Dead Gowns Remembering it over and over again: the way it happened in Vegas, the way beginnings spill over onto endings. Geneviève Beaudoin, the Portland, Maine-based songwriter, went to Las Vegas to help a close friend move and start a new life there. But buried within that newness, there was an old and gradually widening fracture—and in that city, the friendship ended. On a certain level, we anticipate strain and rupture in a romantic context. But we don’t as easily expect or extend that same kind of awareness to close friendships, which cut just as deep, and hold up just as much of our sense of belonging and mattering. Feeling raw and unraveled, Beaudoin realized these were songs she needed to hear, as much as she needed to write. Back home in Maine, she began crafting her second full-length album as Dead Gowns. Recorded in a farmhouse at the foot of the White Mountains with Beaudoin’s long-time partner Luke Kalloch, and produced by Sam Kassirer and Colin Lester Fleming, Vegas is a series of raw, smoldering songs that suddenly gape. It is an album that watches grief move, point by point. Every track blurs place and time, as memory and self, seed and fruit, “hardcore and wellness” become refracted and indissoluble. The result is all bright lights and dark waters, every instrument a response to the ache of Beaudoin's voice, a voice which increasingly anchors the album as it unfurls. Lamplight Lamplight is the texturally dense, homegrown alt-folk project of multi-disciplinary artist Ian Williams. Born and raised in Virginia, creek-steeped in the foothills of Appalachia, frontman and songwriter Williams grew up taking long walks to make music in bands with his childhood best friends. After moving to the city and back again, and nearly a decade out of the spotlight, he returned to the practice of song, culminating in Lamplight’s 2024 self-titled debut featuring beloved NYC collaborators. Lamplight is an earnest exploration of the multitudes we all contain, with a habit of wearing the heart on the sleeve. Their sophomore LP, recorded in wintertime Vermont tucked away with chosen family, is expected to be released in October 2026 on Western Vinyl. He is often in love, is always left-handed, and is picking up painting again.