Urban Heat are a 3-piece American post-punk band from Austin, TX. The band formed in 2019 when multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jonathan Horstmann enlisted Kevin Naquin and Paxel Foley to form a live show based on his analog sound design. The result fuses dark 80’s stylings with modern flourishes, with Horstmann’s throaty baritone delivering musings on existence and romanticism against an unrelenting industrial gothic pulse. Their live show is undeniably energetic and engaging, earning them slots at Austin’s Levitation and Seattle’s Freakout Fest in 2021. They released 6 singles between 2019 and 2022 and while the pandemic saw their SXSW 2020 performance canceled, they returned in 2022 as official artists.

Dance Music, Dark Matter, Direct Message, Dungeon Master, Distant Memory… People have tried to decipher the meaning behind the name Rare DM, but really it’s the Brooklyn-based singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erin Hoagg. Rare DM is Hoagg at her most vulnerable and visceral, as she mines dates, breakups and other adventures to make revealing, romantic darkwave dance-pop music. With a collection of vintage analog synths, Hoagg transforms the mundane into the magical, transposing real DMs she’s sent and received into songs that reflect on the fractured nature of modern communication and online dating. Her songs are dark and deeply intimate, rendering in raw detail the search for that special connection we all crave, but rarely find.

Back-of-the-class post-punks Stranger Gallery formed in the shadows and disintegration of 2020 for a series of outdoor shows. Veterans of the dark folk, shoegaze, and thrash scenes, the band demonstrates equally broad emotional and sonic spectrums, from twangy goth to blues punk, with ballads, and sardonic litanies.