The (Local) Fresh Five: Time Room, dre dk, Mouthful, Kaitlin Cassady, and Cariah Brinaé

For the Fresh Five we pick out five great new(ish) jams that we’re currently obsessing over. All of these songs come from local (Minnesota) bands/artists.

Time Room is an excellent local art punk group whose 2022 album Something New I highly recommend. They have a new single out last month called “Yeehaw​!​!​!” It’s a mix of garage rock and angular post punk that really hit a certain sweet spot for me. Time Room will perform at Memory Lanes on 11/18 and will be releasing a new EP around the same time. 

Here is one that is more “new to us” than new but we recently heard local artist dre dk’s sophomore EP Feeling (which came out in 2022). dre dk is Audrey Darst Kereakos, who writes, produces, records, and mixes/masters their own work. Feeling is composed of moody, multi-tracked songs that feature vocals, synths, guitars, and beats.  It’s great stuff and hopefully Kereakos is working on their next follow up as we speak!

Mouthful is a four piece indie rock band that just released a string of singles early this year. “New Shoes” starts out a bit like a melancholy poem accented by spare beats and guitar. Roughly halfway through (when vocalist bean b finishes what they have to say) the song then careens into an extended jagged guitar workout that I’d like to hear live. 

Kaitlin Cassady makes soft, piano and guitar accented folk rock music. There isn’t anything particularly groundbreaking about her approach, but she has an undeniable ear for melody and how to catch heartstrings with a well-crafted chorus.  Put on her recently released record Home Away From Home for a cozy, wistful, and heartfelt slice or earnest songwriting. 

Local R&B Cariah Brinaé recently put out her first “proper” music video for “One and Only” which she created with fellow local Zay Starr (and which was created with Alite Productions). Check out the sultry video for the tune above. It was notably filmed at Minneapolis’s Minnehaha Creek. Brinaé and Starr both have color projects (TBD) in the works.