Autoheart: The Heartlands Tour

Alt pop three-piece from the UK, 100% DIY – after three albums over the last decade and more than one existential crisis, the band – singer Jody Gadsden, keys player Simon Neilson and guitar/bassist Barney JC – now have 3 million+ monthly Spotify streams (150 million all-time), 800,000 monthly Spotify listeners, 95k+ Spotify followers, and 5 million monthly YouTube views thanks to the band’s track Stalker’s Tango becoming an obsession of the anime/cosplay community, and then a chart hit. Autoheart have amassed a devoted fan base across the US who identify with the band’s combination of melancholy, unbridled joy and honesty about the human condition (thanks to Essex-born and bred Jody’s unflinching lyrics). Their pick-and-mix approach to genres makes Autoheart tough to categorize – it’s indie guitar bops meets piano ballads, low-fi disco bangers meets sad yet epic electronic soundscapes. Their uncompromising DIY approach (they produce much of their own material, put out their music on their own OR Records imprint, make and direct videos and are entirely self-managed) is shot through with a strong LGBTQIA-positive message. As part of the London queer community they have collaborated with gender non-confirming activist Rain Dove, who starred in their Oxford Blood video, director and Dazed prize winner Joseph Wilson, a long-time co-conspirator who cast Diag Race star Black Peppa in their I Know That He Loves Me video, and female drag artists Fancy Shews, who played an Anna Nicole Smith-inspired alien in their Juggernaut video.

Playing what they call "face-melting pop music" that mixes chunky guitars with subtle electronics and proud dance beats, Wild Party are a band from San Antonio, Texas whose music sounds more like the work of New York hipsters than folks from the LoneStar State. Wild Party were formed by lead singer Lincoln Kreifels and guitarist Lucas Hughes in 2009; the two had been friends since junior high, and while Hughes had played in local bands before, Wild Party marked Kreifels' first time singing with a group. The two originally launched Wild Party as a recording project, putting songs on tape and then posting them online, but when a 2010single caught the attention of British new wave revivalists the Wombats, Wild Party were invited to tour with them in the U.K. The overseas tour proved to be too much, too soon, and Wild Party took a hiatus of nearly two years before they re-formed with a new lineup, featuring Ethan Kaufmann on bass and Jake Kreifels (Lincoln's brother) on drums. The new edition of the group put a greater emphasis on playing live, but they still focused much of their energy on recording, and in 2013 they released their album Phantom Pop as a digital download via iTunes. As the song "When I Get Older" gained buzz thanks to a music video, the album cracked the iTunes Top 100 Downloads chart, and in 2014 the album was reissued in physical form by the indie label Old Friends Records.