Porches with KatzPascale and Small Pond

Porches, the musical alias of New York synth-centric indie singer/songwriter Aaron Maine, makes their SPACE debut with a freshly dropped 4-track recorded mixtape, MASK.

Shirt, the 2024 album from Aaron Maine aka Porches, is part angsty fantasy, part confessional melodrama – a rock album that oscillates between reality and make-believe to reflect both the innocence of suburban youth and the frayed reality of adulthood. A fusion of chaotic impulses, insatiable desires, and a perpetual yearning, Shirt plays with the tension between one’s person and persona – the weight of your dreams crashing up against your reality. The result is something both familiar and uncanny, an anthemic tribute to this intrinsic duality built on crashing and caressing sounds.

A concise record that thrusts listeners into a fevered state, Shirt’s hormonal rock songs collide with emotional ballads to create a dynamic tension that propels the listener ahead. The album speaks in broad, relatable terms while maintaining an intimate connection with its creator, blurring the line between universality and personal revelation. Shirt is as much about the climaxes as it is about the banality between life’s most memorable moments, celebrating not just the first kiss but also the anxiety intertwined with it.

It is instantly recognizable as Porches’ heaviest album to date. Grungy guitars that shine with a menacing glint, drums and bass that punch you warmly in the stomach, interspersed with moments of eerie calmness to create a physical sense of tension and release that resonates with each track. The album adds an arresting body of work to Maine’s impressively dynamic catalogue.

KatzPascale, the neo-classical-post-punk-anti-pop duo composed of Sammi Katzmann and Jenna Pascale, combines the haunting warmth of the cello with the soulful, expressive tones of the saxophone to lay ground for vocals as an instrument. Drawing from both classical and contemporary idioms, their music navigates the liminal space between emotional intimacy and experimental rigor. Through live performance and recorded work, KatzPascale crafts immersive sound worlds that challenge expectations while remaining deeply human.

Hailing from Portsmouth, NH, Small Pond is a four-piece melodic indie rock group throwing out swingy, laid-back tracks with big hooks and undeniably catchy lyrics.