The sisters of Jackamo have been singing together their entire lives, and that will become evident immediately, once you hear them sing on this week’s MI Local.

Tessa and Alison Wiercioch were raised by artistic parents in a house full of music, from the record collection emanating from the HiFi to actual family members in their circle literally serenading throughout each room.

Soon, the sisters started singing together inside the house, in choir, and eventually in bands. They started playing and performing with guitarist Jimmmy Showers in 2018. Soon after, Jackamo was formed.

Over the last five years, they’ve been steadily releasing singles that showcase the sisters’ breathtaking sensibility for melody and dazzling natural ability to harmonize, weaving together a mix of Americana, folk, and indie-folk vibes, both sung from voices and strung with words that sound and feel wise beyond their years and quietly courageous in their tenderheartedness. Add in Showers’ amazing finger-picking style on guitar, and the occasional live accompanying ensemble, and you’ve got pure magic.

Jackamo spoke with me about finishing the recording of their debut album between that weird nexus of time between Christmas and New Years. They’re hoping to release it later this year, but in the meantime we can look ahead to the official release of its first single, “Judy,” which the band performed live on this week’s show.

Jackamo are performing this Saturday at the Shelter in Detroit, with Masha Marjieh and The Plushies. 

Also on this week’s show, in stylistic-harmony with Jackamo, I featured the new song from Michelle Held, “Another Jane,” which she called “…an ode to [anthropologist] Jane Goodall, turning toward what’s right in the world.”

We also heard a dreamy and spooky new instrumental from the visionary Via Mardot, imbued with her signature theremin, along with a new mixture of neo-soul and R&B from Chase Alan.

Listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.

After two years of hosting this show, I think I can say, with a somewhat-earned sincerity, that this one felt like a classic MI Local! We had guests from Ypsilanti and Detroit, we talked about music, we heard some amazing live acoustic performances, and we also took a tour around the further edges of the state, out west to Grand Rapids, and up north to Traverse City and beyond to Marquette!

We started the show with new electro-pop from the west side of the Mitten, with Empress Eyes, followed-up by dreamy electronica from the U.P. from producer Kristof Alexander. We also got a sneak preview of new music coming from the Ypsilanti-alt-folk duo Fern Whale and some transcendent dream-pop from Hail Your Highness.

We looked ahead to some upcoming shows, too, including alt-folk singer-songwriter Spencer LaJoye coming up at The Ark in Ann Arbor at the end of the month.

Speaking of The Ark, though: that’s where one of our in-studio guests will be performing an album release party, next Sunday, Feb. 22. Matt Jones has been around the Ypsilanti music scene for more than 20 years, now, with his band The Reconstruction, which features several talented artists from that neck of the woods, including Misty Lyn Bergeron.

Jones and Bergeron joined us to discuss Jones’ new album, “The Good Life,” including the gap between this release and his most recent (2014’s “The Deep Enders”) as well as sharing the story behind two of the songs that they performed live, “That Ripping Sound,” and “All The Missing Names.”

After that, the Ethan Marc Band hung out to discuss their new album of high-energy indie-rock/alt-pop, titled “Stay This Way,” which has its album release party at the Magic Stick here in Detroit next Saturday, Feb. 21.

Lead singer-songwriter Ethan Marc discussed the band’s busy year, the strength of the band’s camaraderie and the excitement to release their second record inside of a year, while guitarist Michael Seger shared even more about the band’s noteworthy work ethic, including a series of intensive songwriting retreats at Airbnb’s across the state.

Before the night was out, the Ethan Marc Band performed live, with an acoustic version of their song, “Misbehaving,” off the forthcoming album “Stay This Way.” 

We’re at that point in winter where we really could use a good party! January lasted a year and dropped a lot of snow on us (and significantly dropped the temps), and now the groundhog has seen its shadow, so we’re left with the long trudging march toward…March. What we need is a laid back yet kinda wild extravaganza, or perhaps, if you will, a festival! With lots of live local music and art and, frankly, positive vibes.

Cut to: Sled Season. This Saturday night at the Tangent Gallery, the twangy indie-rock quartet known as Toboggan Man is partnering with étude Productions to arrange a lineup that features classes and workshops, an interactive art installation, live performances, local artisanal and food vendors, DJs, and a stylish themed photo booth experience.

But this is MI Local, so we’re naturally focusing on the live local music, like Toboggan Man and past WDET guests like Pia The Band, Rose St Germaine, and Checker, along with TY, New Entertainment, and Lee Cleveland & the Lefthand Band.

Toboggan Man formed during the wintertime a few years ago, which played into the naming of their band (it just beat out the next contender for a name, ‘Ski Lift Fist Fight’). Listen to the show and you’ll meet this charming band and hear a couple live renditions of their songs, a charmingly scrappy blend of garage-pop stomp and alt-country clamber through a sweetly smiling indie-frayed lens.

Before we get to the interview with Toboggan Man, you’ll hear new tracks from the local artists like the Detroit electronic duo ADULT., and the power pop maestro Nick Piunti, both of whom have new albums coming out this season. We also heard a dazzling electronic-acid-jazz track from Alice Sun, new noise-rock out of Ann Arbor from Dancers, and a pair of my favorite hip-hop artists, Leaf Erikson and Noveliss.

This week also marks my second anniversary of hosting this show! Onward to year three of MI Local! Thanks for listening!

Meet Starlings! Or at least half of Starlings. My guests this week were Nick Chevillet (guitar/vocals), Adam Liles (guitar), and Darren Shelton, (keyboards). You can see Shelton on the far right, up top, who immediately joked that he “only has one look” when it comes to photos, otherwise, his energy is significantly mirthful, ebullient even, and certainly exuding lots of encouraging energy toward his bandmate, Liles (he’s the tallest one in the picture) just released his debut solo album “Slow Pony” this week.

During the last segment of this week’s show, I spoke with Liles about his new album, including debuting a song from it, “Heart Attack Machine.” Then Liles treated WDET listeners to a live acoustic version of another song, proper for these chilly winter nights, titled “Silver Letter.”

Liles has been in several bands over the last decade, including Pia The Band and The Indigo Curve, but he’s also been working on solo material, albeit a bit more quietly, for just as long, having released demos in the late 2010s, along with a solid single, “Ripcord.”

Chevillet shared a charming anecdote about how Liles came to join Starlings. This six-piece band grew out of a collaboration that Chevillet started, somewhat on a lark, with singer-songwriter Adam Padden. Chevillet and Padden were already well-acquainted after years of playing together in another indie-rock group, Handgrenades.

Starlings started as a bonding creative project during the quarantine days of Covid, when both Chevillet and Padden had just become new fathers and were eager to fill some of that precious quiet time when their newborns were napping; naturally, they filled it with songwriting.

Liles is a natural fit for Starlings, since Chevillet and Padden’s initial batch of songs matched his own sensibilities for propulsive mini-ballads of melodic brooding post-punk mixed with pedal-augmented guitar phrases, welded over sophisticated compositions that support and sweeten (or bitterly sweeten) the lilts of poetically heavyhearted lyrics.

Shelton had previously set up an impressive recording space Downriver, where Chevillet revealed he’s been working on a slew of new Starlings tracks for future recordings; their debut EP, “Try Hard Town,” was released last year. Liles, in turn, also admitted that while he’s eager to continue recording and performing with Starlings, he’s also got plenty of solo material that could fill a follow-up to” Slow Pony” soon.

Also on tonight’s show, I looked ahead to this weekend’s annual Ann Arbor Folk Festival, a fundraiser for that city’s musical mecca of roots music, The Ark. I featured tracks from two artists performing on Saturday at Hill Auditorium: the versatile Americana-folk-rock ensemble The Crane Wives, and Rabbitology, who weaves a heartwarmingly witchy brew of atmospheric folk that sounds like it’s building her up to be the inheritor of the torches of Kate Bush and Florence Welch.

Also on this week’s show, a track from Tony Mugg’s solo project, DUDE, a dazzlingly jazzy-indie-rock instrumental from Seth Bernard, and a swooning ballad from Annie Bacon. We even found some time to flash back to 2016’s world of local music releases, with two seemingly long-lost music projects known as Real Ghosts and The Good Things.