The Soul & Blues Year End Poll results are finally in!

Overall Poll Winner (Combined Juror + Reader Poll Votes): Breanna Barbara

Dirty, brazen, and barefaced, Barbara Beanna is serving up old-style blues rock that’s not afraid to kick some ass and take some names. Listen below.

Reader Poll Second Place: Dakota Jones
The NYC-based band is crafts smooth soul rock that’s sure to make it’s way into your daily rotation. Take a listen to "Leave Me Alone" streaming below.

Here’s the list of all the finalists with their Readers’ Poll scores. As always, we’d like to thank all of our artists, jurors, and readers for participating in this year’s polls.  Stay tuned and vote for all of our remaining genre polls! 

	The Skins		0%	3 votes
	Eli Tyler		0%	3 votes
	Sean Mcverry		6%	82 votes
	Overcoats		0%	2 votes
	Dakota Jones		40%	517 votes
	Lawrence		0%	7 votes
	Danielle Grubb		0%	7 votes
	Breanna Barbara		2%	27 votes
	The Casey Hopkins Duo		49%	640 votes

The brass funk veterans in No BS Brass Band don’t mess around. Their sets are fast, loud, and irresistibly funky. Hailing from the Oregon Hill neighborhood of Richmond, close to Virginia Commonwealth University, No BS’ music comes across as a musical fusion of college pep bands and high level brass funk a la Budos Band and Young Blood Brass.

If you’re in Virginia on March 3rd, or just want to make the drive, go see No BS Brass Band with SOJA at The National.

-Written by Michael Dranove

NYC-based singer-songwriter Pearla released her debut EP at The Bowery Electric on 2/24. Pearla, also known as Nicole Rodriguez, has begun to stir up interest in the indie rock circles around the city. She’s played a few shows with fellow rising singer-songwriter Belle-Skinner, most recently at Rockwood Stage 1 earlier this month. Pearla’s first release, the single "Waking Up", came out last July on her Soundcloud page. It’s a swirling rock ballad full of passion that might remind you of Alanis Morisette or Ani DiFranco. Listen to "Waking Up" below. – Will Sisskind

The cover art has vaporwave aesthetics and the music is full of 80s timbres and nearly incomprehensible vocals; Furniteur’s new single “Swimming” is synthwave coming straight outta DC. The airy sounds and reverb soaked electronic drum hits recall the classic 80s dystopian pop sounds of artists like Depeche Mode and Gary Numan, but do so with a decidedly modern take on the vocal melodies. It’s good to see DC getting in on this national trend.

Here’s Furniteur’s “Swimming”, recorded in Petworth.

-Written by Michael Dranove

Brooklyn-based venue, The National Sawdust, was formed with the mission of bringing dynamic, artist-led musical experiences to the performance space and The Revolution series is a prime example. This musical movement–the twelfth in the series–aims to highlight artists that are bringing innovation and advancements to their genres. This Saturday’s show will feature an eclectic array of talent with slacker rockers Rachel Angel, electro-R&B group Eda Wolf, and the jazz/funk/neo-soul quintet Nuf Said gracing the bill. The show is a sure-fire ticket to a killer set of performances, so be sure check out more info on The Revolution Vol. 12 here.-Olivia Sisinni

Ahsh Eff’s growly drawl is 2017’s greatest throwback.

When Ahsh starts rapping it’s easy to get lost in her posturing. Lines like “Glowed up, feeling like I’m Sosa,” come off as clever plays on Hip Hop cliches. It’s not until you realize that Ahsh is actually a character created by the artist (actually named Lisa) that you get really dialed into the brilliance of the performance.  It’s meta-rap replete with money green hair and eyebrows.  She’s playing the role of a fifteen year old girl who is completely enraptured with the swagger of gangbanging staring at posters on her wall, emphatically chanting “GANG! GANG! GANG!”  Ahsh Eff is one to watch this year as she continues to deconstruct her thug.–brokeMC 

Hauntingly lonely, Caroline Spence’s voice rambles on through the verses of “Hotel Amarillo” like a lost soul whose all but given up looking for comfort. “Pull on into the Hotel Amarillo with a bottle of wine” she sings, lamenting the lack of a lover to wake up next to; the whole song delivered as if from someone to whom drinking is their only refuge from anxiety.

The despair of the Charlottesville, VA singer-songwriter exudes pure Americana; a sultry but sad voice paired with a stripped-down rhythm section complete with slide guitar and a modestly snarling electric.

After raising eyebrows with her previous releases Trains Cry and Slow Dancer, Spence’s new album Spades and Roses delivers on the high expectations for this young and promising artist. Here’s the music video for “Hotel Amarillo” from Spades and Roses, set to be released on March 3rd.

-Written by Michael Dranove

The music of fr eg e lies somewhere along the crossroads of electro-soul and pop, but to rope them squarely into any set genre would likely be doing the band a disservice. Brooklyn-based by way of Mexico City, fr eg e melds smart pop-writing sensibilities with fickle rhythms and time signature shifts–crafting a dynamic sound that reflects the fractured spelling in the band’s moniker. The oftentimes near virtuosic playing, of course, alludes to the band’s jazz background, but what really make fr eg e stand out amidst seas of incredibly talented, technical players is the electro-flourishes that garnish their recordings. Their latest single, "Golden Ale Showers," is no exception to this formula, pitting angular instrumentals against buttery vocals to craft something uniquely striking, but also immediately accessible. You can catch fr eg e live at their next show on 3/7 at Drexler’s, but in the meantime, get your fr eg e fix by streaming their new single below.-Olivia Sisinni

 photo credit: Elise Swain

Cut Worms is the nom de plume of singer/songwriter/one-man-band Max Clarke, whose spate of releases between 2015 and 2016 transform the lead of past genres into new gold. See him (and his make-shift band) tonight at the Bowery Ballroom, where Cut Worms opens for critical darlings the Lemon Twigs. Back to the recordings: at first, the influences seem easy enough to pin down, as in the case of recent single "Don’t Want to Say Goodbye" (streaming). If it’s all Clarke in the studio, he should proceed to make a video of himself playing every member of Gerry and the Pacemakers on stage at the "Ed Sullivan Show," as musically and vocally he faithfully recreates the sound of like minded bands from that era. B-side "Like Going Down Sideways" is less melodic overall, but infinitely more complex. It starts out like an early seventies acoustic ballad (think Lobo or Rodriguez), then veers into a variety of directions—a sprinkling of Gram Parsons, a dash of the Everly Brothers—which suggest a rather deep knowledge of pop history, and an uncommon ability to write retro pop songs. Then there are the "Soft Boiled Demos, Pt. 1-8," an MP3 offering from mid-2016, which falls somewhere between a set of lost Buddy Holly demos and the more showy retroism of Ryan Adams. Single "Mad About You" is pure allegory: a walk down Broadway, with the wind in his hair, evinces the hidden order of the cosmos. We’ll have to wait and see what ultimately becomes of Cut Worms but for now, we can certainly enjoy his tracks, and let them transport us back to a time when pop songwriting was governed by different laws. – Brian Chidester

With artists like Chance the Rapper serving as living manifestations of Kanye West’s legacy, it’s hard not to evaluate contemporary rappers according to how to relate to and differ from West in terms of music, persona or both. A rapper that invites this kind of comparison is Mateo Akhi. The Jersey City rapper’s most recent LP, veyebes, features a potent mix of rootsy hip hop reminiscent of West’s earlier stuff and the distorted edgeof his later works. The key difference, however, lies in the vocals. While West is mostly known for his rapping, Akhi raps and sings all throughout the album, quite literally, finding his own voice. Tracks like ‘poplar trees‘ show Akhi at his best, with the stormy instrumental perfectly matching his intense vocals. You can catch him live at SOB’s on 2/22. —Henry Solotaroff-Weber

TGIF! Well, it’s not quite Friday yet, but if you need some music that will make it feel like the weekend, Surf Thugs will definitely spice things up. Their music screams “life of the party” with their upbeat, optimistic pop punk tunes. If that isn’t enough, these guys also sing about partying. They created their own abbreviation “RIP”, which doesn’t mean Rest in Peace in this case but Really into Partying. So, if you’re Really into Partying it’s time to listen to Surf Thugs as well as see them live when they play Arlene’s Grocery March 31st.-Jocelyn Huggler

Former Strathmore artist-in-residence Elijah Balbed will bring his all-star lineup of go-go players to the North Capitol neighborhood this Saturday for the 7DrumCity opening festival. The Jo-go Project‘s barn-burning solos and tight go-go beats are guaranteed to make the reopening of the community focused drum studio and rehearsal space into a real party. 

Don’t miss The Jo-go Project at the 7DrumCity opening festival, 2-10pm, with DC bands Color Palette, Shining Blade Theory, and many more!

-Written by Michael Dranove