Often compared to artists like Sylvan Esso, Tune-Yards, The Staves, and Dirty Projectors, their music is immersive, chock full of vocal harmony and homegrown production. ALMA worked with industry giants Elliot Moss (mixing) and Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound (mastering) to bring their genre-bending freshman album, MOSAIC, to light.
ALMA is comprised of Alba S. Torremocha (vocals, strings, bass, drums, guitar, uke) Lillie R. McDonough (vocals, piano, glock, violin, hammer dulcimer), and Melissa K. Carter (vocals, guitar). The trio formed officially in 2019 out of a shared delight in harmonizing and experimentation with quirky instrumentals and old-fangled synthesizers. They discovered a certain alchemy in the combination of sensibilities as film composers and audio engineers that has made for a genre-bending offering to the wide world of indie-pop. Elements of Folk, Rock, Grunge, Pop, and even movie soundtracks are all at home in their songs.
ALMA leaned into the creative constraints of studio shutdowns through 2020 and went rogue with production at home that has become part of their signature sound. Armed with a mobile microphone and a DIY sensibility, they use airplanes as cymbals, parental phone chats as texture, slices of last year's Fourth of July Party, and even samples of Melissa’s roomie splashing in the tub to produce their music with the sounds of the world they inhabit outside of the recording studio. Their unique approach to production is grounded by ethereal vocal arrangements that form the core of their signature sound. Their debut LP Mosaic is a personal letter to NYC. Each song delivers the story of a moment in time in the city they call home. Mosaic invites you to sit beside them on the subway, walk with them through Astoria Park, and ride the Wonder Wheel at night as you feel into what it means to be a New Yorker. They have been releasing singles from the album since September of 2020 that have been written up in various publications including Glasse Factory, Sounds Good Blog, Envertent, Le Future Wave, We All Want Someone to Shout for, etc.
ALMA was named a NYFA Fellow for their genre-pushing work in 2019, and later was an Awesome Foundation Grant recipient in 2020. They are currently in the process of producing a staged, theatrical musical of their freshman album.
Somewhere between punk and blues – a porch and an alley – lies Radiator King, the performing/recording name of Boston native and Los Angeles based, Adam Silvestri. Established in 2011, Radiator King’s music shows influences from both Dylan and Strummer with a sound described by Boston blog Allston Pudding as something akin to what “Tom Waits locked in a room for a month with nothing but a copy of Springsteen’s Nebraska” might produce. Whether alone with a guitar or backed by a band, Radiator King embodies the raw energy of punk, the grit and intricacy of delta blues, and the lyrical potency of folk in “songs that are the sonic equivalent to an old whiskey bar at the end of a dirt road.”
Footings is from all over New England and on this night will be kicking off a spring tour! Come say hello and pick up a copy of their newest lp, Annihilation.