Rapids (partial image), Ras Nebyu, Prinze George (partial image), Visto.

In Cosgrove’s new video — helmed by “Golden Chills” directors Guru Media Group — he takes to D.C.’s streets during the demonstrations that followed a jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who killed unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer.

“[It] was crazy. I’ve never seen a group of people so calmly angry at the world,” Cosgrove writes via email. “They were expressing their anger, but in a peaceful manner. The protests opened my eyes more and gave me a better understanding.”

Armed with his music and firsthand experiences with the police, Cosgrove says he hopes his work will serve as inspiration for listeners — and maybe help him extricate himself from oppressive conditions he faces.

“I’ve had run-ins with crooked-ass cops, luckily not to the same extreme,” writes the rapper. “The system is always going to be f****d. That’s why I make the music I make. I want to get me and my people set up so we don’t even have to be affected by the system, if that’s at all possible.”

As protestors chant, “It is our duty to fight. We must love each other and protect each other,” the video shows Cosgrove standing in solidarity with the crowd before taking a place on the ground during a die-in. It’s the kind of imagery that shows glimmers of hope, while also serving as a stark reminder of the risk he faces simply by living in his skin.

Some of this year’s most unforgettable local songs didn’t come from comfortable experiences. They sounded fed up, and particularly urgent in a year marked by growing inequity at home and multiple slayings by police in places that didn’t feel far away.

In one of the year’s rawest rock songs, Thaylobleu cranked up its guitars to tell a personal story of police harassment. Chain and the Gang and Jack On Fire assailed gentrification with wit and hyperbole. Punk band Priests declared everything right wing. Two remarkable hip-hop works channeled frustration and fatalism among young black Americans: Diamond District’s Oddisee cried, “What’s a black supposed to do — sell some crack and entertain?”, while Virginia MC GoldLink rapped about all the glorious things he imagines happening to him — when he dies.

Not that peace and love felt impossible in 2014: In a touching song released two years after his death, Chuck Brown sang of a “beautiful life” enriched by the warmth of community. Promising newcomer Kali Uchis made us kick back with a soulful number steeped in giddy infatuation. Experimentation thrived in D.C. music: Young artists built on the region’s strong punk pedigree and expanded its boundaries. Mary Timony’s band Ex Hex embraced a classic sound and made one of the country’s best rock ‘n’ roll records. Local bands with shorter but distinctive resumes — like Laughing Man, Two Inch Astronaut and Deleted Scenes — sounded better and more creative than ever before. A Sound of Thunder and Gloom reminded us that the D.C. area is still a reliable producer of top-notch metal.

As expected, Bandwidth contributors faced hard choices while making this list of the year’s best local songs, and not only because it’s our first one. Up until deadline, we were still hearing new D.C. songs we wanted to include. But in a place where mounting wealth has created a challenging environment for art, that’s not a problem, really. It’s a testament to a music scene that perseveres despite long odds. —Ally Schweitzer

Warning: Many of these songs contain explicit lyrics.

At least that’s what it looks like. Shooting hoops, smoking weed, typing on an iPhone and chasing a Ride On bus: That’s what we see Cosgrove doing in the deceptively carefree video directed by Guru MG. Listen to the lyrics, and a sadder tale rises to the surface. The skinny rapper (real name Adrian Eskridge) says he’s depressed, broke and concerned about his grandma. To make matters worse, he’s facing a shadowy foe: his own mind. “I’m battling myself,” Cosgrove raps. “I’m my worst enemy.”

In our recent chat with the MoCo MC, Cosgrove said he’s normally more reserved, but he vents on his tracks. “I’m horrible at opening up to people face-to-face, but I’m a great person for others to vent to, [and] when I make a song, I’m doing the venting.”

Meanwhile, it’s clear the MC hasn’t lost touch with his inner kid. Asked by a writer at Karmaloop to describe himself, he had this to say: “Ace Cosgrove doesn’t sound like anybody, he’s his own person, he loves pizza.”

Ace Cosgrove performs Nov. 14 with BADBADNOTGOOD at American University.

“We were staying in a small apartment, and I was starting to overstay my welcome,” writes the 23-year-old Gaithersburg native in an email. “That’s how I came up with the whole idea [of] ‘We don’t need water/Let the whole slums burn.'”

Ace Cosgrove

Like many artists before him, Ace (real name Adrian Eskridge) says he uses music as an opportunity to show a side of himself he doesn’t tend to unmask in day-to-day life. “I balance out being upbeat in person and cheerful but very serious…. on songs, simply because music allows me to vent,” he writes. “I’m horrible at opening up to people face-to-face, but I’m a great person for others to vent to, [and] when I make a song, I’m doing the venting.”

“Burning Slums” demonstrates as much. The rapper’s lyrics peer into the darkness that surrounded him during those days living with his aunt. “[I was] just hella mad at the world at the time, clearly,” he writes.

On UsvsRobots, Cosgrove runs his finger along a spectrum of golden-age hip hop, futuristic EDM and bass-driven trap sounds. To flesh out the project, he called on an array of producers, including fellow Marylanders i.V. and Royal as well as Black Diamond, one of Cosgrove’s collaborators in the Hostile Youth hip-hop collective. The motif of the mixtape is raging against monotony and machines of all kinds—the inspiration for the name UsvsRobots.

“With all the [stuff] that I’ve been through—all the going house from house, the burnt bridges… homies having kids while they’re still a kid… homies [with the] potential to be great now working at a dead-end job [or] going to college for four years then coming out in debt—I look at it like, either I can keep working at a dead-end job… like a robot,” Cosgrove writes, “or [I can] go as hard as I can go with my craft.”

He hopes his work might help encourage people experiencing circumstances like his own. “I tried to make a project [that] you can play the entire thing,” he writes, “and feel motivated to do whatever you want to do in life.”