It’s a busy week for new releases when it comes to the Michigan music scene, particularly around the metro Detroit area!

Let’s start with the incomparable Flint-based musician/artist Tunde Olaniran, releasing their latest album, Chaotic Good, celebrated by a performance next Saturday, at the Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids!

Too Bad by Tunde Olaniran

Meanwhile, Detroit-based electronic art-pop auteur My Brightest Diamond, aka Shara Nova, have released three new singles from her forthcoming album, Fight the Real Terror, which is out today!

We heard this song, “Safe House,” last week on MI Local.

Fight The Real Terror by My Brightest Diamond

Next, let’s bend our ears towards Kalamazoo to listen to an interesting new album featuring the versatile instrumental hip-hop producer known as The Lasso (aka Andy Catlin), paired up with the boundary-pushing indie-rock quartet known as The Go Rounds.

Catlin is a former member of The Go Rounds, which made this a natural collaboration. This new album by The Lasso (& The Go Rounds), released just yesterday, is titled Pedal Steel, and our favorite track from it is “Goldwine.”

PETAL STEEL by The Lasso, The Go Rounds

Back here in Detroit, a ’90s-vibed indie-rock quartet known as The Microplastics have released a catchy and dreamy little ballad that has just the right amount of spookiness to help us settle into some autumnal vibes; it’s called “Undead.”

Undead – Single by The Microplastics

Finally, let’s go out with a ballad, a poignant lovelorn pop ballad by Detroit-based singer/songwriter Rory Moon, titled “Some Day,” following up her debut single, “About You.”

Listen to “MI Local” with Jeff Milo every Tuesday from 9-10 p.m. ET on Detroit Public Radio 101.9 WDET.

This week on MI Local, I premiered several new songs by local artists, including indie-pop ballads from established groups like soundslikeotto and Reggi Roomers, plus a brand new dance track from a project fittingly called Dancepack.

But for the majority of the show, I directed a sonic spotlight toward two distinct music events scheduled this weekend featuring local artists, starting with Saturday’s Dally in the Alley performers Elephant Den and Olive and the Stoned Fruits.

This week’s in-studio guest is Justin Snyder, creative director for New Music Detroit — a local collective of musicians dedicated to performing groundbreaking musical works from late-20th century to the present day.

New Music Detroit was “founded by members of the DSO, almost 20 years ago,” Snyder said, “in order to fill a gap that they felt was missing in Detroit, which was bringing classical contemporary music to the city. We just wanted to be adventurous, and there’s an audience here for it. And this is year 17 for Strange Beautiful Music. We’ve done it before in different venues around the city, like warehouses, clubs [and] galleries.”

Snyder discussed the Strange Beautiful Music event, happening Saturday at Andy Arts in Detroit.

“Strange Beautiful Music is a smorgasbord of every type of music — and stuff that resists genre as well,” Snyder said. “We’ll have jazz, classical, techno…this year we have electronic music, art-pop, harp music and lots more.”

Strange Beautiful Music performers featured on MI Local include My Brightest Diamond, Ahya Simone and Dominant Hand. See the full lineup and ticket details here.

See the full playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the player at the top.

MI Local Playlist for Sept. 3, 2024

• “All of Last Year” – Elephant Den
• “Born Day” – Olive & the Stoned Fruits
• “Up Late” – Dancepack
• “The Bog Bodies” – Rabbitology
• “Cry Without Shame” – Kind Beast
• “Silence” – Reggi Roomers
• “Bright Blue” – soundslikeotto
• “Cruisin'” – Fishfly
• “When I Left” – The Stools
• “Re(VS)olution” – Na Bonsai
• “G-Force” – Serenemoon
• “Safe House” – My Brightest Diamond
• “Frostbite” – Ahya Simone
• “Before It Turns” – Dominant Hand and Bora Yoon

I’m excited to share the lead single from a very unique yet still effective introduction to some of the most creative, and often quirky minds embedded in Detroit’s hip-hop scene. Producer and emcee Eddie Logix is the self-effacing nexus, if by default for his literal and figurative engineering, for a new compilation being released this week entitled, Portrait of a Prince, featuring contributions from local hip-hop artists such as Mister, SelfSays, 2 Planes, Doc Waffles and more.

Stream “Breeze of Darkness” by #CoOwnaz

Unlike the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you won’t need to know the deep lore and twisty backstory of this genuinely endearing community of emcees known informally as #CoOwnaz, which essentially comprises the full lineup of artists featured on Portrait of a Prince. Suffice to say, they forged their own Laurel Canyon-style close knit network more than 15 years ago and have not only performed together at several shows around the region, but have recorded several tracks together over the years, including 2014’s Portrait of a Gentleman. There are prevailing in-jokes or catchphrases that they lean on, but they aren’t so obtuse — even the name and hashtag, #CoOwnaz, is a celebration of DIY empowerment.

“Once again we were commissioned by a higher power to perform a high definition study of greatness in action,” Logix said. “Portrait of a Prince is not a sequel to Portrait of a Gentleman, but they hang side by side in our museum, next to the cash machine.”

Again, no need to know the lore, but this is greatness in action when it comes to a sampling of the local hip-hop scene.

The album will be streaming everywhere on Aug. 26, but the official bandcamp and vinyl release via the CoOwnaz record label, Snow Global Recordings, happens Saturday with a release party and Snow Global record pop-up at The Duck Pen in Corktown from 3-9p.m.

The album is currently available for preorder on bandcamp.

This week on MI Local, I premiere a new track from Detroit-based alt rock supergroup Television City called “Lost In Arkansas,” as well as a recent release by local Americana outfit Bonny Doon, “Clock Keeps Ticking,” which was recently named one of the top songs of the summer for 2024 by The Guardian.

The big focus this week is an exciting rundown of tracks by all five artists performing at this Thursday’s Sounds Like Detroit concert, happening at New Center Park. You can still get tickets at wdet.org/events.

Later in the show I take a look at Fuzz Fest, a three-day event happening at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor next weekend. Fuzz Fest features more than two dozen local rock bands, including Ypsilanti’s Virga.

We also heard new releases by Double Winter, 800cc and Madi Destroy.

The episode is capped off with a preview of Frontier Ruckus’ Live on WDET session recorded at our Studio A. The full session will premiere on Tuesday, Aug. 27, during MI Local and on WDET’s YouTube channel — make sure to subscribe!

MI Local Playlist for Aug. 13, 2024

• “Lost In Arkansas” – Television City
• “Jelly Donut” – Double Winter
• “Coming Along” – Three Spoke Wheel
• “Clock Keeps Ticking” – Bonny Doon
• “Girlfriend” – Wild Shape
• “Dizzy” – Isis Damil
• “Dance By The Moon” – Chris Lanard
• “Ambition” – Elspeth Tremblay & the Treatment
• “Games” – C3theartist
• “Life Ain’t So Bad” – Drey Skonie
• “Color of Water” – 800cc
• “Haunted” – Madi Destroy
• “Bierstadt” – Virga
• “Dizzy Seas” – Chris Bathgate
• “Everywhere But Beside You (Live on WDET session)” – Frontier Ruckus

This week on MI Local, I welcomed Detroit-based dream-pop duo Bluhm into the studio to talk about their new album, Midnight Hill, dropping on Friday. Along with sharing their origin story, vocalist and guitarist Claire Bluhm and multi-instrumentalist and producer Cameron John Marion premiered a brand new song called “I Don’t Care, I Want You Now” on the show.

“We met at an open mic that I was running, in 2021,” said Bluhm. “He just sorta walked in, and he looked at me, and I think I was performing at the time. I introduced myself and I think we played a song together that night — it was just one of those things: there was a connection, musically. And we just focused on music at first, but then focused on a relationship after that — we got married!”

Soon after, in 2022, Marion would make instrumentals and “just blast them throughout the house and just hoped that she’d notice, ya know, just trying to impress Claire and hoping she’ll want to add vocals to one of them,” Marion shared. Bluhm did start developing melodies and lyrics to add to Marion’s compositions and the the project took off from there.

“[Marion]’s honestly really talented and prolific,” Bluhm said. “So it’s just about me picking and choosing what’s really speaking to me in that moment. I’ll sit down with him and a microphone and I just write the vocals and lyrics at that time, stream-of-consciousness the whole time.”

Marion said he drew inspiration from “outsider” indie-rock singer-songwriters, while Bluhm said she felt a deep connection to groups like Beach House, while admitting that listeners have also compared her vocal style to the late Cranberries vocalist Dolores O’Riordan.

Bluhm released their debut full-length album in October 2023 and started performing around the local scene. The duo will celebrate the release of Midnight Hill during an album release party at the Loving Touch in Ferndale on Friday.

Along with Bluhm’s in-studio visit, we also premiered new music from local artists like the soft rock quartet Vaega, pop singer/songwriter Chloe Moriondo, and the latest from WDET’s own Shigeto, with a track featuring Kesswa from his upcoming album Cherry Blossom Baby.

See the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

MI Local Playlist for Aug. 6, 2024

• “Punch!” – Shigeto ft Kesswa
• “Old Friend” – Aspect Radio
• “Lonely Planet” – Dillon Francis & Chloe Moriondo
• “Something” – Vaega
• “Monster” – Ditch Bunnies
• “Nothing But Love” – May Erlewine
• “Beautiful” – Jo Serrapere
• “Sugar Man” – Rodriguez
• “Better Days” – Drey Skonie & the kLOUDz
• “Drop All That Cynic Stuff” – Cam McGuffie
• “I Don’t Care, I Want You Now” – Bluhm
• “Midnight Hill” – Bluhm
• “Under The Glow Of Your Moon” – Bluhm

This week on MI Local, I premiered exciting new tracks from Detroit-based artists The Doozers (danceable indie-pop), Danny VanZandt (quirky, surrealist-indie-rock), and Jackamo (harmony-heavy Americana-folk). We also checked in with the UP (Farm Block Fest) and featured artists from Kalamazoo (Lucy Lowis), Grand Rapids (Molly) and Marquette (Sea Hounds).

My guest this week was singer-songwriter and filmmaker Ronny Tibbs, who not only sings and plays guitar with a full band, but also oversees the metro Detroit-based commercial film production company known as Tibbs Inc.

Tibbs premiered a brand new song on the show titled “Too Late,” while we discussed his new album, Shorthand, blending his two creative worlds of music and film. Shorthand will be an 8-song album, humbly described by Tibbs as “an abbreviation of what a record might be.

“Each song will have an accompanying short film. They could stand alone,” Tibbs said, “but there’s a narrative web that connects them. Think The Who’s Tommy or Pink Floyd’s The Wall…sort of like a rock opera, but I don’t know if I can be talked about in that scale.”

Tibbs said that he and his closest collaborator and co-producer, Ryan Castle, “sifted through many songs over the last few years, and found that these might be the best stand-alone singles. And we were able to weave them together with films that make a larger picture in the end.”

Tibbs recorded much of Shorthand in El Paso, Texas with several Michigan-bred artists, like Pete Ballard, Aaron Jonah Lewis and producer Ben Collins, among many other talented artists and collaborators. The album took up to two years to complete, with some work done in Van Nuys, Calif. and Detroit. After releasing two tracks, each subsequent month will see another song paired with a music video.

Listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks using the media player at the top.