Summer is here and man do these submissions just hit different on a long warm day with the peepers and crickets as outro. Case and point: Emily A. Sprague’s (of well known indie band Florist, and actual Catskills native) new track “Sing To” has a summer pond murkiness and instinctual repetition, while new “supergroup” Play Time (Ben Vida, Booker Stardrum, and Will Epstein) march toward the horizon with Arkestra like spiritual-free-jazz textures on new LP Magic Object (they will debut live in July at Kingston’s new venue Tempo).

On the Indie-Americana front, a real standout record came out in April from Kingston’s Nic Panken (formerly of Spirit Family Reunion) Near Divine or Merely Rhyme. With all the hubbub around the history of American music, and more specifically the through line of working class issues and organizing through song (Guthrie>Seeger>Springsteen, you get it), Nic has managed to blend that with the emotional in a beautiful way. He’ll play the (free!) Local Waves at The Local concert in October.

SWIMMERS (another new Kingston band) sent in their debut EP which has shades of classic shoegaze and in its quieter moments Mazzy Star, Wappingers Falls based Glenn Echo sent in a beautiful slice of quiet folk pop with their 2025 album No Believer, and Hudson’s SPYRODON sent in their fuzzy, psych-rock 2023 album I Am The Ox, look for new music from them soon. 

We also added another new track from drummer extraordinaire Homer’s ongoing collaborations with Kendra McKinley, who was my guest on last month’s Local Waves In Conversation, which you can hear HERE

-Mike Amari of Chosen Family Presents

Local Waves airs every Thursday at 10AM and Friday at 8PM. All local artists are encouraged to submit their music to be added to this ever growing library. Email music@wgxc.org with ‘‘Local Waves’ in subject, mp3s (320kps) or Bandcamp download codes are preferred.