Seven artist who ran away with Pitchfork

It was a near-perfect weekend at Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival. The sun broke through the clouds steadily for three days straight as what felt like all of the city (and probably a tourist or two) was crammed into the thirteen acres of Union Park.

For its eighteenth iteration, Pitchfork assembled headliners Black Pumas, Jamie XX, and Alanis Morrissette to pull in thousands of fans. Still, the beloved three-day festival always shines its spotlight on smaller artists who haven’t found their way into the public’s playlist just yet. Here are seven runaway acts that shone bright and captured our attention over a talent-packed weekend. 

Above + cover photos by Pooneh Ghana for Pitchfork

Doss brings the heat

It’s not just any DJ who can get a crowd to unapologetically mosh in the dead heat of Summer. Yet New York club scene darling Doss slunk onto the stage and did exactly that without breaking a sweat or a smile. If you ever wanted to be in the rave from The Matrix, go to a Doss show. It’s glitchy 90’s electro house with a beat that gets into your lungs and makes you want to sweat. 

Doss builds a sound that feels both lush and danceable. Her use of synths envelops you and gets your hips swaying. Then a sudden throwback lyric cuts through the mix with a smack of nostalgia to make you want to get some air time. “If the music starts we’re never gonna stop” a high-pitched chipmunk voice droned on repeat. You could see people cramming in together, ignoring the heat, just to feel the heat and noise a little more.

Above: Doss by Holt; Below: Yaeji by Cole Kincart for Pitchfrork. 

Yaeji makes it rain 

Pitchfork is a loyal curator.  If they like an artists’ work they are not shy in bringing them back to a bigger stage. I saw Yaeji at Pitchfork back in 2021 and was impressed by their use of choreography, playful lyricism, and earnest stage persona. 

The 30-year-old New York DJ gave a nod to that last P4K performance: “I am a very different person now, then I was then, I’m very excited to be vulnerable and to learn from you. And you from me. If you resonate with my music you are a mirror of me in some ways. And vice versa.” 

Yaeji understands the balance of holding her audience’s attention without sacrificing artistry. What follows is an elegant spectacle. House music expertly crafted to get you dancing, but delivered with soft vocals imbued with a solemn exuberance. 

Both years I saw her, Yaeji came flanked by a few dancers, who offer simple but effective choreography. This time however, the trio seemed to embrace and satirize hip hop dance tropes. One moment they’re twerking, the next rolling onto their backs and shaking their legs in the air like grade schoolers. It’s embodied and unapologetically gleeful. 

As a parting gift, Yaeji offered an unreleased dance track called “Don’t Touch Me. There’s a little dance to it, so if you like the song go hard and get into it with us.” The crowd obliged as Yaeji grinned. “It looks really cute from up here”.

Above: L’Rain by Kimberley Ross for Pitchfrork. 

L’Rain delights and confounds 

When music is at its best it evades thought, circumventing the mind to allow for an uncritical experience. L’Rain, is the heart-child of musician Taja Cheek, embodied by a 5 piece experimental band of collaborators from NY. It’s hard to pin down into genre what L’Rain is creating. Elements of psychedelia, R&B, ambient, and jazz music weave in and out of the mix effortlessly until categorization is irrelevant. Genre won’t help you make sense of the feelings the music evokes anyways.

Cheek plays the bass with sparse but immaculate precision while her vocals glide effortlessly between stoic intonation and maniacal laughter. Saxophone floats in the stratosphere of this sonic dreamscape, punctuating the mix with yearning.  

Most of their set list came from the most recent album “I Killed Your Dog” – a complex exploration of what it means to “hurt the ones you love most.” You can feel that dissonance throughout the music. “How do you trust the ground when it betrays you in ways you didn’t think imaginable?” Cheek questions in the track “Clumsy”. The answer, if there is an answer, is issued in wordless sound.  

An exhilarating performance of “Two Face” lays down a propulsive jazz arpeggio on the keys while a countermelody articulates a floundering sense of desire. 

While most of her contemporaries seem intent on asserting statements of self, L’Rain dissects the emotional landscape without easy assertions or answers. The music that issues is astounding.

Above: Water From Your Eyes by Daniel Cavazos for Pitchfrork. 

“Water from Your Eyes’ vocal fry” or “Don’t sneak into a music festival as a kid and expect karma not to come for you”

“I have a mysterious illness” Brooklynite Rachel Brown murmured into the microphone at the top of Water from Your Eyes’ Saturday set. “Don’t worry it’s not contagious”. 

“I snuck into Pitchfork 10 years ago for all three days….” she laughed “All three! And this is what I get”. She shook her head. “Karma’s a bitch. “ Nevertheless there was something about Brown’s subdued yet sardonic delivery that seemed a pro pos with Water from your Eyes’ tongue-in-check style of indie rock. 

Alternating offerings between gloomy grunge landscapes with low riding, stomach churning bass to four on the flour indie pop numbers, this duo seemed intent on subverting expectations. Lead guitarist (and the groups other half) Nate Amos plays the guitar with a wide range of affect, alternating between dissonant Mad Max arpeggios and the soft peel of metal chimes. 

The group seems to revel in their contradictions – grunge counterbalanced with tenderness. Capitalism cut with complicity. As Brown struggled through the set, I couldn’t help but notice the irony of a limping nonchalance. Karmas a bitch, but sometimes it isn’t half bad.

Joanna Sternberg by Daniel Cavazos for Pitchfrork. 

Joanna Sternberg bugs out 

A three-day festival will catch up with even the strongest legged and willed person. It’s a mixture of hype and sheer exhaustion. By Sunday, your legs are begging to be horizontal. So when I saw a lonely figure placed in the center of the cavernous Red Stage, it felt like the perfect time to sit down and zone out for a second. 

Folk singer, Joanna Sternberg might have been feeling the same thing.  It was hard to tell with their stream of consciousness approach to banter that left us wondering what universe they were in (and if they’re accepting visitors). Both in their songwriting and presentation, it was impossible not to be charmed by the sheer lack of persona. 

Sternberg’s style lacks varnish. I wouldn’t be surprised if many find it initially off-putting. But it’s that lack of polish that explores an almost childishly honest interior landscape. It eschews overt complexity or artistic obfuscation and asks the question that’s right in front. “Is everybody running from me? Or am I running from everybody?” their soft metallic voice crooned. 

Halfway through a song Sternberg stopped abruptly. “There’s a bug on me! I’m sorry. I just…. have a particular phobia”. They stopped to inspect themselves for said bug. “I know a lot of you have tattoos of them, but I just can’t”. The crowd giggled. “Taylor Swift had a bug fly into her mouth while performing and she kept going” they wondered out loud. “That’s the toughest thing I’ve ever seen”. 

Akenya by Daniel Cavazos for Pitchfrork. 

Release your album please, Akenya! 

Chicago-native, Akenya floated onto the stage enveloped in a puffy tulle top and sleek chessboard colored pants. With an impressive resume of collaboration with stars Chance the Rapper and Noname, Akenya is already a staple of the Chicago music scene. Regardless of whether you’ve heard of her, you’ve most likely heard her. 

With a style that bounds between jazz and classical, hip-hop and soul, Akenya offers up a sound that is uniquely her own. She’s an accomplished arranger, and boasted what might have been the most nuanced sound mixing for the entire festival. Each instrument blended perfectly with the next, spiraling together to create a cosmically transcendent sound. 

In songs like “Decay” (one of two singles she’s released), the trio of vocalists punctuated the music with cloud-like chords that made the crowd gasp. No doubt she made a slew of new fans during her Saturday performance who are all wondering the same thing: Akenya, when are you going to drop your first album? 

Sudan Archives by Cole Kincart for Pitchfrork. 

Sudan Archives surprise 

My editor told me I should check out Sudan Archives. I really enjoyed their album Natural Brown Prom Queen, but their stage time conflicted with 100 gecs and I’m a sucker for their goblin mode style of hyperpop. “I’ll just stop by for the first 15 minutes and come back,” I told myself. 

I did not go back (Sorry 100 gecs, I still love you). From the moment Sudan Archives (real name Brittney Denise Parks) sauntered onto the stage I couldn’t take my eyes away from her. And it’s only her there. Dressed from head to toe in an almost medieval harlequin bodysuit, with a violin strapped to her neck and its bow holstered in a quiver, Sudan Archives delivered what felt like an entire universe in about 45 minutes.  

Playing pizzicato, singing, and swaggering around the stage, never looking for the ground, Archives was beyond confident. Clad in an indomitable party vixen persona, it felt like watching a god descend from Olympus to toy with an audience. Songs like “Ciara” were armed with sultry vocals, impressive bar work, and simple but effective choreography that had the crowd’s collective jaw on the floor. Pulling her bow across the violin like a gun, Archive took aim at being the most virtuosic performance at Pitchfork. With a gun’s flare she asked: “Do you get the picture now, bitch?” 

Beyond the theatrics, Sudan Archive’s is an immaculate musician.  Alternating between vocals, electric drum pad, and frenzied violin solos, Parks consistently got the crowd roaring. “Say it with me now:” she commanded, “I’m not – Average!” The crowd shouted it back to her in confirmation. Sudan Archives is anything but.