Fields Burning – The Light On The Water
Jon Lanou – Minneapolis
Incredible Change – Pleasure Cruise
June Gloom – get free
Smoke Bellow – Middling 1
Little Hunts – Refractory
Terrill Mast – See You Around the Moon
Paul Swartzel – My Father Knew Colonel Sanders
Steiner – Twisted and Broken
Shortstack – Though I Turn Grey
airøspace – Bloody Rose (prod. Ichiro_)
Michael Preston – Changes Made
Troy and Paula Haag – Virginia
Jon Camp – Christian, This World Is Yours
Aaron Agre – Lion of Fallujah
Redline Graffiti – Junior June
Sunwolf – Let It Out (instrumental)
Kid Claws – Link
FAR EXP – Write to Brag [Ardamus, RNL, Fleetwood – prod. by Vintage]
Sri Rama – Dendeliens

So Principato added his friend/schoolmate/roommate Jesse Paller (who is also in June Gloom) on drums. They played the track as a duo for some time, even entering it into an NPR Tiny Desk Contest. Still the audience feedback was the same: Make it even bigger. Principato describes the public reaction: “‘OK, this is cool [but] is there more? Like, what is this?’”

The duo Boon added more personnel — Drew Sher on guitar and keyboard, and a rotating cast of bassists. Principato guesses that “Hunger” went through about six or seven iterations (though just two recorded versions) to get to where it is today — a shimmering track that soars and dips through four minutes of deep interpersonal analysis that belies its emphatic vocals.

When describing the meaning of the song, Principato turns meditative.

“The hunger that the song is talking about is just sort of like, people have hunger for things emotionally, and there’s many roles that you play in different relationships,” Principato says. “And it’s sort of like, how much of it is real, and how much of it is something you’re doing to adapt to a situation?”

Putting the meaning into words is somewhat tough for Principato. “The main thing I think it talks about, and the reason why I think it’s confusing for me to talk about, is because it’s a confusion,” he says. It’s about parsing out needs from relationships both romantic and platonic. And it’s definitely not about one person in particular — Principato explains that whenever a song is about “a person” it’s really probably more about up to three people, sometimes including himself.

Principato’s clearly working through some stuff here, but that doesn’t mean all his inspiration came from within.

“A lot of the lyrics I sort of drew from weird places. There’s a line in the song that’s, ‘Are you sleeping or not talkative?’ And I remember as I was writing the song, a few years ago, I was at this bar and I just saw this guy texting this to someone and it struck me as this really weird, sad text message [and] my brain then assumed that whoever he’s talking to had no interest in talking to him and he was looking for a reason why, when maybe there wasn’t one,” he says. “I think that’s a big theme that runs throughout the album — and also this song is an acceptance of something, adapting to reality, even if it’s kinda sh***y.”

The album to which he is referring is the 10-track There’s No Saving This House, made at his and Paller’s shared home (Kokomo Studios) and mixed by Rusty Santos (who has also worked with Animal Collective and Prince Rama, among others). The album is finished, though there is no release plan just yet — the band is looking for someone to put it out.

Though Kokomo Studios sounds amazing to hear Principato describe it — the band recorded different parts of songs in different rooms throughout the house, including the attic and the bathroom — it’s really in the band’s past. Principato and Paller are transplanting themselves to New York City; by the time you read this, they’ll have left D.C.

Principato says this isn’t the last D.C. will hear from Boon, however. He gives the kind of promise one can expect from a newish band and a recent college grad: “We’ll be around, though. I think.”

Sam Phillips – Differences
Tom Espinola – Gold Rush / Cherokee Shuffle
Alex Byrd – Jamais Vu
Wytold – Move On
Aaron Agre – Know-Say
Body Thief – Twin Flames
Mark Meadows – Know NowThe Rail Runners – The Takeback
June Gloom – dealer
Memphis Gold – Serves Me Right
Otis Infrastructure – Tearerdowner
The Soul Searchers – If It Ain’t Funky
Tideland – Desolate
Le Loup – Morning Song
B Side Shuffle – Gauntlet
Waltz Brigade – Strange Names
Mary Chapin Carpenter – Willie Short
Beach House – Lover of Mine
M.H. & His Orchestra – Cobblestone
Louis Weeks – Clementine

Redline Graffiti – Beauty Mark 1
Elijah Jamal Balbed – What Matters Most
Griefloss – Void
Lands – Down By the Riverside
Drop Electric – Waking Up to the Fire
Fulton Lights – Breathe In, Breathe Out
Astronaut Jones – Turkey Grease
Justin Jones – Christmas Night
Bossalingo – Django
Anchor 3 – False Start
The Greatest Hoax – Opus no. 18
Dr Neanderthal – Introduction
Sunwolf – Big Feelings (Instrumental)
The Dwindlers – Pickering’s Hyla
Atoms Apart – Turnaround
Fellow Creatures – Expectations
Sri Rama – Beastles
The Grey A – In Remembrance
June Gloom – Get Free
Cheick Hamala Diabate – Fatou (Sol Power Remix)

Elijah Jamal Balbed – Butch Warren
Sneaks – X.T.Y
Astronaut Jones – Farther
FAR EXP – Get On Your Grind
Golden Looks – Hey Say
East Ghost – Jericho
Bossalingo – Round Midnight
Carni Klirs – A Respite Amongst the Palms
Five State Drive – Dry Clean Express
Soundtrack to Sleep – All We Do Is Talk
Sleeves Off a Vest – Number 9
Medications – Kilometers and Smiles
Hailu Mergia and the Walias – Muziqawi Silt
Philip Lassiter – Liquid in Love
Cigarbox Planetarium – Memory Loop
June Gloom – Dealer
Sri Rama – Refreshing
Lifted – Medicated Yoga
The Dwindlers – Pale Blue Dress
Aerialist – Proteus

“It was about the dissonance of knowing somebody’s online persona and knowing them in real life,” says Jesse Paller, the brains behind June Gloom. “When you see how developed and curated somebody’s online persona is, it sort of comes at the expense of what they’re really like.”

Paller wrote the track about two years ago, when this phenomenon was less commonplace than it is now.

“I don’t even think about this stuff pretty much anymore because I feel like that concern has totally blown out,” says Paller, 23. “Everybody has an online persona and it’s just part of life, I guess. But at the time it was kind of jarring for me.”

Coming of age in a time when people are more likely to meet on social media before they rendezvous in person inspired Paller, too.

“I think it has something to do with transitioning from high school to college,” the songwriter says, “and getting all the friends I’ve known for my whole life replaced with people who I just met and didn’t think were interesting but had crazy Facebook presences.”

“URL” — from June Gloom’s forthcoming album, Fake Problems — swells and dips, with enveloping guitars and Paller’s slightly bummed-out intonation. An L.A native, Paller felt drawn to the twang and reverb of surf music, but the musician puts his own moody spin on it. He calls his style “sad surf.” It’s about “being chill but also being sad,” he says with a laugh.

While this song in particular was inspired by the band Speedy Ortiz, he credits another gloomy songwriter for helping him find his style: the late Elliott Smith.

“It’s impossible to shake Elliott Smith out of my songwriting at this point,” Paller says. “I just gave so many years of my life away listening to [him].”

Fittingly, the band name is stolen from a weather phenomenon that is a total bummer — a sheet of drowsy fog that seems to hang around the L.A. region for weeks in late spring and early summer.

“In high school it always got me — we were so excited to finally be done with school and then there’s a few weeks of just fog,” Paller says. “Which doesn’t make any sense, because the rest of the year is sunny.”

The musician remembers being home in Southern California for summer breaks and feeling morose — from fresh heartbreak, weird weather, the works — and going for drives. Those drives were beautiful, encompassing both beaches and mountains. Paller says his music is made for similar excursions: “That’s the ideal listening situation, I think.”

While there isn’t exactly a comparable scenic drive here in the mid-Atlantic, Paller says his “sad surf” could have a transporting effect. “Hopefully the music can take you there,” he says.

June Gloom’s Fake Problems is out July 15 on Funeral Sounds. June Gloom plays June 24 at Kokomo and July 20 at Songbyrd.