Dark Neo-Soul · Atmospheric R&B
AGENCY
Los Angeles, CA
Sebastian Younger's baritone was built for rooms that are too quiet. AGENCY came together in Silver Lake through a series of near-misses and one open mic where Mara Quinn was the only guitarist who knew exactly when to stop playing. Their sound doesn't ask for your attention. It takes it.
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Island Reggae · Tahoe-Negril Sound
Four Nineteen
Oakland & Sacramento, CA
The name comes from a single moment: 4:19am on the shore of Lake Tahoe after an all-night drive, one minute before the light changed. Marcus Alleyne said he felt the lake before he saw it. Five people, one long exhale of a sound — reggae the way Tahoe holds water. Cold underneath, warm at the surface.
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Surf Rock
The Blue Waves
Lake Tahoe West Shore
Tyler McCallister, Danny Kowalski, Marco Delgado, and Finn Callahan make reverb-soaked anthems built for sunrise on the water. They are unambiguously, uncomplicatedly happy to be doing exactly this — and it shows every single time.
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Roots Rock · Americana
The Highwater Boys
Lake Tahoe
Cash Redmond and Miles Okafor met working the same summer marina job twelve years ago. The band they eventually built is the definition of a Tahoe band — formed here, shaped here, loyal here. "High Water Mark" was written in twenty minutes on the back of a marina receipt after the 2017 floods. It's been their closing song ever since.
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Neo-Soul · Jazz Vocal
Glo Hancock
Lake Tahoe, CA
Librarian by day. Singer by something closer to inheritance. Glo Hancock came to Tahoe for a library sciences position and stayed because the lake was the first place she'd ever been that was as honest as she is. Her standing Thursday night gig at Blue Lake Casino & Lounge is the best-kept secret on the North Shore. Jake Ellis considers discovering her the best thing he's done with a microphone.
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Soft Folk · Americana
Eli Sawyer
Lake Tahoe, CA
Eli Sawyer came through Tahoe on a road trip from Portland with three hundred dollars and a battered 1972 Guild 12-string. He got a shift at SUDS covering for someone who didn't show up. He's still there. He writes songs the way other people keep journals — quietly, without an audience in mind. Jake Ellis heard one on a slow Tuesday afternoon and didn't leave until it was over.
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Neo-Soul · R&B
Mercer Lane
New Orleans, LA / San Francisco, CA
Raised in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans in a family where music was infrastructure. Mercer Lane performs rarely and deliberately. He does not have social media. He has a voice that makes people stop whatever they were doing. Jake Ellis has called his duet with Glo Hancock the best thing Tahoe Blue Records has ever released. Mercer said thank you and went back to New Orleans for two weeks.
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80s New Wave · Post-Punk
Stateline
San Francisco, CA · Tahoe summers
Named for the California/Nevada line — the edge, the boundary, the place where the rules shift. Four people who share a west-shore house every summer and spend the rest of the year in San Francisco making the music that's been sitting in their heads since the last time they were here. Flanged guitar, gated drums, a male vocal that's more deadpan than warm, and a female vocal that growls. The Cars meets PIL, somewhere on the east shore at midnight.
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