Ahead of its February 9th release date via Carpark Records, Rock Island, the sophomore album from Palm, is now available for streaming, courtesy of NPR’s First Listen. The band playfully experiments with traditional sonic structures, often spinning expectations on their head. Establishing a melodic ease and accessibility and then abruptly shifting gears, that controlled, chaos approach makes one envision some mastermind (i.e. Willy Wonka or the great and wonderful Oz) is calling the shots and pulling the levers behind the curtain. On Monday, March 26, Palm will be seting up shop at First Unitarian Church, supported by The Spirit of The Beehive and Old Maybe.

Palm is making waves by finding a common ground between the fractured repetition heard in sample-based electronic music and the driving force of a full rock outfit. The band announced the upcoming release of its second full-length album, Rock Island, which is slated to drop on February 9 via Carpark Records. Coupled with the announcement is a new video for “Pearly,” the first single off of the LP. Moving through pixelated fields under an indigo sky, an array of shapes and colors are layered against one another in the roving, point-of-view footage, while a pair of disembodied hands hover mid-screen. The track and its visual accompaniment evoke the feeling of exploration into a digital world tethered to reality, which very much seems to be the case for this stunningly inventive band. - Josh Kelly

Certain aesthetics may survive from one generation to the next, but in the process often undergo a metamorphosis as a culture’s approach toward making music changes. We have become gifted multi-taskers - all the different roles we have to take on to make a living wage, attention spans doled out between phones and friends, apps running side by side, our browsers buried deep in open tabs. Our ability as time-shifters to bounce through multiple worlds at a given moment, to pick up and pause a multitude of running stories - these features of our daily lives are teased out in the works of Philly sound maverick Ada Babar. Babar’s music conveys a sublime terror, a highly technical and often hilarious succession of musical splendor laid out before a lush backdrop. His newest release, Nino Tomorrow (Favourite Tapes), is a split EP with Palm frontman Kasra Kurt. The first half of the album is Babar, transitioning via a phone call sequence midway through to Kurt’s laidback, drifting contribution. The production value is painstakingly consistent throughout, maintaining a sense of space and tone as the songs progress. In many cases, split releases give the impression that the album is a converging point for two distinct worlds, but on Nino Tomorrow, both artists are enmeshed within the other’s sonic palate, resulting in music that feels alien yet wholly relatable. - Josh Kelly

Palm explore a second life as digital avatars in the music video for “Shadow Expert,” the title track of their latest EP, released via Carpark Records. Friends of the band, JP Mayer and Valentina Tapia, produced the video, which features the band’s members waking up in a jaunty, iridescent world of shapeshifting animals and pulsating structures. Much like Jerry Paper’s music video for “Real. Now. Love.”, Palm’s “Shadow Expert” toys with the impartiality and limitations of ironic digital design, while producing in effect a thoughtful and dynamic visual experience that comes in at around the three minute mark. The quartet is currently on tour with Palberta through the end of July, and also will be embarking on a European tour in September.

Ahead of its official release this Friday, June 16 via Carpark Records, Shadow Expert, the new EP from Palm, is available to stream in its entirety below. Juxtaposing the relative calm of the vocals with the directional cuts of experimental instrumentation, the quartet creates a dueling but symbiotic relationship. Contrasting those levitating lyrics with lightning-like jolts, Palm doesn’t sit still for too long in a sound akin to Dirty Projectors, Battles, or locals Banned Books. You can catch them at PhilaMOCA on Saturday, June 24, with Palberta and Suffer Dragon. (Photo by Brian Garbrecht)