experimental pop

Julia Shammas Holter is a classically-trained keytarist from Echo Park. After infiltrating Human Ear Music headquarters dressed as an intern, she wrote and recorded her own release on the label. Her music is witty, surreal and optimistic. She plays without sarcasm in the terrains that divide sentimentality, passion, and control. Her songs are written instinctively, and treated with an off-kilter fastidiousness, working orchestral variety from minimal instrumentation.

Lotus Plaza is the solo project of Deerhunter's Lockett pundt. His debut LP, entitled The Floodlight Collective, was released on March 23, 2009 by Kranky. Pundt has cited his greatest musical influences as being Stereolab, My Bloody Valentine, and Roxy Music, "on a subliminal level." A second album, Spooky Action at a Distance, was released on April 2, 2012.

Sebastien Forrester, a French bohemian artist based in Paris, France who traffics within a melange of aliases but whose freshest mask is Holy Strays. Stuttering drum loops, hypnotic keyboard spirals, and melodic fogs that float up then dissipate. The elements are all there gelling up a superlative sound.

Read more about Holy Strays on Last.fm.

Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Liam Singer studied piano as a child, and at 14 began recording songs on the accordion, synthesizer and theremin. In the early 2000s, Singer studied music composition at Kenyon College in Ohio, with harpsichord as his primary instrument. During his time at Kenyon he played in several bands and co-founded a 20-piece kazoo orchestra. Returning to Portland after college, Singer recorded his first album, The Empty Heart of the Chameleon, and played keyboards for The Scientifics (now Eliot Rose) and Nate Ashley.

Read more about Liam Singer on Last.fm.