Vines, the solo project of New York-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Cassie Wieland, offers a window into her inner world through expansive swaths of sound. She pieces together a celestial mix of synths, percussion, strings, and vocoded voice, making music that is at once deeply personal and cinematic in scope. This diaristic approach first took shape with her 2023 EP Birthday Party, and is crystallized on her 2025 debut LP, I’ll be here. With the sweeping and vulnerable I’ll be here, Vines arrives fully formed as an artist who crafts deeply resonant and open music–the kind that invites listeners in to listen, reflect, and share in the journey of learning through living (Vanessa Ague.)

Her music has been featured on Billboard's Tiktok Top 50, Stereogum, KEXP, New Sounds, NPR, The New York Times, I Care if You Listen, AnEarful, and The Road to Sound.

“Evokes a sense of stillness and presence that feels sacred in its own right.” - Everything is Noise

https://vinesmusic.bandcamp.com/
-------------------------------------
Activity is a Brooklyn-based experimental rock quartet known for their potent blend of atmospheric soundscapes, jagged post-punk urgency, and introspective electronics. The band features Travis Johnson (vocals, samples, multi-instrumentalist, formerly of Grooms), Jess Rees (guitar, vocals, keys, of Russian Baths), Bri DiGioia (bass, vocals), and Brian Alvarez (drums).

Their third album, A Thousand Years In Another Way, via Western Vinyl, captures the disquieting yet strangely familiar atmosphere of contemporary life. Describing the album’s essence, Johnson says, “Evil is very real and having its way, and love is also real and hasn’t lost yet.” This sentiment permeates the ten-song collection, which navigates themes of violence, alienation, and tenderness without offering easy answers, instead immersing the listener in a sonic reflection of a surreal and often dreamlike (or nightmarish) daily existence.

Working with producer Jeff Berner (Psychic TV, Shilpa Ray), Activity meticulously manipulated sounds and leveraged room acoustics to create a disorienting yet captivating listening experience on A Thousand Years In Another Way. The album was born from a period of uncertainty, pieced together from fragments of clipped samples, looping guitar lines, and ghostly melodies. Rees, DiGioia, and Johnson share vocal and writing duties, resulting in a record that is both deeply personal and strangely alien, where a sense of imminent shift and potential collapse is ever-present.

Building on the foundations laid by their 2020 debut Unmask Whoever and their 2023 follow-up Spirit in the Room, Activity continues to carve out a unique space in the musical landscape. Their sound is characterized by a compelling paranoia, flickers of incisive hope, and a persistent sense of warped reality, making their music a resonant soundtrack for these turbulent times. A Thousand Years In Another Way promises to be a powerful distillation of this vision, offering not an escape, but a profound, immersive reflection of the world as it is.

https://activity.bandcamp.com

Vines / Activity

Vines / Activity