Playlist: All The Music You Need To Hear In D.C. June 30 to July 6

Ally Schweitzer — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 14:58:50 +0000

Sound Advice is Bandwidth’s weekly playlist of artists we think you should catch in D.C. this week.

This week’s Sound Advice playlist starts with feedback and ends with a throwback: fuzzy Vancouver band Weed (July 3 at Rock & Roll Hotel) starts us off, and we close with a classic from UGK, the Port Arthur, Texas, duo that launched rapper Bun B (who’s at Echostage July 3) into the upper crust of hip-hop’s Southern underground.

In between, we’re all over the map from Gaithersburg to Nairobi to Hangzhou: MoCo hip-hop star Logic plays a hometown show tomorrow night, and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (see our photos) wraps this weekend after some must-see performances from Kenyan and Chinese artists including pipa virtuoso Wu Man.

Hear them all in our playlist, below.

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Track Work: GEMS, “Scars”

Ally Schweitzer — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 16:07:30 +0000

Last year, dream-pop duo GEMS released what I consider D.C.’s best pop recording of 2013, the shimmering and sad Medusa EP. Since then, the nomadic pair (Lindsay Pitts and Cliff Usher) have been nailing down tour dates, posting moody Instagram photos and—most exciting of all—preparing what will either be an LP or an EP, due out sometime in 2015.

Last night the band premiered a song from that in-progress release. It’s called “Scars,” and it’s got all of the beautiful, delicate elements of what has become GEMS’ signature sound.

The band begins a short tour with Hundred Waters on June 22. No D.C. dates have been announced yet.

Hundred Waters – Bandwidth

Playlist: All The Music You Need To Hear In D.C. June 30 to July 6

Track Work: GEMS, “Scars”