Kara Jackson wants to be dangerous. Wielding her voice like a honey-coated blade, Kara crafts a blend of emotional folk music and poetic alt-country. With the radical honesty of Nina Simone, and the intricate lyricism of Fiona Apple and Joana Newsom, Kara’s writing blurs the line between poetry and song, demanding an attentive ear and a repeat listen.

Raised by country folk and Black feminist poets like Gwendolyn Brooks and Lucille Clifton, Kara’s songs have the softness and warmth of a southern drawl, while still being sharp enough to cut deep. Born and raised in Oak Park, IL, a community 10 miles west of Chicago, with a Southern sensibility imbued by their parent’s background, her innate talent was unlocked early on honing her skills for music and writing from a very young age. At five years old she began piano lessons; she later taught themself guitar and eventually her  passion for poetry took full force during high school. It was then that she began to be appreciated as the Black Queer polymath that she is, earning the prestigious and coveted honour of being 2019’s National Youth Poet Laureate and releasing her debut EP A Song for Every Chamber of the Heart in the same year.

Joanne Robertson is a musician, painter and poet. Joanne collaborates regularly with her friends, most recently with Dean Blunt on Black Metal 2, and Sidsel Meineche Hansen on Alien Baby. She moved to Glasgow in 2018, after having lived in London. Her painting and music both form from improvisatory moments of expression. Blue Car, is a collection of songs from her archive of unreleased solo recordings, similar to Painting Stupid Girls, these tracks attempt to record the moment, and where she was at emotionally that day, similar to diary entries. The dates she wrote these songs is unknown, they span roughly a ten year period.

When Annahstasia writes a song, it embodies a world of its own. The self-taught singer-songwriter says her artistic practice is steeped in fantasy and romanticism, and Annahstasia’s rose-colored perspective is elucidated by her enchantingly sumptuous and acrobatic voice—one she developed through a lasting appreciation for complex vocalists like Bill Withers, Nina Simone, and Janis Joplin.

Pitchfork readers–and die-hard music fans–have been travelling across the world to experience the brand’s annual festivals in Chicago and Paris since 2006. After the successful launch of the festival’s London edition in 2021, and Berlin in 2022, the brand remains bullish on the continued expansion of its international festival footprint.