“I always had anger issues growing up, and I never found a healthy way to let things out until I discovered the drums and writing my own music,” says punk rock artist Gunnar Gill, also known as the “One Man Punk Band.” “I like aggressiveness; I like things hardcore; and I like making high-energy music that makes people want to jump around.”
Gunnar Gill cuts a striking image, flaunting a high-rise mohawk, and clad in a tank top and well-worn jeans. The 19 year old West Palm Beach, Florida-based singer, songwriter, drummer, and multi-instrumentalist is punk’s newest raging rebel rocker. Gunnar is a singular talent who combines 21st-century attitude with a throwback lo-fi classic punk sound.
His newest punk rock single, “Who’s the Real Coward,” is a cathartic release of anger through the aggressive sound of punk rock. The song was inspired by an old ex-bandmate of Gunnar who talked about Gunnar behind his back. Essentially, he was using Gunnar for his musical abilities. The betrayal permeates the music with the barked vocals and a dizzying display of blast-beat drumming
Gunnar’s music melds the anthemic pop-punk of artists such as Blink 182 and Green Day with the stoned poetics and, sometimes, vulgarities of rapper Mac Miller. “I like to sneak in lyrics that make people turn their heads, and go ‘what did he just say?!’,” Gunnar says laughing. He travels the state of Florida performing as a “one man punk band,” dazzling audiences with his showmanship as he jumps from guitar to drums. Gunnar has also enlisted a motley assortment of his musical partners in crime for the Gunnar Gill Band. Gunnar fans are highly-engaged online, and many of his videos have reached 10,000 views and beyond.
Singer/songwriter Ariel Arbisser’s music and performances make her audiences feel seen, heard, and offers a unique glimpse into how she experiences the highs and lows of the world. Her music is raw and passionate, a brand of pop that you won’t find in other artists.
She just released her new electro-pop single, with a hint of funk, “Rabbit Hole,” the follow up single to her last release “Bloodshed.” “The core of this song came to me last year and it’s had a chokehold on me since,” shares Ariel. “Thematically there’s some crossover, but ‘Rabbit Hole’ comes down from the rage-filled fever pitch of ‘Bloodshed’ to this which is a more restrained, sexy, slow-burn. Things haven’t settled yet. The ‘dark side’ is still enticing, maybe even more comfortable than it was before. The full song sonically is true, addictive journey downward.”
“Rabbit Hole” has a contemporary meets retro electro-pop sound, almost like a Sara Bareilles meets Harry Styles. Her voice carries such strength, similar to an Alice Russell or Brandi Carlile, or even an Adele.
Through her lens as a white, Jewish, queer woman, she is transparent when learning out loud and participates in ongoing conversations about mental health, body neutrality, sex positivity, social and racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and more. In a world that’s dangerous for far too many and uncomfortable for almost everyone, she creates a touchstone by creating art, appreciating simple pleasures, and taking dedicated and intentional risks for love.
“With love comes inevitable pain– miscommunication, betrayal, heartache, loss… Allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough to experience love, however briefly, is brave. And it’s worth it in the end.”
The Portland, OR-based band, Happy For No Reason, celebrate every single one of life’s precious moments as two of their members are literally happy to be alive. Comprising of Jo Alexis on vocals and percussion, Neil Goldstein on guitar, and Mark Pritchard on flute, the founding members of Happy For No Reason navigate the rich waters of jazzy folk with a pinch of rock, a dash of soul, and even a touch of Bossa Nova.
They just released their album, Take It Higher, a collection of 12 songs that ooze love and life. Each song makes you smile, gets you dancing with the beat, and swaying with their infectious melodies.
Their song “Hummingbird Heartbeat” was actually written by Jo Alexis about a major accident she had. While her vocals soar in every song, something about the delicacy and strength in her voice for “Hummingbird Heartbeat” puts the song on a higher plain. It’s about forced changed and the ability to adapt to the obstacles of life.
With a variety of inspirations that include Hubert Laws, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Ian Andersen, Eva Cassidy, Esperanza Spalding, Camille, Joe Strummer, Bonnie Raitt, Nancy King, Kurt Elling, Milton Nascimento, The Band, Pentangle and Neil’s aforementioned love of 60’s Brit pop and West Coast bands, Happy For No Reason are the very definition of cool intelligent music that fulfils dreams. Embrace their happiness and let them Take It Higher.
Celia Berk is an award-winning vocalist whose recordings have attracted listeners around the world. She has made memorable appearances at Carnegie Hall, Jazz At Lincoln Center, Birdland Theater, The Town Hall and the National Arts Club. Celia has been praised by some of the most prominent champions of The Great American Songbook.
She just released of her widely anticipated third album, Now That I Have Everything. Arranger/pianist Tedd Firth brings a Nat King Cole Trio feel to the recording, which explores the ways we try – successfully and unsuccessfully – to connect our heart to someone else’s. Co-Produced by Tony and Grammy Award-winning sound designer Scott Lehrer, it features the kinds of hidden gems by great songwriters that are Celia’s trademark. Many of those songs were featured in COMES LOVE, a 2019 show Celia created with pianist Sean Gough.
In his Liner Notes, author and journalist Will Friedwald writes, “Celia Berk makes us realize, in a way few singers can, that love is, in fact, never ever the same.”
When asked about the album, Celia says, “The story of this album really begins and ends with my friend Debbi Bush Whiting, daughter of Margaret Whiting and granddaughter of Richard Whiting. She had given me recordings of her mother’s appearances on a radio show, including Irving Berlin’s NOW IT CAN BE TOLD. The premise of that song is that the real story of a great romance has yet to be written. As I listened, I asked myself, ‘So what exactly can now be told?’ And then I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to do an album about love!’ So I set out to find songs about the ways we try – successfully and unsuccessfully – to connect our heart to someone else’s.”
The songs cascade from a jazz silhouette of toe tapping to rain on a rooftop. This album is like sipping a nice cup of tea on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It encompasses the Broadway jazz element all the way down to songs reminiscent of Moon River. “Boum!” Is a fun loving dance number that incorporates feelings from your head to your heart and personifies the emotions. “Right as the Rain” brings a melancholy and somber feeling that captivates the whole body. The title track “Now That I Have Everything” dances on the piano keys and takes the center stage of the whole album in this show stopping number.
Listen here:
Celia debuted her new cabaret show, ON MY WAY TO YOU: Improbable Stories That Inspired An Unlikely Path, directed by Mark Nadler with music direction by Tedd Firth. Marilyn Lester of Theater Pizzazz called it “An enchanting show, executed with abundant smarts, humor and grace, and terrific choices of music known and unknown.”
Celia’s accolades include the album MANHATTAN SERENADE in which she received the 2017 LaMott Friedman Award. It was arranged and conducted by Alex Rybeck and co-produced by Scott Lehrer, the team behind her debut album YOU CAN’T RUSH SPRING. Lyricist David Zippel (whose “The Broadway Song” written with Cy Coleman received its first commercial recording) wrote in the album notes, “A tribute to her hometown, this collection is anything but renditions of the obvious New York songs. MANHATTAN SERENADE is curated: a connoisseur’s compilation of one exquisite, undiscovered musical gem after another.” YOU CAN’T RUSH SPRING and Celia’s solo cabaret debut, directed by Jeff Harnar, earned Celia a 2015 Bistro Award: Vocalist; 2015 MAC Award: New York Debut – Female; 2015 BroadwayWorld Award for Best New York Cabaret Debut; and The 2015 Margaret Whiting Award.
We have no doubt that “Now That I Have Everything” will follow suit brining about awards and notoriety to the ever so talented soul that is Celia Berk.
Based in New York, Kris “Halo” Pierce is a multi-award winning artist, also music producer, who has had his music played at MTV, Viacom Media Networks, Sony Creative and VH1, among other channels.
“AndOr” is a super laid back and chilled electro track, with synths and distant other-worldly beats:
“This track is pretty much about Cognitive Dissonance. It´s a laid back beat with the familiar electric piano stabs and synco-bass from the Chill Out pages.”
With influences like Massive Attack, his music truly stands out not only in the electronic genre, but also wider afield with trip hop, EDM and funk. It´s a pretty cool track that is both moody as well as soulful and danceable, and draws from ambient, goth and industrial music genres too.
Listen here:
Today, Kris “Halo” Pierce has announced his second solo album release called Artificial Breed, a darker and more eclectic collection of tracks that features remixes by Craig Joseph Huxtable, Seven Factor and more. The album´s lead single called “Midnight Dive” has been played more than 2 million times, including throughout major retail stores in the United States.
Kris´s musical aesthetics explore dreams, abstract other worlds and non linear lyrics:
“A lot of the times, if it sounds like it is a love song, it´s probably actually about music itself. I don´t like to write about people or situations I feel negative about.”
Kris is not only an acclaimed music artist, but also a sound engineer, audio technician for off-Broadway shows, as well as a studio whizz as he runs his own production company Halo Askew Entertainment.
Lenni Revel lived what felt to her like a pop star fantasy; 5 Grammy submissions, her image on billboards in Times Square, A&R agents courting her. But she traded it all in to kick her prescription Adderall addiction cold turkey in a shed outside of her parent’s house. Lenni was trying to sober up from the drugs and hype of the life she was living, a life she admits she had created. The momentum of years of the lifestyle did not just change with her mind overnight. When she might have been wiser to ease herself off of drugs she chose to go at sobriety the way she’d gone after everything else—all in or nothing. The ambition for overnight clarity and sobriety backfired and she was eventually admitted to a psych ward and put on a mandatory suicide watch. Once out of the facility, she set upon continuing her path to a more genuine life. A week after her 25th birthday she thought she would slowly re-enter the world taking a day gig job by responding to a Craigslist ad to help someone pack up their garage in preparation to move. That someone was Robert Revel. He would become her husband and the musical muse to get her back into the music business with a clear soul and an indefatigable passion.
“I wish I could tell you that upon seeing Robert for the first time, the heavens opened, and our romantic story began right away. It just didn’t happen like that. I remember feeling strangely at ease on first impression with him,” Lenni says. “He effortlessly saw into who I was as a person. There may not have been the cliché ‘sparks’ between us but there was a deeper fire at the core that initially I think we both sensed. I knew I was going to marry him.”
Lenni’s new single “Annabelle” was written by Robert when he was single and dating. He shared with Lenni that he remembered sensing that the women he was seeing weren’t experiencing a certain quality of freedom that allowed them to really shine, that many were either acting out social norms, or engaged heavily in reacting against them. Robert wrote “Annabelle” about those male-imposed values pushing women to stay in a woman’s “place” and made them high-value targets with Lenni’s powerful vocals breaking the glass ceiling of every outdated feminine archetype. Lenni’s voice provides a moving and powerful sense of taking back your power and sense of self. The song’s crescendo ends in a guttural gasp from Lenni, catching her breath from underneath what feels like a millennia of suppression.
And Lenni’s voice is unique. There is such an emotional depth and sincerity, that it is almost peerless. She sings with both purpose and passion. Comparisons to Fiona Apple, Stevie Nicks or Miley Cyrus only fall short of actually hearing the raw and velvety smooth sounds in her vocal arsenal. Musically speaking, “Annabelle” has an outlaw Americana/Alt Rock sound with Joni Mitchell storytelling—a real breath of fresh air.
“When I started singing ‘Annabelle,’ I felt the themes of the song in my own life, of course,” shares Lenni. “In the final rise of the song, the roles that have been assigned to women for millennia are called out by name and by the end my voice bleeds into this guttural scream. When performing it, I feel an ancestry of pain.”
We couldn’t be more excited to have this incredible artist’s voice and message breaking on the horizon, and can’t wait for more to come.
Modern Mystery 
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