Meet 11 top flourishing talents in the U.S. music industry—from a fresh crop of indie musicians to a seasoned journalist launching her own platform, these are the people to know now.
What does the underground pop scene sound like in the U.S. right now? It’s truly a mixed bag, the most exciting mishmash ever. There are dreamy drum fills exploring a modern take on jazz (Luke Titus) and retro-alt indie vibes courtesy of girlpuppy. Sonic no-wave punk breaks are coming out of Brooklyn thanks to Gustaf, while jittery techno beats are being served by Detroit-bred HiTech. And the esteemed journalist and music critic Julianne Escobedo Shepherd is covering all of it—documenting the different pockets of musical wonder for a broad spectrum of publications, including her own, the newly launched Hearing Things. Choose your sonic adventure.
PHOTOGRAPH: ALEX FREE
HITECH
Instagram: @hitechdetroit
HiTech comprises producers Milf Melly, King Milo, and 47Chops. “Technically, we met at Cedar Point, the amusement park [near Detroit],” King Milo says. “It’s a lot of rollercoasters and long lines.” Well known as the home of techno, the city is a pivotal cog in their wheels, forming the underpinnings of their uniquely horny rap-ghettotech. “I almost shit myself that day,” Milf Melly says, referencing his ride on Top Thrill 2, one of the world’s tallest and fastest rollercoasters.
The band starts each track by logging onto Ableton, pulling up a synth, and thinking about how they feel. “You can start with a kick, which is the base of the jit rhythm, but we will play with shit, samples, and cuts,” 47Chops says. The process is thoroughly collabora- tive. “I don’t have a favorite sampler,” he continues. “But I like old equipment, unusual stuff.” The trio al- ways wanted to be musicians and describe themselves as “guys who make techno from Detroit, who are just real chill.” But what excites them is that techno is re- turning “right now,” King Milo says. “But that’s not why we make it—we want to make something differ- ent. It’s not traditional street music. We make music.”
PHOTOGRAPH: JET DUPONT
LUKE TITUS
Instagram: @luketitus_
The Chicago-bornmulti-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter Luke Titus is based in LA, which has been a fitting environment for his cosmically dreamy, often drum-based, psychedelic pop music. Having collabo- rated with Ravyn Lenae, Noname, and Cisco Swank, Titus feeds off the audience when he plays live.“There’s nothing like it,” he says, going on to describe his music as “some type of cross between alternative music, jazz, and indie. Hopefully music that can make one think about past, present, and future.” When he was growing up, the drummers Elvin Jones, Questlove, Mark Guiliana, and Chris Dave were his biggest inspirations. There’s a tour in the pipeline and he’s excited about the music coming out of the jazz-leaning underground scene in LA. “I love all of the shows that Minaret Records puts on—it spans various genres and includes community- organized concerts.”
PHOTOGRAPH: BENJAMIN VAN LIEROP
FAUX REAL
Instagram: @isthisfauxreal
The Franco-American brothers Virgile and Elliott Arndt are Faux Real. They learned to love jingles from their dad—“He used to make them up all the time,” they say. As Faux Real, they have turned their passion for a wonky bop into scene-stealing live performances that often involve highly rehearsed choreography in crop tops. Their debut album, Faux Ever, was released last year and is a campy, synthy, bloopy glam number, although they describe it as an “11-piece symphony for head-banging and longing.” The duo took a new version of their high-octane live show, Faux Show, on the road earlier this year.
PHOTOGRAPH: AYOMIDE TEJUOSO
ANNAHSTASIA
Instagram: @annahstasia
Annahstasia’s gateway to music came from Bill Withers and Nina Simone. “I started covering their songs and from there I just kept going,” says the LA native, whose modern spin on dreamy, guitar-driven folk first caught the attention of the music industry 10 years ago. Her debut album, Tether, is set to be released soon and, so far, her career highlights include getting to tour “spa- ciously” and “make being a rolling stone as fun as it can be.” Annahstasia uses things that bring her joy or are a form of catharsis as the seeds of her songwrit- ing process. “Time is important,” she says. “I can keep watering the idea, trying to remain true to my words. You don’t have to have had a lot of life years under your belt. Remaining open to the full onslaught of emo- tion is enough.”
PHOTOGRAPH: RAINER HOSCH. CREATIVE DIRECTION AND STYLING: KO AKA KOALA
KO AKA KOALA
Instagram: @koakakoala
“Stop overthinking, stop apologizing, and do what you have always wanted to do,” says ko aka koala, the LA- based electro-alt pop artist who dropped a stream of singles throughout 2024, including the hypnotic CPR in December. “I’m a typical Taurus,” says the artist, who has Sour Patch Kids on her rider and “always knew” that she wanted to make music. Describing her live shows as high energy and immersive, she likes to keep things unexpected, to the point where she doesn’t even know what will happen next. “On stage I let go and in the studio I experiment and create in peace.”
PHOTOGRAPH: TONJE THILESEN
GIRLPUPPY
Instagram: @girlpuppy
The alter ego of the Atlanta-based singer Becca Har- vey, girlpuppy debuted in 2020. Her first full-length album, When I’m Alone, teeming with low-fi alt-pop sounds, came along two years later and proved imme- diately popular with the followers of the sad girl indie genre. Harvey starts her creative process with lyrics, using songwriting as a journaling method. “Sometimes I’ll write a song and piece them together like a puzzle, then I’ll start singing until I find a melody I like,” she says, going on to explain that that type of soul explo- ration is “typical Pisces” behavior. Her heart-forward approach is working: She has opened for DIIV and caught the attention of Charli xcx on social media. Earlier this year, girlpuppy released Windows, a track about a bittersweet breakup. Her advice for staying sweet? “Be kind and stay off TikTok.”
PHOTOGRAPH: WILSON LEE
SCOWL
Instagram: @scowl40831
The hardcore punk band Scowl is headed by feisty lead singer Kat Moss, with Malachi Greene and Mikey Bifolco on guitar, Bailey Lupo on bass, and Cole Gilbert on drums. Hailing from a small town near Sacramento, Moss met Greene, Gilbert, and Lupo while attending hardcore Bay Area shows. Their highlight as a five-piece is playing major festivals (Sound and Fury, Coachella) and venues—Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Colorado, and Madison Square Garden, where they opened for Limp Bizkit and Wargasm. Moss was influenced by the riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill. “Kathleen Hanna [Bikini Kill’s front woman] had always been candid about her ‘fake it till you make it attitude’ with punk music, and I found it extremely inspiring to get involved in my scene and start a band,” Moss says. She is also inspired by her peers’ newest music this year, particularly Spy, Jivebomb, Ethel Cain, and Wisp.
PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA SNYDER
GUSTAF
Instagram: @gustaf_nyc
The East Coast-based art punksters Gustaf have a reputation for being one of Brooklyn’s most fun and hardest-working bands. The five-piece group—Lydia Gammill, Tine Hill, Vram Kherlopian, Melissa Luc- ciola, and Tarra Thiessen—formed in 2018 and describe their music as minimal rock’n’roll. However, “we get compared to Talking Heads or the B-52’s,” says Gammill, a Bostonite. “Currently, the scene feels like the center of a Venn diagram. There’s a good mix of older bands that have been around for a while and newer bands, but we’re all overlapping and playing shows wherever and whenever we can. It feels like things are less centered around specific venues but more based on what’s going on each night.”
PHOTOGRAPH: VICTOR G. JEFFREYS II
JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD
Instagram: @jawnita
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd always knew she wan- ted to be a music journalist. She started at 16 by self- publishing a zine called Lick, interviewing cute boys and local bands, and hasn’t stopped since. “Most of the publications I wrote for were print glossies—Vibe, Spin, the electronic magazine XLR8R, The Fader— that are now either dead or solely online, which is un- fortunate for those of us who like to hold a book in our hands,” she says. “But in a way, it’s come full circle— the most interesting music publications have a zine feel and there’s space for new ideas.”
Now a veteran with 25 years under her belt, Escobedo Shepherd recently co-founded the worker-owned on- line publication Hearing Things as a personable alter- native to corporate entities like the Condé Nast-owned Pitchfork (where Escobedo Shepherd and co. used to work). The site features song and album reviews across various genres, as well as in-depth essays and “best of” lists. Escobedo Shepherd would like this type of break- out creativity to carry over into the music industry too: “I hope to see more experimental pop, queer reggaeton and dembow, freaky singer-songwriters, rappers doing weird stuff with their voices, more cybergoths and glamorous punks doing their thing.”
PHOTOGRAPH: MIKAYLA LOBASSO
TOWA BIRD
Instagram: @towabird
Towa Bird vividly remembers connecting with Jimi Hendrix when she was 12 after watching a documen- tary about him on YouTube. After that it was “game over,” says the curly-haired, electric-guitar-wielding singer-songwriter. Bird was born in Hong Kong to Brit- ish and Filipino parents and now resides in LA. She released her debut album, American Hero, last year, which explored what it means to be a young, queer woman commanding the stage today with songs that range from tender to explosive. “It’s all about balance,” says Bird, who admits there are only two things on her rider: Maker’s Mark and under-eye patches. That includes this past year, when Bird opened for Billie Eilish in select cities. (She also opened for Reneé Rapp in 2023; the two have since started dating.) There is more touring and writing to come, adding to the melt- ing pot of melodies in pop music right now. “Pop mu- sic no longer sounds like pop,” Bird says. “It shows me that people are being authentic to their sounds.”
CHOOPSIE
Instagram: @choopsie_
Alex Adkins, known as Choopsie (a nickname given by her grandfather), is a DJ and producer beloved for her unique blend of house, techno, and breakbeats. Born and raised in Virginia but now calling Los Angeles home, she began by playing classical piano at a young age. While interning at Dimensions festival she discovered her love for electronic music and so she started experimenting with musical software like FL Studio and Ableton. Choopsie eventually joined Justin Jay’s Fantastic Voyage label, helping her perfect her craft while establishing herself in the underground scene. Cut to now and she’s releasing tracks on well-regarded labels like Shall Not Fade, Dirtybird, HE.SHE.THEY., and Silver Bear Recordings.
As her career evolves, playing shows in major cities like Los Angeles, New York and Paris, Choopsie says she would like to experiment with new genres to evolve her sound further. When asked about the current underground scene at this moment, she notices that the crowd wants more energy. “Compared to what I’ve seen in the previous years, the music is much higher beats per minute style house or techno. I’ve also noticed a lot of hard grooves and breaks,” she says. With a melodic and atmospheric approach, her sets are never set in stone – she lets the crowd and the energy of the room guide her.
Text HANNA HANRA
Taken from 10 Magazine USA Issue 04 – MUSIC, TALENT, CREATIVE – on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
