That could be the motto of DZ Tapes, the D.C.-based record label Isaacoff started in 2011. At the time, he had decided that simply running a music blog — the now-defunct DAYVAN ZOMBEAR — wasn’t enough. He wanted to take it to the next level. And this Saturday the digital-and-tape imprint celebrates its fifth anniversary with a marathon show at local DIY venue Hole In The Sky.

Brett Isaacoff of DZ Tapes (photo: Julia Leiby)

How did DZ Tapes get here? Back in Isaacoff’s blogging days, he says, he kept receiving great submissions from indie artists — “so much so that I really want[ed] to find a way to share the work that was coming around my e-desk,” the D.C. resident says. “So I figured I might as well put out a mixtape.” He launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to put out a compilation. The label followed in its wake.

Now DZ Tapes has several cassettes under its belt, featuring both artists from here and elsewhere. It focuses on bands bringing new energy to D.C. and Baltimore’s underground rock scenes — label alumni include shoegazers Wildhoney and Big Hush, punks Hemlines and the fuzzy Nice Breeze, among others.

Sustaining any project for half a decade is no easy feat — perhaps doubly so considering the volatility of the music industry. But Isaacoff has figured out the formula: keep your expectations low and your planning short-term.

“It’s as hard as you want to make it, really,” Isaacoff says. “I’m just trying to have fun and enjoy myself and help people out.” By booking shows and working with interesting bands, he aims to give back to the scene that gave him — an avid showgoer himself — so much.

Hemlines “All Your Homes,” released on DZ Tapes

Keeping his day job as a business analyst at a solar startup has helped grease the gears at DZ Tapes. “If I could make money off of [the label] I would, but it’s not something that I want to really force,” Isaacoff says. “I feel like blending the lines between quote-unquote business and pleasure might get a little messy.”

A steady path is as good a marker of success as any, though there have been certain high points — like when Rolling Stone published a piece about Speedy Ortiz right before they were to play D.C. house venue The Dougout, a show he booked. “Filled to capacity” isn’t quite the correct phrase for it — the 70-capacity venue was overflowing. “It was an extreme fire hazard, looking back on it,” Isaacoff says.

DZ Tapes’ future remains both certain and up in the air. There’s this weekend’s anniversary show — “It’s gonna be a banger,” promises Isaacoff — and a few more releases slated for the rest of 2016. But for the future-future? Isaacoff isn’t interested in pressuring himself. DZ Tapes is going “wherever it wants to go, really,” Isaacoff says.

DZ Tapes celebrates its fifth anniversary July 9 at Hole in the Sky. 

But Flasher isn’t trying to sound retro. In fact, the group hasn’t settled on a particular vibe yet, says bassist and co-vocalist Danny Saperstein.

Released April 8, Flasher’s debut EP “is exciting because it does feel a little all over the place, a little scattered,” says Saperstein (of Bless and Trouble). “That’s probably a product of us still figuring out our sound.”

This chaos is only sonic. Turns out, Flasher is a kind of fated trio.

“We’ve been best friends for a really long time,” says guitarist Taylor Mulitz (of Priests and Young Trynas). “We all work together, [drummer] Emma [Baker] and I live together.” Plus, “Danny’s at the house a lot,” Baker says.

That closeness translated well to Flasher. “Luckily, all of us have a really easy time doing music with each other, which I think is really kind of rare,” says Mulitz. “There’s just something about doing it naturally and never feeling stressful trying to write a song.”

Why another band, though?

“The two bands that I play in do such different stuff that it fulfills completely different things for me — even though I’m playing the same instrument… it feels completely different,” says Baker, who also plays in Big Hush. “It’s really helped me progress. If I was missing one of them, I wouldn’t be the same drummer that I am.”

While the three have basically been Flasher since the first time Saperstein joined Mulitz and Baker onstage — in August 2015 — the band is an infant at best. That’s made clear by something that, in 2016, seems uncommon.

“Up until a week ago,” Mulitz says, “we had no Internet presence whatsoever.”

Flasher plays April 16 at Bathtub Republic and June 3 at Black Cat. The band’s debut EP is out now on Sister Polygon Records.

Inspired by Sylvia Plath, Big Hush is both an oxymoronic and perfect moniker for the D.C. rock band. Fans of shoegaze titans My Bloody Valentine, Big Hush combines reverb and slushy guitars with droney, manipulated vocals, bringing together the quiet and loud.

That dichotomy is still in place on the band’s new EP, Who’s Smoking Your Spirit? (stream the EP below), but now the group is broadening its range.

“Who’s Smoking Your Spirit? is darker than our earlier stuff. Also a lot faster,” writes guitarist Owen Wuerker in an email. “Our songs have almost always had some melancholy in them, but these new ones are meaner, more anxious.”

The EP’s five tracks, which merge together like ingredients in a murky stew, sound like an updated version of the Dublin band that pioneered the dreamy rock sound of the ‘90s.

“In general we’re into combining nuanced vocal harmonies with big, messy guitars,” Wuerker writes. “I love My Bloody Valentine, especially the stuff they did before [1991 album] Loveless. I like to think we sound like that sometimes.”

But despite its European influences, Big Hush has put down roots in D.C.: Seventy-five percent of the group works on the same stretch of Connecticut Avenue NW. Wuerker works at Comet Ping Pong; guitarist Gen Ludwig and drummer Emma Baker work at Buck’s Fishing & Camping next door.

Big Hush began to form when Ludwig and Wuerker, acquaintances from high school, began writing songs together in 2013. When Ludwig began dating Chris Taylor, she played him some of the songs she’d written with Wuerker, and Taylor quickly volunteered to join on bass. After a couple of personnel changes, Baker eventually took over drums.

The group shares songwriting like they share vocals. No individual wrote more than two songs on the new EP, Wuerker writes. “Sometimes one of us has a clear idea of exactly how a song should sound and that’s that. Sometimes we have no clue. Usually we all get together and work through it.”

The band recorded everything on reel-to-reel with local musician Andy Aylward. “After that I transferred the tracks to my computer and spent months mixing them — at home, in cafés and bars, in the parking lot outside work, while driving sometimes,” writes Wuerker. “The longer I spent on them the more excited I got about using weirder production tricks and pushing the songs outside realm of capturing the way we sound live.”

That’s why the songs will sound different in performance, and that’s OK with Wuerker. Some of the EP’s songs “got so deconstructed that there’s no way we could reproduce the recordings at a show, unless we decided to use laptops on stage or something,” he writes.

Big Hush fêtes Who’s Smoking Your Spirit? tonight at Black Cat — and while the band’s live show won’t reproduce the EP, the audience should expect a performance with its own experimental flair.

“I’m gonna play guitar through two amps,” Wuerker writes. “On a good night, I hear things in our songs that no one is actually playing.”

Big Hush plays an EP release show tonight at Black Cat. Who’s Smoking Your Spirit? is out Dec. 1 on DZ Tapes.

It’s been a process, according to guitarist and vocalist Owen Wuerker, 25. “First we had a ’90s alt-rock thing, then a shoegazey winter period, and then for the biggest chunk of time we didn’t have a drummer,” he says. “And now we’re kind of reapproaching being loud.”

After playing a number of acoustic sets, the Petworth-based group—now with drummer Emma Baker—has found that shift a little tricky. “Playing acoustic, you’re trying to get the most out of your voice and your instrument,” says Genevieve Ludwig, 24, who also sings and plays guitar. “And then switching to playing loud, it’s more a game of trying to be restrained, trying to figure out levels.”

Yet Wuerker believes that its new cassette EP, Wholes, is the group’s most “honest” work to date. He calls it “an actual representation of what we sound like live.” Its title track is its most articulate, even while its vocals sound like sighs. As Ludwig’s feathery voice hangs in the air, Wuerker and guitarist Sean Borja go back and forth on guitars in a call-and-response. The bass, played by Chris Taylor, sounds like it’s leading us down a rabbit hole. Taylor jokes that a friend once called Big Hush’s music “Beach Boys on acid.”

If it is, it sounds like a heavy trip: The lyrics of “Whole” dwell on death, the search for identity and remaining whole in a world that wants to pull you apart (“Don’t try to be whole,” go the lyrics). “It has a kind of morbid meaning,” Ludwig says. “We had a number of young friends die over the years. It just became something that we’re used to—this [crappy] circumstance—and the song was born out of the idea of losing your ground.”

On the other side of the coin, “Wholes” celebrates the self. It’s not Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” but the track ultimately encourages acceptance. “It’s making you think about not trying to be perfect, that no one is a perfect circle,” Ludwig says. “Everyone is just what they are.”

Big Hush plays an EP release show Nov. 22 at Babe City.

Redline Graffiti
Friday, May 9 at the Hill Center, $10 to $15

Washington Post pop-music critic Chris Richards has an ongoing series at the Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital called District Sounds, featuring an interview and performance with a local band. May’s installment features electro-rock quartet Redline Graffiti, a chillwave-influenced electronica project that just released a new EP, The Drill. (Catherine P. Lewis)

The Haxan Cloak
Friday, May 9 at U Street Music Hall, $15

I don’t tend to associate Friday nights with cavernous dronescapes, but that’s what’s in store for attendees at tomorrow night’s Haxan Cloak show at U Street Music Hall. U.K.-based artist Bobby Krlic is behind the moniker, and last year released Excavation, the latest LP from his blackened drone project. There’s little glee to be found on the record; on the contrary, it produces an enveloping feeling of loss and helplessness, with moments of heinous beauty. In the right state of mind, The Haxan Cloak can be, somehow, cleansing. (Ally Schweitzer)

Side Yards at the Yards: U.S. Royalty, Shark Week, Drop Electric
Saturday, May 10 at the Yards, free

Sometimes music alone isn’t enough, and the evening party Side Yards at the Yards has you covered: In addition to the Bluejacket beer garden, there will be three stages of sideshow performers, from contortionists and jugglers to fire breathers and sword swallowers. If all that is too boring, then there are still three local rock bands performing: U.S. Royalty, Shark Week and Drop Electric. (CPL)

Protect-U, Peaking Lights Sound System, Maxmillion Dunbar
Saturday, May 10 at Comet Ping Pong, $12

I won’t write anything fawning about two of the acts on this bill—having been friends with them for years—but I will say that this is a record-release show for (my pals) Protect-U, a local electronic duo that tends to play partially improvised, exploratory sets with an ear for abstract house and techno. Joining them is DJ and producer Maxmillion Dunbar (another pal), as well as (not a pal) Aaron Coyes from the great dubby twosome Peaking Lights, whose gorgeous song “Beautiful Son” (from 2012’s Lucifer) still ranks among the best of label Mexican Summer. (AS)

Young Rapids, Big Hush, The Sea Life, The Effects
Saturday, May 10 at Rock & Roll Hotel, $12

D.C. alt-rock band Young Rapids has been a staple of the local music scene for the past few years, performing all around town at venues ranging from the Paperhaus and the Dunes to Comet Ping Pong and the 9:30 Club. But this will be that group’s final show. For this finale, they’ve put together a solid lineup of other great local rock: Big Hush, The Sea Life, and the debut of The Effects (featuring Devin Ocampo from Medications, Matt Dowling from Deleted Scenes and David Rich from Buildings). (CPL)

Cognitive, Palkoski, Existentium
Sunday, May 11 at the Lab, $8 to $10

If you’re taking your mom out to celebrate Mother’s Day, it should probably not be to this show, unless she’s a big death-metal fan: Cognitive is a relatively new tech-death-metal band from New Jersey with a new full-length album out this year. They’ll be joined by two solid locals: grindcore band Palkoski and Baltimore death metal band Existentium. Bring earplugs, but leave the booze at home—the Lab is a dry DIY space. (CPL)

Maimouna Youssef
Wednesday, May 14 at Howard Theatre, $13 to $17.50

Local singer and rapper Maimouna Youssef has been on a roll lately, flipping radio-pop tunes into sharp social commentary. Her new track “Student Loans”—premiered today on this website—transforms Rihanna’s far-from-transgressive hit “Pour It Up” into a critical track about crushing debt. Her new project comes out next Tuesday, and the following night, she plays a release show at Howard Theatre. (AS)

Listen to “Student Loans” here.

Amen Dunes and Amos Piper
Wednesday, May 14 at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, $10 to $12

There’s a lot to love on Love, the forthcoming album (now streaming at Pitchfork) from psych-folk artist Amen Dunes (Damon McMahon). My favorite cut is “Lilac In Hand,” a simple, hypnotic tune from the experiment-prone songwriter who almost quit making music entirely. Give it a listen and you may be thankful he didn’t put down his guitar. (AS)

These and other show listings can be found on ShowListDC.