Artemis Montague is a multi-hyphenate composer-lyricist-librettist-singer who believes in art and musical theater as an affinity space, or place for community members to see themselves without the gaze of oppression. They write music and musicals for POC, queer/trans folks, and disabled communities, and are working on an EP of feminist, radically soft music about love, friendship and healing.

Mal Devisa is the stage name of Massachusetts-based songwriter Deja Rene Carr, what she calls a “liberation project” as she grapples with identity, disability, and other struggles related to making art. We fell in love with Mal Devisa at our SXSW showcase this spring, and can’t wait to help her realize her goal of broadening her genre scope and recording a record with some new gear.

Kyoko Takenaka is a multi-disciplinary performance artist, musician, actor and filmmaker splitting their time between L.A., Tokyo and London. They believe artistic expression is a conduit for personal and collective liberation, and are constantly exploring unbinary ways of thinking, moving and creating. Through their music and art, they channel diasporic experience and create a sensory space for queer folks to take refuge.

Farmer Zoe is the alter-ego of Delaware-based multi-disciplinary artist Zoe Scruggs, whose work explores how systematic oppression has shaped her relationship with nature. She does this by contextualizing her personal stories into America’s ideological framework for understanding the relationship between the human and non-human worlds, particularly where Black, ecological and labor issues collide. She’s working on a live set bridging the research-heavy fine art side of her musical practice with the freeform aspect of the Farmer Zoe persona. 

Julia Sinelnikova is a singer-songwriter and DJ who performs as ORACLE666. Light as a fluid medium and Eastern European folk tales from their upbringing in Russia serve as the foundations for their artistic practice, as they aim to create a womb-like setting for the audience’s healing and self-observation. They are working on their full-length album TIMEBENDER, which will ultimately be presented as a multi-day audiovisual showcase and performance.

Medusa is a nonbinary ‘revenge-pop’ musician based in Buffalo, New York. Their signature production – described by Soundriv as “a breakthrough collection of LGBTQ hymns,” and by Bucketlist as “the most inventive [expletive] music we’ve heard in a long time” – often features unconventional sounds like wolf howls and cheerleading chants. Medusa describes their style as “by any means necessary,” then makes good on the promise.

Medusa produced a short film to accompany their concept album Allegory of the G/Rave, a queer retelling of the story of Medusa

Ikwe (formerly known as Kelsey Pyro) is a Brooklyn based Black and Ojibwe artist from St. Paul / Minneapolis Minnesota. Ikwe is the Ojibwe word for woman. Specializing in Alternative R&B, music production, sound art, and performance art her work often incorporates genres, experiences, and stories from her African American and Native American identity.

Ikwe created a 90-minute sound poem of original music, performance art and storytelling called MAKADEWIIYAASIKWE, an Ojibwe word for Black woman.

Maria Fernanda Gonzalez Is a Venezuelan bandola llanera player, community organizer, self-thought composer, and educator. With a grounded understanding of the bandola llanera (male-dominated) traditions, she focuses on bringing the instrument to a new artistic path through composition, performance, and improvisation.

Mafer Bandola created a “portable community house” of music, song and dance, a multicultural meeting point of Venezuelan immigrants, musicians and the NYC community at large.

Shara Lunon is the product of the evolution of Black American musical traditions. As a poet, vocalist, composer, and improviser, her art finds the ethereal in the chaotic. With voice and electronics as the foundation, Lunon’s music is an exploration of text and sound that seamlessly weaves through the ongoing relationship of struggle, resilience, and resolution. Her goal is to challenge lassitude and in its place, instill hope.

Shara Lunon completed “Bitter Fruits,” a multiform song cycle in response to the barbarity of what cultivated the “Freedom Summer” of 2020.

four/four presents is a NYC-based curatorial platform that commissions collaborations between musicians and choreographers. Developed by choreographer Loni Landon and producer Rachael Pazdan in April 2020, four/four works to bridge the gap between dance and music audiences, and develop a new network to align artists. We champion emerging artists as well as established talent, and aim to create space for artists to grow and for audiences to grow with them.

Four/Four Presents assembled a diverse cast of dancers and musicians to produce their ambitious outdoor summer series OPEN AIR.

Enchanted Forest is Em Boltz and Noah Jacobson-Carroll, a Philly-based experimental electronic duo. Their album Research is out now via Dear Life Records.

Em Boltz, one half of Philly experimental electronic duo Enchanted Forest, reconstructed the iconic Buchla Music Easel synthesizer using Eurotrack modules.

Kinlaw is a composer, choreographer, and artist focusing on empathic potential and agency developed by performance through audio, dance, and sculptural installation. Known for solo works and productions with as many as two-hundred performers, she studies themes of power, memory, trauma, and connection.

Kinlaw produced a series of cinematic, visually complex videos to accompany her expansive and moving solo debut The Tipping Scale.