An experimental pop collective fronted by Andrew Grossman, The North Country has earned a reputation for vibrant music and colorful, raucous shows. With complex arrangements, danceable rhythms, and layered harmonies, the band spins catchy indie pop earworms. The dramatic vocal accompaniments from singers Margot MacDonald and Laurel Halsey, whose voices mimic everything from ethereal priestesses to aloof robots, draw cheers from delighted crowds. The North Country’s music deals with navigating digital fatigue, heartbreak, and blistering political commentary aimed squarely at the 1%, creating what Washington City Paper describes as “danceable deliberations on 21st-century civilization and its discontents.” Their newest single “The New You” captures all that and more and packages it in a disco-pop sheen.
Reid Williams, a local indie-rock artist and bassist for Maryland’s Spring Silver, has formed his own band, Dorinda.
Williams has been part of the local music scene for years. Before creating Dorinda, he fronted the band Cool Baby, which dates back to 2015 and his junior year of high school. Even when he was going to college in Asheville, North Carolina, he still came back during school breaks to play with the band. But that project came to an end in 2019 due to a falling out among friends, which caused Williams to deal with immense stress. The band’s breakup and the stress that came with it led to new music, which he would eventually incorporate into Dorinda.
Night Hawk is a DC-based outfit led by Colter Adams and Peyton Semjen, whose music often blurs the line between indie rock and performance art. Featuring a rotating cast of intrepid players from the Mid-Atlantic underground, the project revolves around the question: what do Edward Hopper’s paintings sound like?
Night Hawk’s music is defined by stark geometry and bold imagery, underpinned by a deep sense of melancholia and repose. Drawing on Soir Bleu (1914), Automat (1927), Nighthawks (1942), Morning Sun (1952), and other Hopper works, the band has performed at venues and galleries across the Northeast, and grown a thousands-strong audience by word-of-mouth and electric live performances.
33 Pearl Street SW
Washington, DC 20024
