Charli Adams – Washington, DC

Charli Adams

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For Charli Adams, who grew up across several small towns in rural Alabama, an outward display of optimism might have been the only way to get by.

Charli Adams was born in a dollar-store town in northern Alabama, the kind of place you might hear Kacey Musgraves sing about. “I didn’t grow up in a musical family, but when I wrote my first song it clicked for me,” she says. “I could be melodramatic about my life in a way I hadn’t in any other form of expression. When I wrote music, I felt like I could say it all. Songwriting is essentially my only outlet to be unfiltered.”

Feeling desperately constrained, Adams left high school at 16 and started making trips to Nashville where she found herself in the alternative music scene. By 17 she was living on her own in Nashville. In between a serving job and finishing high school online, she would drive the back roads of Tennessee listening to albums from The Cure to The 1975 and seeing every possible underground show Nashville had to offer. These formative years were captured on her debut EP, Good At Being Young. In 2021, Adams released her critically acclaimed debut album Bullseye which featured collaborations with Novo Amor, Ruston Kelly and Nightly. Throughout her career, she has written for the likes of peach pit, Chloe Moriondo, and Valley. Up next, she’s working on her new EP (expected mid-2023).

Fire Swimmer

Fire Swimmer (formerly known as Deni) is the electronic pop solo project of Deni Hlavinka (of The Western Den). Decisive, impactful, yet soft around the edges, Fire Swimmer’s music blurs the line between dark synth-driven electronica and tender alternative pop – creating a sound that is emphatic yet vulnerable. Her latest EP, “i was like a child” explores the spaces between doubt, introspective and the roaring explosion of self-actualization. She is layered, immediate and visceral – the result of over a decade of experience as a multi-instrumentalist, artist and producer. Fire Swimmer is both the tangled chaos of feeling in real-time — and the unraveling.

Daphne

Daphne Eckman isn’t sorry about making you cry. In fact, she encourages it. The Annapolis, MD-based indie folk singer-songwriter creates an unapologetic space for catharsis: inspiring not just tears, but compelling you to laugh, sing, scream, and dance, too. Eckman’s five piece band devotes everything to emotion, drawing influences of Joni Mitchell, Phoebe Bridgers, Big Thief, and Radiohead through the filters of indie rock, midwest emo, 70’s soul, and pop-punk.

Eckman has opened for Nancy Wilson of Heart, Bailen, Deb Talen of The Weepies, and Vanessa Carlton. Eckman’s debut album “where you left me”, releasing January 16 2024, highlights her relationships and quest for autonomy in her early 20’s, with singles “iris”, “ghost”, and “jackson pollock” already published and paving the way. Daphne Eckman’s vulnerability compels the listener’s, leaving a mark healed only by hearing her again: once your tears dry.