Staged Haze

More people need to know about Medium Build. Nick Carpenter’s music hits the same sweet spot that has made artists like Noah Kahan and Role Model resonate with such large audiences. His songs are emotionally candid, conversational, catchy, and built to be shouted back by a crowd. He has serious songwriting chops, and the songs on his new album, King of Having Fun, are really, really good. The irony is that Carpenter does not sound particularly interested in being known.

Singer-songwriters LØLØ, salem ilese, and Alna have joined forces as Carrie Okay, a new alternative pop-rock supergroup. The trio introduced the project on August 28 with their debut single, “High in a Drugstore.” Each member arrives with an established musical identity of her own.

While most of the members of The Linda Lindas were still teenagers, they’d already had their music featured in movies, performed on late night shows, and played with truly iconic groups like Bikini Kill and Green Day. When a band has that much success that early in their lives, it can be a tossup to see where their career continues to go. For The Linda Lindas, it led to the band’s third album, Gotta Get Out, which was released Aug.

We’re headed back to the PNW next weekend to attend our second Bumbershoot in Seattle: a two-day festival jam packed with live music, art exhibits, fashion, stand up comedy, and local cuisine. Bumbershoot is one of the longest independently-ran festival in the world: originating back in 1971 before taking several years off between 2019-2023, then returning with full force back in 2024.

My introduction to Squirrel Flower came somewhat by chance. A friend clearing out his record collection gave me a vinyl copy of 2020’s I Was Born Swimming, and it became my entry point into the music of Chicago-based songwriter Ella Williams. Six years later, listening to her new album, Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going, I was struck by how much her sound has expanded while still maintaining the intimacy that first drew me in.

I’ve wrapped up a second Capitol Hill Block Party for Staged Haze, and I’m honestly still daydreaming about the fest a week later, and I can’t wait to share my review. CHBP bumped the party up by bringing a third day back this year, compared to my two-day experience in 2025, and the mix of genres across all three days kept the variety on shuffle for me. This will also be the second year that CHBP has remained a 21+ music festival, and honestly? I’m not mad.

I don’t need to run through a recap of 2020 for you to know it was a fraught year. It was a collective experience. For the majority of us, mental health was at its lowest. Anything that felt like it made life great either completely unavailable or a limited time offer. Naturally around this time, on top of a Depression diagnosis I was also reeling from the end of a situationship that wreaked the kind of psychological warfare the CIA would be proud of.

If there is one band I instinctively associate with summer, it’s Jungle. The British group have spent more than a decade pulling from disco, Motown, soul, funk, and R&B, filtering those influences through their own distinctly modern production. Their 2023 album, Volcano, took that formula to another level, thanks in no small part to the massive success of “Back on 74.” Three years later, Jungle are back with Sunshine, an album whose title tells you almost everything you need to know.

Hovvdy has been making music for more than a decade, but on its sixth album, Big World, the Nashville-based duo of Will Taylor and Charlie Martin sounds remarkably comfortable with exactly where it is. Originally formed in Austin, Texas, Hovvdy has gradually expanded beyond the understated slowcore of its early work, incorporating twangy indie rock, acoustic ballads, pop-country and increasingly straightforward pop melodies.

We’re posting this round-up a little later than usual…but we were busy at Lollapalooza last weekend! Now that it’s August, we’re officially in the second half of the year (crazy!) and we just shared our list of the best albums of the year (so far), and we also reviewed the new albums from Madonna, Ariana Grande, Charli xcx, Love Spells, Eartheater, Steve Lacy, and Olivia O’Brien: plus we interviewed Baby Queen and Trophy Wife about their new albums.